LRB #1 Foils in The Kite Runner

The first 80 pages of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner successfully went from being a boring snoozefest to heart-wrenching. The most obvious thing that stands out in the first 80 pages is the contrast in characters, especially Amir and Hassan. The two are foils, to say the least; they are almost exact opposites. Everything Amir is, Hassan is not, and vice versa. The easiest thing to point out is the personality contrasts between the two. Amir is a weak, jealousy prone, betraying Pashtun. Hassan is a loyal, strong, fighting Hazara. These differences become more and more apparent throughout the pages we’ve read so far in the book.

A very important quote appears in chapter 6 of the book when Amir asks Hassan if he would eat dirt if he told him to. “If you asked, I would,” he finally said, looking right at me. I dropped my eyes. To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say. This quote is relevant to the discussion of foils because it shows Hassan’s true nature. Regardless of how Amir treats him, he is going to be a loyal friend and do anything he can for his best friend. Examples of this include running the final kite for Amir and taking a beating and rape in order to securely bring back said kite. Hassan goes to extremes to do whatever his best friend wants, which is a quality of his people, the Hazaras, servants of Afghanistan.

Amir, on the other hand, is the opposite of Hassan. Having grown up wealthy, Amir is a spoiled child who seems to have no regard for others aside from fooling himself into believing he was really friends with a Hazara. Amir is a Pashtun, who are seen as the upper class in Afghanistan, and subconsciously, he also sees Hassan as a servant. The first relevant quote to this appears in chapter 5. But he’s not my friend! I almost blurted. He’s my servant! For the first time, Amir is admitting to himself that deep down, he sees his friend as a simple servant. Feelings cannot unbind the ties created by the roles that society creates for us. 

One more relevant quote appears in chapter 7. In the end, I ran. I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan. This may very well be the most important quote of the first 80 pages of the book. Amir turns his back to the gruesome act he sees being inflicted upon his ‘best friend’ and runs, simply because he wants his father’s approval and realizes that in order to do this, he must slay his best friend, his lamb, Hassan. Both of these quotes work together to show Amir’s true nature; as  a Pashtun, he sees himself as better and more of a person than his Hazara friend, even if he didn’t consciously admit it until chapters into the book. 

Furthermore, the characters being foils helps to underline an emerging theme and possible meaning of the work in the story. Though both boys try hard to be friends and to accept the other for who he is, Amir seems to have a rougher time with this simply because of the fact that they come from two different groups. This highlights the fact that social roles – roles that society creates for people to fill – are always going to prevail despite effort and wanting things to be different. It is impossible to fully break the ties to these roles that are ingrained in our minds, and Amir is slowing learning that throughout the first 80 pages of the book.