How Far Do You Agree That Class Struggle in Afghanistan Is the Central Theme in ‘Kite Runner’?

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The Kite Runner is usually seen as a ‘coming of age’ novel by many readers. The themes that critics of the novel most often identify are loyalty, oppression, atonement and the coming of age. However, class struggle is the key theme throughout the novel which interlinks all the other themes together. In the Kite Runner, race and class are intermingled which brings out the main problems that occur in Amir’s life. The reader only knows that there is a boy called Amir who grows into becoming this young man witnessing class struggle his whole life however they do not visualise him as the oppressor. Class struggle is the struggle of welfares between the workers and the ruling class in a capitalist community which is viewed as violent. This could be seen in the novel ‘The Kite Runner’ through the different classes of Hazara and Pashtun. Each of the class are treated in diverse ways and from that, class struggle is brought out into view. Marx observed the organization of society relating it to it’s high and low class and the struggle that lay in between each of them. The higher class people seem to be more powerful and richer than the lower class. They always have a problem with the lower class as they do not hold them up to their standards. High class people treat lower class people with disrespect and as a servant. They take advantage of their negative side, in this case their earnings below average and use them to satisfy themselves. Class struggle also determines another way of showing how different the living style is between lower class and high class in the novel ‘The Kite Runner’. As Amir and Baba are from the higher class, they lived in a ‘house of marble floors and wide windows’ while Hassan and Ali lived in a ‘modest little mud hut’. The houses these characters lived in are a metaphor for the type of classes they are from. Amir and Baba lived in a huge,
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