Maya S's Final Post

          I think The Kite Runner has been my favorite book out of the ones we have read in class. I feel that Hosseini did an excellent job developing his characters and their personalities because I had stronger feelings towards these characters than any of the others from the rest of the books. Hearing how Hassan could not do anything but sleep after his rape broke my heart. When Amir tossed his birthday presents aside with disdain I felt so angry, angrier than I was reading about an entire train of people in Atlas Shrugged who could not solve a problem that takes probably a maximum of fifteen brain cells to solve. 

          One character I did not read into that much while reading was Baba. I just assumed that he was the typical “alpha-male” type of father who had rigid expectations as to what he wanted his son to be. Looking back, I feel like Baba had much more to learn as to what it means to actually “be a man”. Yes, he worked hard so that his son could have the best standard of living possible and he protected the integrity of his fellow Afghans against the Russians. However, Baba saw qualities in his son that he did not like and to me, he handled addressing them immaturely. He held back from sitting down with his own son and telling him that maybe he does not have to be an aggressive person, but he should at least learn to stand up for himself and reciprocate for those who do the same for him. Instead of doing so, Amir had to overhear Baba’s disapproval through closed doors. I believe he could have judged Amir on his masculinity when he learned the ability of just being honest with his family. 

          I also have some trouble calling Amir a “protagonist”. He spends the majority of the novel acting as though he will always be the victim of his childhood and there’s nothing he can do about; he will always be, in his words, a coward. This was not only annoying, but it made Amir come off as bitchy and whiny. Not only was this frustrating, but the fact that Amir’s life was basically one unbelievably destructive and selfish act after another. What should disturb the reader more than Amir’s actions, though, is that he knew in his heart that what he was doing was wrong in every way, shape, and form and he remained numb to it; he, himself, resisted change he knew should have happened. After the kite flying tournament, he got what he wanted. Baba said he was proud of him. What could have been so difficult about bringing himself to say, “Something terrible happened to my best friend and we need to do something about it.”

          For the video, my group and I discussed the fact that Amir only went to find Hassan’s son after he found out that there was a blood relation. It seemed as though he went because he felt obliged to do so and if he did not, he would feel guilty afterwards. After our discussion, I began thinking back to when the class talked about altruism and what it means to be altruistic. Amir proves the argument that true altruism does not exist. We wanted Amir to go and find Hassan’s son because he would be doing something for Hassan for a change. Hassan was with Amir every step of the way; this was Amir’s chance to step up and do right by his brother’s son regardless of how little he wanted to return to the Middle East.  

           According to previous blog posts from my classmates, it seems as though most of us wanted Amir to experience some sort of grand change in character. Generally, people expect others to experience some form change in character if they are not already generous and caring people. It sounds defeatist, but we have all seen situations where people resist change with everything they have for whatever reason. I am in no way justifying the fact that Amir completely walked all over the one person who was there for him no matter what. In fact, walking all over him is putting it lightly. It is just strange that people always await this big  “metamorphosis” that sometimes is not a reality. Nonetheless, I would be lying if I said I didn’t want Amir to realize that he had the ability to rise above the fact that he had an imperfect childhood and he could have still become a better person despite this.