The Kite Runner: Knowledge is Unrefined

The Kite Runner tells the story of a young boy in Afghanistan by the name of Amir who befriends the servant’s son, Hassan, and later decides to betray him. As Amir was always perceived as less than perfect to his indifferent father, the feat to become closer to him resulted in a deception that would affect the next few decades of his life. The novel continues to focus on Amir’s story integrated with Afghan culture and insight into various aspects of life during the years of the country’s perishing monarchy and devastating warfare. Hosseini’s The Kite Runner has been challenged for its violence and verbally and sexually explicit content. The novel has been excluded or deleted from many English curriculums across the country because of parents and school board members deeming it inappropriate. Although Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner has been challenged by parents and school district associates for its controversial sexual and violent scenes, it is in fact, a story that highlights the importance of human virtues and culture playing a large role in war-torn Afghanistan.

Hosseini’s novel may elevate Afghan culture and inform of the harsh circumstances during the time period of severe warfare; however, the novel does contain sensitive sexual content and violence that can be seen as inappropriate to many readers of young age. Parent Lisa Baldwin’s concern, like many other parents and critics, of her child reading a book with rather mature adult themes had caused the Ashville, North Carolina school committee to replace it with another classic in the curriculum after banning it altogether for a while (Gomez, The Kite Runner Challenged in North Carolina High School). As author and Banned Books Week Coordinator Betsy Gomez describes, the review committee of the school system in Ashville, North Carolina “deemed Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner ‘appropriate…but the book could be suspended again pending an expected appeal from the parent,’” meaning the committee must have received multiple appeals considering their indecisiveness of whether the novel should stay in the curriculum or not (Gomez, The Kite Runner Challenged in North Carolina High School). Explicit scenes of child rape such as: “My father says it’s sinful.” …Assef knelt behind Hassan, put his hands on Hassan’s hips and lifted his bare buttocks” and character responses of suppression to rape such as “Hassan didn’t struggle. Didn’t even whimper,” periodically appear throughout the book (Hosseini 75). Hassan’s tolerance and covertness to the abuse done unto him is not an exemplary way of handling situations of rape and harassment. The frightening image of rape depicted by Hosseini can very well disturb readers, especially younger readers who have not been exposed to such content before. The challenge proposed by parents in North Carolina opposing the novel for its normalization of rape can be validated by the grotesque scenes similar to this in the novel.

Violence and religious racism are prominent throughout the novel, but it should not be misinterpreted that their purpose is to simply provide insight on and assist in establishing the setting of the novel. Another opposition to the novel arose because of its violent content and religiously controversial scenes between Sunni and Shia Muslims. It is speculated that this content had put the book on the American Literature Association’s 2017 list of banned books for its “sexual violence, and Islamophobia [which] fueled some challenges, with would-be censors arguing that the novel would inspire terrorism and promoted Islam.” (Gomez, Banned Spotlight: The Kite Runner). Most of the novel’s plot occurs in Afghanistan and scenes of the Taliban and their terrorism are used to explain the circumstances of the city of Kabul during the 1970’s onward, but the novel’s description of their power can be confused with promotion of the terrorist acts. Journalist Jacinta Mioni describes the terrorist scenes in The Kite Runner and “its treatment of homosexuality, religious viewpoint and violence.…“was thought to ‘lead to terrorism’ and ‘promote Islam.’” (Mioni). These claims are supported by the main character Amir’s dialogue while reflecting on the news of his half-brother’s death: “I hadn’t brought the Taliban to the house to shoot Hassan,” in which phrases of the Taliban killing people were loosely used (Hosseini 226). “Maybe Hassan would’ve had a home of his own now, a job, a family, a life in a country where no one cared that he was a Hazara” as thought by the main character, Amir, contributes to the controversy on the book’s portrayal of certain religious sectors of Islam (Hosseini 226). This sparked criticism from parents who were unsure about specific terminology and offensive name calling, like “Hazara”, and the book’s explicit explanations of how these people were treated during the time period, including the sexual harassment they were put through, their harsh living conditions, and the type of physically abusive punishments the Hazaras received from anyone that was hierarchically above them. Frightening and violent scenes as Amir describes “a dead body near the restaurant. There had been a hanging. A young man dangled from the end of a rope tied to a beam,” is quite gruesome for students of a younger age, perhaps in high school, especially if they are already sensitive to topics of harm or self-harm (Hosseini 259). It is within reason that many critics and parents revisit The Kite Runner’s scenes of “his face puffy and blue, the clothes he'd worn on the last day of his life shredded, bloody. Hardly anyone seemed to notice him,” and question the novel’s safety in terms of violence (Hosseini 259). The bloody images throughout the novel and what could be misunderstood as the promotion of the Taliban, work against the focus of the novel, which is the friendship and betrayal between two Afghan children intertwined with cultural information. However, scenes of death and terror can feel threatening to readers as well.

Although there is a degree of vulgarity in Hosseini’s novel, it is important to recognize the larger meaning of the novel and understand the arduous situation of Afghan during the late twentieth century. The Kite Runner has also been supported by literary critics because it has aided in giving exposure of a country that has not been expressed or discussed in English before.

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Jim Bartley’s review of The Kite Runner explains that “writer Khaled Hosseini reportedly holds the distinction of being the first Afghani to produce a novel of his homeland in English” (Hosseini, Kite Catches and Flies High). This novel serves as an example and will inspire further publishing of works on places like Afghanistan where society has been turned into the of worst circumstances. Hosseini’s novel holds much information on the culture of Afghanistan from mentioning of small phrases, to cultural practices and authentic food, and in hiding, older Persian texts:

We discussed in this study on the anthems from the kite runner of Khaled Hosseini based on Vahid Dastjerdi's proposed model of poetry translation (2008). We found these conclusions in both textual and extra-textual analysis for each poem…In anthem five, the alliteration assonance /o/ and /aa/ have the most frequency in textual analysis. And in extratextual analysis the poets represented the phrase 'Lion of God', which the Persian readers get the main idea of the poet and take assistance from Imam Ali. (AmirDabbaghain)

Phrases like “La illah il Allah, Muhamad u rasul ulluah,” are used create a more realistic feel of the culture behind the plot of the story for the reader (Hosseini 346). Although there is controversial distinction between separate groups of Muslims throughout the novel, the characters’ actions are given a purpose as holidays are explained such as “the tenth day of Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the Muslim calendar, and the first three days of Eid Al-Adha…” (Hosseini 76). Islamic rituals such as “baba has hand picked the sheep again this year, a powered white one with crooked black ears,” are embedded throughout the novel to contribute to the larger themes of exposure to culture and religion from places readers normally don’t experience (Hosseini 76). The cultural scenes and translational analysis of older texts provide evidence of Hosseini’s connecting to readers with details of religious holidays and poetic phrases that both can be related by Afghan readers and newly experienced by those who are unaware of the culture.

This novel’s themes of moral values and relationships revolves around more than just culture, it also evaluates the strength and weaknesses, leading to deceptions in this case, that develop in a special friendship between the characters Amir and Hassan. Amir betraying Hassan and spending the rest of his life resenting being silent about witnessing his rape sets the plot of the novel. It would’ve not affected Amir so severely if he had told someone his problem, similar to how situations like this shouldn’t be censored, but learned from. Amir repents and says, “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be,” and the decision made in the end would reflect the rest of his life and it is important for readers to be exposed to analysis of identifying opportunities and chances and the responsibility of taking them to avoid mistakes or regrets (Hosseini 77). Hosseini explains Amir’s options as he could either “step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past…. Or I could run,” to put emphasis on the influence of the choices you make and foreshadow what Amir will go through to repay for making a wrong choice in the future (Hosseini 77). The ideals and ethics behind making and learning from wrong choices or attempting to fix them is supported by John Milton’s advocation for eliminating censorship and the right to publish any type of writing in his speech, Aeropagitica. Written in the 17th century by Milton, the speech tells of the vitality of knowledge gained from making wrong choises, “Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in the world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth...” (Milton). Hosseini receives praise from Jim Bartley for the input of morals into Amir’s story as well as taking readers to Afghanistan to allow them to witness both the harsh circumstances of war-driven Afghanistan and the decision-making of a young boy, saying “What's most conspicuous on almost every page of this debut is not language, but the shimmer of life. There is no display in Hosseini's writing, only expression--a lesson for all budding novelists,” (Hosseini, Kite Catches and Flies High). Hosseini’s expressivity of the third world country and the Afghan people has created an atmosphere more realistic than just a of a broken friendship. It describes a strong betrayal that later haunts Amir for the rest of his life, and like Milton believes, should not be censored because of its value in representing a torn mutuality by one’s selfish actions. This serves as a lesson for readers but would not exist if Hosseini’s novel is eliminated from curriculums across the country.

Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner has been challenged for its sexual content, violence, language, racism, and religious controversies by parents and school districts that fear this could result in students and young readers to react to the novel in a negative way in which their own lives can be affect by. The goal of the novel is not to normalize or make explicit content more common, but it is to put forth this information for the reader to experience, analyze, and distinguish the knowledge of what is ethical and what is not and to allow readers to become aware of difficult things in life such as those in war ridden Afghanistan. If sensitive material is protected, then there is no way to learn right from wrong or to be exposed to various circumstances around the world, which is why it is important to teach man to distinguish rather than safeguarding delicate situations.