Coming Of Age
The transition from adulthood to childhood is certainly not a simple adjustment. Coming of age presents many challenging decisions, overwhelming pressures, and emotions that can be very difficult for adolescents to overcome. In the excerpts that we studied, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Escape to Afghanistan by Farah Ahmedi, the stories of two young people are told, revealing their struggles with coming of age and their personal life battles. The Kite Runner tells the story of the character Amir who is a boy trying to deal with his own internal conflicts involving the relationship with his father, Baba, and friend Hassan; which also happens to be his servant. In Escape to Afghanistan, the character Ahmedi is a girl telling the hardships
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Evidence of Amir’s “daddy issues” are revealed when he alludes to how Baba would take both Amir and Hassan to buy kites from the city’s most famous kite maker, the old man, Saifo. The two boys receive three identical kites and spools of glass string. From the quote, “If I changed my mind and asked for a bigger and fancier kite, Baba would buy it for me – but then he’d buy it for Hassan too. Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t do that. Wished he’d let me be the favorite”, I believe that not only is Amir’s personal conflict with his father is revealed, but also major character flaws of selfishness and jealousy is exhibited as well. The central external conflicts that Ahmedi is challenged with throughout the story include taking the major risk of traveling alone without any men, the atrocious conditions of the van ride to get to the border, and the tiresome uphill trek of the mountain path that she had to cross in order to make it into Afghanistan. She deals with nature’s conflicts all while maintaining the safety and well-being of her asthma ridden mother. In the quote, “As for getting across the border, no one knew what that entailed. And as for making the journey from the border to Quetta, that was like asking how to get from one part of the moon to another part.”, it shows that she was conscientious of the possible dangers, risks, and complications that were to come from this
Evidence of Amir’s “daddy issues” are revealed when he alludes to how Baba would take both Amir and Hassan to buy kites from the city’s most famous kite maker, the old man, Saifo. The two boys receive three identical kites and spools of glass string. From the quote, “If I changed my mind and asked for a bigger and fancier kite, Baba would buy it for me – but then he’d buy it for Hassan too. Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t do that. Wished he’d let me be the favorite”, I believe that not only is Amir’s personal conflict with his father is revealed, but also major character flaws of selfishness and jealousy is exhibited as well. The central external conflicts that Ahmedi is challenged with throughout the story include taking the major risk of traveling alone without any men, the atrocious conditions of the van ride to get to the border, and the tiresome uphill trek of the mountain path that she had to cross in order to make it into Afghanistan. She deals with nature’s conflicts all while maintaining the safety and well-being of her asthma ridden mother. In the quote, “As for getting across the border, no one knew what that entailed. And as for making the journey from the border to Quetta, that was like asking how to get from one part of the moon to another part.”, it shows that she was conscientious of the possible dangers, risks, and complications that were to come from this