Notes

Ultimately, the relationship between Amir and Hassan in Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner cannot truly be described as a friendship. In the second chapter, Amir describes a close friendship between the two boys as they climb trees together, picking and eating berries and nuts and laughing. As the reader quickly discovers, however, the relationship involves deep fissures emanating from the two boys different ethnicities and disparate family backgrounds. Amir s family was wealthy and Pashtun, the majority ethnicity in Afghanistan. Amir describes the house his father, Baba, had built as "the most beautiful" in the d 5trict in which they lived. Hassan, in contrast, was from a low-income family from a minority ethnicity, Hazara. Following a detailed description of his own opulent surroundings, Amir then reveals that Hassan's family lives in the servant's quarters and that the latter's "father," Ali, is seriously subordinate to Baba. Finally, Hassan is a half-brother to Amir, courtesy of Baba's infidelity.



While the two boys certainly grew up together and played together, the friendship was largely a one-way street. Amir was born into comfort, Hassan into the permanent lower caste of this society. More importantly, Hassan represented in the eyes of Amirs father everything that Baba wanted in a son: bravery, toughness, resourcefulness, loyalty. And Amir knew that he was failing to live up to his own father's expectations with respect to these attributes. This, combined with the truth of Hassan's parentage, more than any other factor, bred resentment in Amir toward Hassan. This is why the relationship cannot be considered a friendship. As Amir notes at one point early in the story, "Hassan never denied me anything. Amir, in contrast, denied Hassan everything, which leads to the lifetime of guilt Amir will harbor within himself. Amirs failure to come to Hassan's aid when his "friend" and half-brother was being raped by Assef, the brutal and deeply racist antagonist in Hosseinis novel, marks the greatest betrayal imaginable. Hassan was as good a friend to Amir as possible; Amir enjoyed playing with Hassan, but his resentment toward him undermined the integrity of their relationship.