Khaled Hosseini as a Political Advocate
Research Outline
Research Essay
Works Cited
Alisa Feng
AP Literature and Composition
Ms. Wilson
February 12, 2014
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Research Outline- Khaled Hosseini as a Political Advocate: Exquisitely Exposing the Ugly
Sources:
1. The Kite Runner
2. “Leda and The Swan”
3. How to Read Literature Like a Professor
4. Sitara article
5. Official: Violence Against Afghan Women More Frequent, Brutal in 2013
6. article on language/dialect in Hosseini’s writing
7. Literary Criticism (A Woman's Lot in Kabul-- Lower Than a House Cat's, Guilt as the Driving Force of Humanity)
I. Introduction:
a. Lead Story: A mother enters a hospital in Kabul to find her daughter covered in bandages and unconscious. Her name is Sitara and she has been badly beaten by her husband, a heroin addict; he had assaulted her with a rock, stabbed her repeatedly, and cut off her nose and lips. The mother swears that she will bring him to justice but receives only half-hearted police aid, impeded by the lack of legislation punishing violence and abuse in Afghanistan. In fact, a new law approved by Parliament will “allow…[domestic attacks]… without fear of judicial punishment” as it prohibits relatives from testifying against an accused person; as most Afghans live with their extended families, this law potentially eliminates all possible witnesses to an act of violence (Graham Harrison).
b. Transition into Thesis Statement: This is the image of modern-day Afghanistan. Women’s’ rights are all but abolished and the crime rate continues to soar. Meanwhile, an unstable and easily-corrupted parliament presides over the nation. However, despite its long and convoluted history, Afghanistan has not always been a land of unfettered violence and distraught. Though it has been decades since the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the Taliban’s later stay, the effects of the violence brought to the initially peaceful nation remain engraved deep into the undercurrent of daily life.
c. Thesis Statement: In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini writes not only as an accomplished author but as a political advocate. Through his ploy to pathos, careful maintenance of historical accuracy and cultural authenticity, and multilayered symbolism, Hosseini addresses the impact of Afghanistan’s past while asserting his standpoint against the violence, gender inequality, and feeble government that plague the present.
II. Body Paragraph I (first step= develop relatable characters to involve the reader- setting the stage)
a. Topic Sentence: Throughout The Kite Runner, Hosseini develops relatable characters that manipulate the reader’s emotions in order to emphasize the extent of Afghanistan’s suffering
b. Commentary to set up concrete detail: Hosseini personifies jealousy and guilt through his characterization of Amir
c. Concrete detail 1 to defend topic sentence: The narrator and arguably the most relatable of all characters, Amir experiences longing and then incredible guilt. He lives his childhood vying for his father’s love, jealous of his father’s concern of Hassan, and finally gets it but at a high price (his friendship with Hassan). He then lies about losing his wristwatch in an attempt to shake his burden. However, this plan backfires and he instead lives a large portion of his adult life in the shadow of guilt. (Hosseini)
d. Commentary to analyze previous concrete detail/ introduce the next one: The expressions and actions Hosseini attributes to Amir are very human. Though they are not exactly the redeeming qualities of humanity, everyone can relate to jealousy, sin, and guilt- the three-step emotional struggle that Amir’s story of redemption is structured around (E. B. Guilt as the Driving Force of Humanity).
i. Hosseini includes Hassan as the general victim, exposing likewise very-human attributes of fear and vulnerability
e. Concrete detail 2 to further defend topic sentence and commentary: Representative of the lowest tier of Afghanistan’s social hierarchy,
f. Commentary (revisit main point and thesis): Hassan’s character is used to connect the reader with the suffering of the Hazara people. He is far more “likable” than Amir, every bit the loyal friend. It is this unwavering loyalty that wins the reader over as he is the character everyone wishes they could be like, the embodiment of purity and virtue. Furthermore, he is representative of the human senses of fear and vulnerability, connecting him even closer to the audience. Hosseini then takes the relationship the reader has developed with Hassan and twists it in order to expose the harsh reality of violence and ethnic discrimination in Afghanistan, showing how Amir stops standing up for him and ultimately betrays him to Assef. Eventually, Hassan becomes a martyr of the Hazara people when he is killed by “men who think they are above him”.
III. Body Paragraph II (establishes credibility necessary to assert his argument- setting the stage)
a. Topic Sentence: Hosseini lends credibility and influence to the injustices against Afghanistan by scrupulously maintaining the historical context and cultural authenticity of the story.
b. Commentary to set up concrete detail: The Kite Runner is founded in historical realism and reads much like an autobiography—makes the wrongs throughout the book seem like facts/ holds more political influence than if it were purely fictional
c. Concrete detail 1 to defend topic sentence: Hosseini has stated that much of Amir/Baba’s experiences in American were based on his own immigration to California where he and his father set up stands at the local flea market and bonded with the Afghan community. Furthermore, since he lived in America during most of the Soviet reign, Hosseini interviewed many primary sources in order to create a chronological and historically accurate illustration of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion and following Taliban stay. The character of Rahim Khan was influenced by the voices of Kabul locals who experienced the political uprisings in the book. During Amir’s visit to Afghanistan, the toll of the past few years is clearly visible.
i. Hosseini uses Assef, a corrupt member of the Taliban clearly desensitized to violence, as an extreme example of what violence may do to humanity
ii. Example of chronology: “But you want a real show, you should have been with me in Mazar. August 1998, that was.’” (Hosseini 276). Subtle inclusions of historical events—this one also serves to develop Assef, showing the reader what he’s been doing for the past 20 years
iii. “Knowing a little something about the social and political milieu out of which a writer creates can only help us understand her work, not because that milieu controls her thinking but because that is the world she engages in when she sits down to write” (Foster 116)
d. Commentary to analyze previous concrete detail/ introduce the next one: Hosseini’s research in writing The Kite Runner has not gone unnoticed. As many of the subplots are based in reality, Hosseini highlights the issues addressed as both present and pressing. (it’s a lot easier to ignore an issue if you know it’s purely fictional…Hosseini doesn’t let you do that). Alongside historical context, he also maintains the cultural authenticity seen in Kabul to depict setting and cultural customs/biases.
e. Concrete detail 2 to further defend topic sentence and commentary: Hosseini’s diction (use of Pashtu/Farsi/Dari words such as agha, sahib, kaka, watan, etc.) is used to establish cultural customs and indicative of one’s status. The dialogue throughout The Kite Runner also encompasses traditional Dari as well as regional slang, furthering the realism of the piece. Later, nang/namoos/lochak are used when Amir meets Soraya.
f. Commentary (revisit main point and thesis): Most often used by Hassan, “agha” is a term of respect and shows Hassan’s lower status. Hosseini uses this strategically and he makes Amir take note of it
i. ex. When Hassan addresses Assef as “agha” at Amir’s birthday party while serving him/his friends, Amir notices and sympathizes with him, wondering what it must be like to have “an engrained sense of one’s place on the social hierarchy”. (BP III)
ii. Hosseini uses the Dari terms for “honor” and “pride” to entwine the virtues with the Afghan culture specifically and “lochak” to show the gossiping Afghan women talking about Soraya as well as mojarad/mohtaram/etc. to set up the Afghan sense of domestic relationships (referenced in BP IV)
IV. Body Paragraph III (warns of an extreme scenario through Assef’s character which shows the effects of Afghanistan’s violent past)
a. Topic Sentence: Hassan’s relationship with Assef is used to symbolize not just the roles of a bully and his victim but the roles of an oppressed nation and an external force, highlighting the vulnerability of Afghanistan’s government.
b. Commentary to set up concrete detail: Assef’s rape of Hassan is symbolic of the “rape of a nation” as opposed to the simple rape of a child. This is comparable to Leda and The Swan in which Zeus seduces and rapes Leda. In this poem, Zeus is representative of a greater force taking advantage of its power over those weaker than itself.
i. “Nearly all writing is political on some level…even when it doesn’t look like it” (Foster 111)
c. Concrete detail 1 to defend topic sentence: During the encounter with Assef, Amir thinks of a memory about sacrificing a lamb and recognizes the look on Hassan’s face as “the look of the lamb” (76). Assef is the executioner but not at all oblivious to the implications of his actions. He tells Hassan to “[remember] what I’m about to do” (73), eliminating the argument of “children who don’t know what they’re doing”. As such, Assef is clearly a force completely aware of its lasting impact—aka Soviet Russia.
i. In his Literary Criticism, Chowdhury argues for Hosseini’s depiction of Afghanistan as one which “reminds us of how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violent and economic domination” (Chowdhury 1). The Kite Runner is a very powerful novel from a political perspective as it exposes the cruel reality of Afghanistan and the effects of the violence there. Through a close examination of the villain, Assef, Chowdhury believes that Hosseini wrote The Kite Runner with specific intent-- to caution us against the transformative effects of unrestrained violence.
d. Commentary to analyze previous concrete detail/ introduce the next one: The metaphor of Hassan as a lamb shows his purity. Hassan’s innocence and purity aligns with Afghanistan’s peaceful lifestyle preceding the Soviet coup d’état of the monarchy in 1979. Assef raping Hassan symbolizes the takeover of an oppressive outside force. The lamb metaphor also shows Hassan’s sacrifice for Amir—Hosseini develops this carefully as he uses the term “sacrifice” first casually and then more significantly (mainly during the rape and later when Hassan tells Baba he stole the watch—his final sacrifice for Amir). Assef himself is the embodiment of masked oppression as he maintains a calm outer although Amir believes him to be truly mad. Much like political seizures, many politicians or military leaders convince the people that they are acting for the good of the nation—a few even believe it themselves (See below, Assef/Hitler parallels). Assef is developed as a militant politician by the violent mold of late-1900 Afghanistan
e. Concrete detail 2 to further defend topic sentence and commentary: “On the surface, he was the embodiment of every parent’s dream, a strong, tall, well-dressed and well-mannered boy… but to me, his eyes betrayed him. When I looked into them, the façade faltered, revealed a glimpse of the madness hiding behind them.” (Hosseini 96-97)
i. “I tore the wrapping paper from Assef’s present and tilted the book cover in the moonlight. It was a biography of Hitler. I threw it amid a tangle of weeds.” (Hosseini 97)
ii. “I knew that had been a message from God: He was on my side. He wanted me to live for a reason’” (Hosseini 284)
f. Commentary (revisit main point and thesis): Hosseini draws many parallels between Assef, Hitler, the Soviet, and the Taliban as he eventually became a “Talib”. When the Taliban entered and ended the Soviet regime, the people of Afghanistan thought they were their saviors (much like Assef who appears very well-mannered/etc. on the outside). It was only with time that it was revealed they were in fact, just another oppressor. Hosseini presses modern-day Afghanistan to stand up to oppression, however veiled it may be by writing of the adverse conditions it could lead to if allowed to dominate unchecked
i. “’I remember the first time I saw them rolling into Kabul. What a joyous day that was! ...An end to the killing! Wah wah! But like the poet says: ‘How seamless seemed love and then came trouble!’’” (Hosseini 249)
V. Body Paragraph IV (view: Afghanistan needs to establish a legitimate justice system and take steps towards a clearer and more peaceful future)
a. Topic Sentence: Through his emotionally-charged depiction of the unchecked crimes conducted by Assef and the Taliban, Hosseini exposes a lacking legal system and argues for consistency and reform.
b. Commentary to set up concrete detail: Hassan and Farzana’s deaths are directly indicative of a weak justice system. Oftentimes authors use the most extreme scenarios in order to convey a purpose—this is an example of that concept. Same with Assef and Sohrab. Here Hosseini uses irony to help develop meaning (ex. Sohrab defeats Assef with the slingshot as Hassan once threatened to do so, Amir ends up with a harelip that requires surgery, etc.) the irony catches the reader’s attention and further exposes Hosseini’s primary purpose—to argue for judicial reform.
c. Concrete detail 1 to defend topic sentence
i. “…Farzana came screaming and attacked them—“ “…shot her too. Self-defense, they claimed later—“ (Hosseini 219)
ii. Assef justifies what he’s done to Hassan and then later Sohrab with, “it’s just a Hazara” (Hosseini 75)
d. Commentary to analyze previous concrete detail/ introduce the next one: This is similar to Sitara’s story where there is no legitimate prosecution simply because the offense was done by someone socially above the victim. This has been prevalent throughout Afghanistan and this same concept applies to women in Afghanistan who have long been subject to sexism. Though gender issues are more focused upon in Hosseini’s other novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, he hints at his position throughout The Kite Runner in the characters of Soraya and Sanaubar.
e. Concrete detail 2 to further defend topic sentence and commentary
i. Seen most clearly when Amir first meets Soraya, the double standard held against women in Afghanistan is exposed. Even in the U.S. Afghan culture treats mohtarams differently from mojarads
1. “This was teetering dangerously on the verge of gossip material…poison tongues would flap. And she would bear the brunt of that poison, not me—I was fully aware of the Afghan double standard that favored my gender…Wooooy! Did you see how she wouldn’t let him go? What a lochak!” (Hosseini 146)
ii. Like the situation with Hassan, Hosseini exposes much of this social inequality through Soraya’s interactions with strangers (representative of the “general Afghan public”).
1. “What a lovely bride,’ one of them said, ‘Just look at her. So maghbool..” “’Yes,’ the other said. ‘And pure too. Virtuous. No boyfriends.’”… Soraya broke down on the way home…”It’s so fucking unfair,’ she barked… ‘Their sons go out to nightclubs looking for meat and get their girlfriends pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a goddamn thing. Oh, they’re just men having fun! I make one mistake and suddenly everyone is talking nang and namoos, and I have to have my face rubbed in it for the rest of my life.”’ (Hosseini 178-179)
iii. “Killing women in Afghanistan is an easy thing. There’s no punishment” (Reuters)
f. Commentary (revisit main point and thesis): Hosseini chooses to give Soraya a “history” in order to pinpoint gender inequality. Similarly, his characterization of Sanaubar is very “stereotypical” and focuses on the superficial value that men attribute to her. When Sanaubar arrives at Hassan and Rahim Khan’s doorstep, she is badly beat but no one has offered to help her because it is nothing out of the ordinary.
VI. Conclusion
a. Hosseini manipulates pathos to first bond the reader with the characters
i. Then the reader actually cares about the issues he brings to light
b. Hosseini uses chronology/historical events/cultural snippets to further lend credibility to his stance on the political issues in Afghanistan
c. Having established his credibility, Hosseini uses Assef to warn of what the future of Afghanistan could be if it is only influenced by a bloody past. He reminds the reader in the early years of Amir’s childhood that once, Afghanistan was a prosperous land of joy and tradition
d. Hosseini proposes a solution for reform of Afghanistan
i. By using extreme but starkly realistic cases (Hassan’s death), Hosseini portrays the extent of corruption within the Afghanistan legal system where a sense of equality between ethnicities and/or genders is all but nonexistent.
Alisa Feng
Ms. Wilson
AP Literature and Composition
February 12, 2014
Khaled Hosseini as a Political Advocate: Beautifully Exposing the Ugly
A mother enters a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan to find her daughter covered in bandages and unconscious. Her name is Sitara and she has been badly beaten by her husband, a heroin addict; he had assaulted her with a rock, stabbed her repeatedly, and cut off her nose and lips. Her mother swears to bring him to justice but receives only half-hearted police aid, impeded by the lack of legislation punishing violence and abuse in Afghanistan. In fact, a new law approved by Parliament will “allow…[domestic attacks]...without fear of judicial punishment” as it prohibits relatives from testifying against an accused person; as most Afghans live with their extended families, this law potentially eliminates all witnesses to an act of violence (Graham-Harrison 1).
This is the image of modern-day Afghanistan. Women’s rights are all but abolished and the crime rate continues to soar. Meanwhile, an unstable and easily corrupted parliament presides over the nation. However, despite its long and convoluted history, Afghanistan has not always been a land of unfettered violence and decay. Yet, though it has been decades since the Soviet invasion of 1979 and the Taliban’s later rule, the effects that the violence brought to the initially peaceful nation remain engraved deep in the undercurrent of daily life. In The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini writes not only as an accomplished author but as a political advocate. Through his appeal to emotion, careful maintenance of historical accuracy and cultural authenticity, and multilayered symbolism, Hosseini addresses the impact of Afghanistan’s past in order to assert his stance against the violence, gender inequality, and feeble government that plague the present.
In his writing, Hosseini develops universally-relatable characters that manipulate the audience’s emotions in order to emphasize the extent of Afghanistan’s suffering. Hosseini’s range of characterization is wide and varied; not all of Hosseini’s characters are protagonists, yet each individual connects with a piece of humanity we all contain. In his characterization of Amir-- the narrator and arguably the most relatable of all characters in The Kite Runner- Hosseini personifies jealousy, sin, and guilt. Amir lives his childhood vying for his father’s love, much like Mariam’s relationship with Jalil in which “every time she breathed out…she disappeared” (Hosseini 50). In Amir’s case, he finally wins Baba’s attention but betrays Hassan in the process and ultimately lives a large portion of his adult life in the shadow of guilt; Mariam fails to earn her father’s love and brings about her mother’s suicide, likewise condemning herself to a guilty conscience. Though they are not necessarily redemptive qualities, the expressions and actions of both Mariam and Amir are very human as nearly everyone can relate to experiences with jealousy, sin, and guilt— the three-step emotional struggle Hosseini’s stories are structured around (E. B. 1). In The Kite Runner, although the bond established with Amir is strong, the connection guided by Hassan is even greater. A Hazara in a Pashtun-dominated region, Hassan’s character is used to highlight the plight of the Hazara people. Hosseini couples Amir’s narration juxtaposing himself and Hassan with Hassan’s simple actions to build Hassan into the person everyone wishes they could be: When Amir pelts him with pomegranates and commands him to “hit me back”, Hassan’s silence reveals wisdom beyond his years (Hosseini 93). Aside from purity and virtue, Hassan is representative of fear and vulnerability— he is the universal victim of oppression. Whether it be by the hand of a playground bully or the government, nearly everyone has been in his shoes to some degree. Having carefully sculpted the bond between the reader and Hassan, Hosseini then twists Hassan’s story, having him killed by “men who think they are above him” (Hosseini 219). With little adornment or foreshadowing, Hassan’s death not only transforms him into a martyr for the lowest tier of Kabul’s social hierarchy but also successfully exposes the harsh reality of violence and ethnic discrimination in Afghanistan to an audience that cares. While Amir lived in America, the audience has shared in his blissful ignorance. With Hassan’s sudden death, Hosseini prepares the stage for an even more unnerving tale— the truth of life in Afghanistan.
Having drawn the audience, Hosseini lends credibility and influence to the injustices against Afghanistan by scrupulously maintaining the historical context and cultural authenticity of Kabul. This is exhibited most clearly in The Kite Runner which is founded in historical realism and reads much like an autobiography. As “knowing a little something about the social and political milieu out of which a writer creates can only help us understand [his] work” (Foster 116), Hosseini’s factual style “bolsters the modern political and social implications of his novel” (Chowdhury 1). To recreate the historical context of late 1970s Afghanistan, Hosseini drew from his own personal experiences as well as those of others. In interviews, Hosseini has stated that much of Amir and Baba’s experiences in America were based on his own immigration to California where he and his father observed the events in Afghanistan from afar. However, since he lived in America during the Soviet and Taliban reign, Hosseini interviewed many Afghan locals in order to create a chronological and historically accurate illustration of Afghanistan. Examples of Hosseini’s research are subtly embedded throughout the dialogue: As Assef converses with Amir, he slips in various references to historical events: “But you want a real show, you should have been with me in Mazar. August 1998, that was.” (Hosseini 276). In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Rasheed casually comments on “The Soviets [who] killed a million people” (Hosseini 251). While these seamless remarks weave the nonfictional aspects of Hosseini’s political campaign in with the fictional storyline, Hosseini’s primary sources are given a direct voice through Rahim Khan. The character of Rahim Khan, Amir’s mentor and father-figure, was strongly influenced by the perspectives of Kabul locals who experienced the political uprisings and attacks described in The Kite Runner (Chowdhury 1). Consequently, while pure fiction may be easily ignored, Khan’s precise retellings incessantly probe the reader’s conscience.
In addition to the warzone chaos of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini utilizes diction and dialogue to establish the cultural setting of Afghanistan. Throughout his novels, both set in Kabul, passages and exchanges are often peppered with Farsi terms such as harami, agha, sahib, watan, nang, and namoos. Hosseini’s regional slang is used to “reinforce and remind [the audience] that the occurrences of the novel are happening in a different setting, and a different culture” (Kurtin 1). For example, in A Thousand Splendid Suns, harami—meaning “bastard”—is used when Mariam’s mother tells her that “[she] is a clumsy little harami” (Hosseini 4). From this single word, Hosseini “sets the foundation for Mariam’s relationship with her mother” in context of Afghan culture where being an illegitimate child is considered its own form of shame (Kakutani 1). Also distinctive of Hosseini’s vernacular, agha is a title of respect used most often by Hassan and/or women including Mariam and Laila to show their low societal statuses. In his writing, Hosseini uses this term strategically in order to contextualize relationships and, as a result, one cannot help but "wonder what it must be like to live with such an ingrained sense of one's place in a hierarchy" (Hosseini 34).
Widespread throughout Hosseini’s writing are the multilayered metaphorical relationships he creates between characters. Through these, he effectively compacts distant diplomatic tensions into more personal and understandable human interactions. In The Kite Runner, Hassan's relationship with Assef is used to symbolize the roles of an oppressed nation and an external force, paralleling Afghanistan’s relationship with the Soviet and the Taliban in the late 1900s. The multiple tiers of symbolism involved in Assef's rape of Hassan encompass not only the rape of a child and the destruction of innocence but the rape of a nation-- Afghanistan. During the encounter, Amir recalls sacrificing a lamb and recognizes the look on Hassan's face as "the look of the lamb" (Hosseini 76). The metaphor used to compare Hassan to a lamb shows his purity, aligning his innocence with Afghanistan's peaceful lifestyle preceding the violent Soviet coup d’état of the monarchy in 1979, in the form of Assef raping Hassan. He tells Hassan to "[remember] what I'm about to do" (Hosseini 73) and eliminates the argument of ignorance. Through Assef, Hosseini depicts the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as an unforgivable act. It is without a doubt that "nearly all writing is political on some level" (Foster 111) and this is no exception. Here, Assef himself shows the role of performance in society, maintaining a calm demeanor although Amir believes him to be truly mad. This outward persona serves to further characterize Assef as a politician and militant leader molded by the violence of late-1900 Afghanistan.
In his portrayal of Assef and warzone Afghanistan, Hosseini warns against the continual of unrestrained violence by providing extreme examples of its destructive effects. Furthering Assef’s role as the product of his environment is the connection Hosseini draws between him and Hitler. Even as a child, Assef genuinely believed that “if they had let Hitler finish what he had started, the world would be a better place” (Hosseini 40). Through such connections Assef, Hosseini downscales concepts of genocide but nonetheless maintains distinct links. When Amir meets Assef as an adult, Hosseini utilizes foreshadowing to hint at the identity of the “pale Talib” (Hosseini 278). This technique is effectively shocking as it reveals the truly transformative influence of Assef’s exposure to violence and perverse beliefs as a child. Comparatively, in A Thousand Splendid Suns, Rasheed is entranced by the violence of the Taliban, as he “listened to the Voice of Shari’a when the Taliban would announce the names of those scheduled for punishment…and watched the spectacle…with a queer sort of exhilaration” (Hosseini 251). Through his extreme characterizations of Assef and Rasheed, Hosseini provides radical examples of the destruction violence and oppression could lead to, "reminding [his audience] of how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violent domination" (Chowdhury 1) and pressing modern-day Afghanistan to stand against its oppressors.
Through his raw depictions of the inhumane crimes conducted by Assef and the Taliban, Hosseini exposes a lacking legal system and argues for consistency and reform. Oftentimes, authors use the most extreme scenarios in order to convey a purpose (Foster 142): Hassan and Farzanas deaths are directly indicative of a weak justice system. As with Sitara's situation, the murder of Hassan and Farzana at the hands of a higher social standing went noticeably unpunished, attributed to a phony claim of self-defense (Hosseini 219). However, when Mariam kills Rasheed— and a claim of self-defense would have been much more legitimate— she is met with the intolerant death sentence. By juxtaposing these two situations, Hosseini exposes the “lack of consistency in Afghanistan’s judicial process” (Kakutani 1). In The Kite Runner, Hosseini introduces blatantly misguided counterarguments to buoy his own argument for judicial reform. For example, when Amir confronts Assef in The Kite Runner, he justifies his crimes against Sohrab as he had his rape of Hassan, repeating, "it's just a Hazara (Hosseini 75). In drawing upon past events, Hosseini uses irony to remind the reader of the longevity of Afghanistan’s discrimination which stretches beyond the Hazara race and is likewise magnified in the case of women who have long been subject to heightening sexism (Reuters 1).
In his writing, Hosseini utilizes a direct style and alternating perspectives to pinpoint the gender issues that continue to afflict present-day Afghanistan without a hint of sugarcoating. When Amir meets Soraya in The Kite Runner, Hosseini uses interaction with strangers to highlight the double standard held against Afghan women. As they chat, Amir realizes that their interaction "was teetering dangerously on the verge of gossip...and that she would bear the brunt of that poison" (Hosseini 146). Here, Hosseini uses strangers to effectively stereotype Afghanistan's gender inequality with little embellishment. In Mariam’s story, Nana tells her that “like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman” (Hosseini 7). Here, “Hosseini quickly makes it clear that he intends to deal with the plight of women in Afghanistan” (Kakutani 1). Women openly discuss their “lot in life” and Hosseini portrays this in the harsh light of realism (Hosseini 4). After Mariam suffers multiple miscarriages, Rasheed tells her that she has given him “bad food and nothing else” in their marriage as she is clearly unable to replace the son he had lost (Hosseini 94). Through their marriage, Hosseini emphasizes the fact that Rasheed’s expectations of Mariam as well as his verbal and physical abuse are not uncommon in Afghanistan. Hosseini alternates perspectives in telling A Thousand Splendid Suns and shows Rasheed’s “sly and pathetic…performance” to charm Laila through Mariam’s veteran eyes (Hosseini 191). As Rasheed’s abuse continues without consequence, Hosseini makes it painfully apparent that “killing women in Afghanistan is an easy thing [because] there is no punishment" (Reuters 1). However, in killing Rasheed, Mariam defies the social practices of inequality that had persevered for years. Hosseini elevates the amount of courage needed to do this and empowers the voice of women throughout Afghanistan by telling this through Mariam’s perspective.
Although he is known first and foremost as a talented novelist, perhaps Khaled Hosseini should be more so recognized as the voice of the oppressed. Throughout The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini relies on audience-character interaction to universally personalize the issues faced by Afghanistan. Though his writing is sparsely adorned and distinctly raw in its approach of sensitive topics, it is nonetheless effective in illustrating the effects of the past on the present. As Hosseini takes a political stance against Afghanistan’s violent history or discrimination and government fallacy, he reminds a modern audience that the effects of a bloody past will be eternal unless the present retaliates. In doing so, Khaled Hosseini urges Afghanistan to take action with the reassurance that “there is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 192).
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