Summary Social and Political Protest - The Kite Runner - Thematic Summaries
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Course
Elements of Political and Social Protest Writing
Institution
AQA
Thematic summaries covering 'The effects of Gender Norms on Paternal Relationships' and 'The Significance of tradition in The Kite Runner.' Read like mini essays. Use of quotations, context, Hosseini's intention, debate and authorial methods. Useful for quick revision or early studies of the text.
The effects of gender norms on paternal relationships
The effects of gender norms on Baba and Amir’s relationship are significant, the only time Amir feels as
though his father is proud of him is when he wins the kite (despite the tainting of this event) and when
they then move to America, their relationship strengthens as Baba physically weakens and, in a society,
where the gender norm is not deep-seated in a country’s religion as it had been in Afghanistan. On the
day of the kite festival, at their win, Amir alludes to the way in which his skill of kite fighting reintegrates
him with the male, gender stereotype - ‘fighting kites was a little like going to war.’ With an earlier list of
Baba’s likes and Amir’s dislike for them, such as sport, the fact that this comparison is made
demonstrates that Amir believes this to be the only way this one sport he enjoys, and is good at, is the
appeal to his father for its’ masculine association. The ignorant remark of Amir, ‘I used to huddle,
compare our battle scars on the first day of schools,’ goes to express the extent at which the sport meant
to him for the very reason of Baba admiring him for it; and even retrospectively, with the knowledge of
Hassan’s irreversible mental and physical scars, Amir still reminisces on the significance of the ‘scars’ to
him. A summative line of the importance of kites, and therefore a gender stereotype, to their relationship,
is that of this description, ‘Kites were the one paper-thin intersection between those spheres,’ the spheres
being their opposing personas. The metaphor encompasses the fragility of Amir’s relationship with his
father, that the only similarity that had the potential to bind them was an annual tradition, that was not
specific to them or their relationship. A decreased space for commonality in their relationship is perhaps
what gender stereotypes manages to heal in their relationship, that Baba has been conditioned into
thinking ‘masculine’ features are the only way his son is ‘his own’ and therefore, the fact that Amir can at
least relate to him on this one level – brings them closer than any other time in his childhood. When he
wins the kite tournament, Amir exclaims it to have been the ‘single greatest moment of my twelve years
of life,’ which when looking at retrospectively, the hyperbole not only implies the toxicity of his
relationship with his father, but also that this moment happens on the same day of Hassan’s rape. The fact
that these two are dichotomously experienced, and Hosseini choses to embed in the phrase ‘my twelve
years,’ conveys that from that moment on, Amir’s life went unconsidered by himself, that nothing lived
up to ‘finally’ being ‘worthy’ to his father. The weight at which Amir’s validation depends on his father’s
approval can only be seen as the product of a misfit, someone who does not comply to what was
contemporarily considered the gender norm. Amir suggests, which is what excites him most, that maybe
Baba would read ‘one of my stories,’ is an expression of Amir’s desperation to make his father proud but
is aware that his creativity (outside of the norm) would not be well received.
The significance of tradition in the Kite Runner
The most obvious and titular significance of tradition in the Kite Runner is that of the Afghan tradition of
kite running in its capital city of Kabul. Post-Chapter Seven works towards the novel’s demise and
contextually is only moments before the invasion of the Soviets and then the Taliban on the Afghani
people: this traditional event structurally occurring just before this and simultaneous to the rape of Hassan
goes to demonstrate the impending departure from tradition and unity, and what is normal to the people of
the novel. That the personal lives of Afghanistan, and their investment in this tradition, will be intruded
by a public attack on their freedom. ‘Every boy in Kabul bore tell-tale horizontal gashes on his fingers
from a whole winter of fighting kites,’ Hosseini’s description implies his message of unity that came with
tradition, that perhaps even personally, he placed such value on this tradition even beyond his childhood.
An ironic line that Hosseini specifically includes to highlight the devastation to Afghanistan to come is
‘that Afghans cherish custom but abhor rules,’ the line emulates this sense of tradition that will soon be
demolished; that years of oppressive ruling are about to come upon them. Another valid element of
tradition that Hosseini also portrays is that of racist beliefs within Afghan, Pashtun society; that Hazaras
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