Marxist Criticism of The Kite Runner

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Marxist Criticism of The Kite Runner Much of The Kite Runner can be explained through Marxist criticism. One of the best examples of this is the end of the passage depicting Hassan’s rape on pages 76 to 77. The power struggle in this passage is prevalent on so many levels, the most obvious being Assef’s domination of Hassan. There are however, many more instances of a power relationship in the passage, including between the Mullah and the sheep, between Amir and Hassan, and between Amir and himself. The first example in this passage is actually two parallel power struggles, one bwtween Hassan and Assef, and one between the Mullah and the lamb. Amir compares Hassan’s facial expression to that of a lamb in “[I] saw the resignation in [his face]. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb.”(76) That lamb is later explained, through Amir’s flashback, to be a ceremonial sacrifice made on Eid Al-Adha. The lamb here, just like almost every other time a lamb has been used in literature, symbolizes Jesus, innocence, and sacrifice. This symbolism makes Hassan admirable, but he has no power. He is completely powerless against Assef. Another example of the power struggle is between Amir and Hassan. Only one of the boys, however, is aware of it. Amir is constantly battling for his father’s love, and he feels that Hassan is standing in his way. Towards the end of the passage, Amir says: I actually aspired to cowardice, because the real reason I was running, was that Asseff was right. Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?”(77) One could quite easily argue that Baba’s love is a sort of power, and Amir is willing to lose his best friend, whether he admits it or not, to

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