Free Blog- The Kite Runner

For every one who has not read the book “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, it is about a boy named Amir who grows up in Afghanistan for the first few years of his life with his father(a well respected Afghani man) and a few males servants. Amir grows up not knowing how females are treated a lot of the times because he was raised in a all male environment in his home in Afghanistan. Later in his life he is forced to flee and run to the United States with his father. In the United States, Amir's dad teaches him more about how to live up to the duties of an Afghan man before he dies and how to treat a wife. When they made the trip to the United States, they also took their culture with them. Amir later tries to marry a young Afghani women but is scrutinized by his actions because of their views on women and later marries her.

In the Afghani culture, just as in the past United States culture and mostly all around the world, women were seen as lesser individuals and not equal to men. This has opened my mind to other cultures, some that are very different from the United States’ culture. Even though Amir and his wife are living in the United States, their Afghani culture is still there and women are still suppressed a little. In the book, if a man sleeps with many females it is all right and they blow it off because he is a male and is just said to be “playing the field“. While if a female sleeps with a lot of men, like Amir’s wife once did, then she is scrutinized by the Afghani people and denounced a slut. Amir’s wife was still being talked about, and in the middle of a lot of gossip even after two years after the incident. Another reason for example, in conversations the men have the final say of things and were suppose to lead the house with a good job for his family. While the wife had to listen to the male and was not always aloud to work, and in Afghanistan were sometimes not even aloud to leave the house without a males presence. Also in Afghanistan women were not allowed to drink in public. They could still drink in private but it was frowned upon. Men on the other hand could drink in public and smoke.