The Kite Runner Social Class Analysis

ch social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text? Throughout societies worldwide, there are still many social classes that exist. Many are treated poorly, discriminated against, and are oppressed. On the other hand, many top social classes in higher ranks are the ones who oppress and discriminate the classes beneath them.They thrive on power. In Afghanistan, the ethnic group, the Pashtuns, are the higher class and the Hazaras are the lower class. Women are also seen as a social class/group as they are oppressed as well. The Pashtuns and men have privilege and power as the Hazaras and women have little to no power and privilege. In the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, women, Pashtuns, and Hazaras are each present
The Pashtuns treat the Hazaras as if they are animals, and sometimes regardless of how close Hassan and Amir are, Amir participates in the discrimination as well. Although he didn’t always participate, he never actually stuck up for Hassan either. “People called Hazaras mice-eating, flat-nosed, load-carrying donkeys. I had heard some of the kids in the neighborhood yell those names to Hassan.” (Hosseini 9). Amir hears how the other Pashtuns speak to Hassan as a Hazara, and it’s definitely offensive. The Hazaras are being marginalized through the discrimination and oppression that they brutally receive from Pashtuns. Assef, (at a young age), was just a wealthy Pashtun, not apart of the Taliban. He still treated the Hazaras (especially Hassan) without respect. He even goes as far as to sodomizing Hassan and defending his vicious action by stating that he is only a Hazara, as if the Hazara people deserve such indecency. “And there’s nothing sinful about teaching a lesson to a disrespectful donkey...It’s just a Hazara” (Hosseini 75). Assef tries to justify his actions and refers to Hassan as “it” and “a disrespectful donkey”. The Pashtun friends of Assef hold Hassan down and aid in the rape because they too believe that they are better than they Hazaras and are entitled to do as they please. Hosseini
Hosseini purposely leaves women’s dialogue out of the book until the middle of the story. Amir states “All my life I’d been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman.” (Hosseini 171)Many women in the story are not present, set in the past, deceased, or had left the family. Sanaubar, Hassan’s mother, had previously left the son and the father when after she birthed Hassan. Hosseini silences the role as a women by purposely eliminating the presence of women throughout the majority of the first half of the Book. Then, when Amir and Soraya see a doctor to see if they can bear a child, the doctor states “Men are easy..A man’s plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies on the other hand...” (Hosseini 185). This shows that the doctor implies that women are complicated and far from simple. Insinuating that women are difficult is degrading, and a tactic of silencing women. Hosseini purposely eliminated and showed how women were degraded to capture the true Afghani culture. Khaled Hosseini uses many tactics in his book, The Kite Runner, to marginalize the Hazaras and silence the women to depict the non-tolerant culture of Afghanistan in the late 1900’s. He successfully completed this by using the absence of women in parts of the storyline, show how the Hazaras were discriminated