Amir and Offred by LeTourneau

Everyone is a little different given their environment, social situations, and overall personality.  Amir and Offred begin their separate stories as timid and happily conform to the invisible rules laid out for them.  Amir pushes Hassan away because of their ethnic backgrounds and Offred accepts that her main job is to bear children.  Over time both these characters grow and take charge of their lives and eventually jump blindly into a situation that could end up awful.  For Amir it’s saving Sohrab in Afghanistan, for Offred it’s allowing Mayday to save her.  These events require a lot of change in both characters.

Amir starts off as just a regular boy, best friends with Hassan, a Hazara and also his servant.  Although great friends, society influences the way that Amir treats Hassan in certain situations and his decision making.  Unlike many other characters in the book, he is unable to stick up for himself as he is too afraid of what others will think of him.  This is something everyone struggles with, especially at a young/adolescent age.  Offred has a free life before her capture in which after she settles into a restrictive routine.  Offred accepts this but she becomes almost emotionless to her daily routine, unlike Amir who has many emotions constantly running through his mind.  These beginning situations show these characters as timid.

Even though the characters don’t stick up for themselves quite yet, their minds often deeply think about their current situations and what could be different.  Offred often thinks back to her old life.  She thinks about the way she used to dress and her husband and the freedom she used to have.  She also thinks about her life as it begins to transition to her current life.  All the times she used to sneak around with others to smoke, and the discussions of people who were trying to escape.  These flashbacks come everyday and she often compares them to her current situation, and as it begins to change her old self begins to creep in.  Such as when the Commander offers to get her whatever she wants such as lotion and soap.  Offred used to not crave these things but as she grows she begins to crave them more.  She also revels in her old life when she begins to have an affair with Nick.  Something that the Commander's wife initially started in order to help Offred get pregnant turned into a full affair under everyone’s noses.  She likely gets caught up in the affair as it closely resembles her affair with Luke, just like the lotion and soaps she craves her old life in a more physical and emotional way.  At the end of her story Nick comes to take her away as a member of Mayday.  Offred doesn’t know how this will end, she could end up free or dead, she takes the chance as she craves freedom.

Amir often wonders why it’s so odd for him to play with Hassan.  He loves Hassan and he doesn’t understand why he himself doesn’t invite him to play with other boys when his father had a party.  Amir never spoke out against this until his adult life and he has to fly back to Afghanistan to save Hassan’s son, Sohrab.  Amir struggles with this decision to fly back because of fear.  He feels so much guilt about how things turned out with Hassan, but he fears what will happen to him in Afghanistan since he knows he was never able to stick up for himself.  But his decision to fly back reflects how much he’s grown and how much he wants to make things right.  Another situation that shows how much Amir wishes to make things right is when he fights with Assef.  This sort of situation is something Amir was extremely afraid of in his childhood and something he even moments before the fight was afraid of.  

Another thing both the characters had that influenced their decisions was their past.  Amir had a difficult past that he struggled with and forced him to strive to change himself.  Offred had a completely different life in her past, this made her crave her old life.  The past often influences everyone as people want to improve themselves.  In Offred’s case she started out great she dipped down in worse situation and her past made her reach for her old life.  Amir had a difficult past and that past influenced him to save a young boy who would’ve ended up with a worse one.

In conclusion these characters struggled with sticking up for themselves but both knew that there was something better for them.  Both of them looked for things to change themselves even though their environments were much different.  Offred’s being under a dictatorial government in The Handmaid’s Tale, and Amir living in Afghanistan and America in The Kite Runner.