Relationships with those that are close to us can be what define us as individuals. The people we choose to surround ourselves with can have a major influence on our lifestyle and choices in life. Both Hassan from Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and the boy from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road have similar influences on those closest to them.
Both of the boys are portrayed as young, innocent, and full of goodness. The way that they care for others show their good intentions as well as how much their relationships are interdependent. Hassan brings integrity, kindness, and virtue into Amir’s life and unconditionally gives and gives, no matter how Amir treats him. However Hassan relies on Amir just as much, as his best friend, without Amir, Hassan has no other friends his own age. Similarly, the boy and the man have a mutually dependent relationship with one another. The boy provides light in an otherwise bleak world for his father and reminds him that they are the “good guys” while the father shows his son how to survive and continue on even when all hope seems lost.
Between the two boys I felt that Hassan was not as believable as a character. While it is nice to think that there are young boys who will continuously serve without one complaint, and never whine, it is strange to see a young boy who throughout the whole story had almost no faults. It almost felt that Hosseini was using Hassan to represent the goodness and humanity in Amir’s life, which sacrificed Hassan feeling like a real child. This also could be attributed to an unreliable narrator. We know how much that Amir respected Hassan in his older life, so when he is telling the story it is also possible that he is painting Hassan in an idealized version, forgetting his faults; “Baba’s other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba.” (Hosseini 359).
In The Road, it is very believable that the boy would act in the manner he did. During their journey he complained about being tired and cold, which would be the reaction of most everyone, but still was able to remind his father to show compassion. By doing this the author was able to simultaneously craft a character that was believable and one that represented the goodness of humanity. One event that truly showcases this is when the boy thinks that he saw another little boy on the road. He insists that they go back and rescue the boy saying that he “wants to see him” and wondering what will happen to him if there is no one to take care of him, showing his deep compassion for others. In contrast to this, immediately after when his father asks him if he wants to die, he responds by saying “I dont care” (McCarthy 85). This forms a complex character, one that is looking out for humanity and wishes for the safety and goodness of others, but at the same time is losing his own will to live. McCarthy is able to craft more believable and real characters by utilizing flaws and imperfections in his novel in a way that causes the readers to sympathize with the characters instead of resent them.
Another similarity between the boy and Hassan is their motivation behind what they do. For both, the reason why they continue on is because of someone close to them. They are aware that the person closest to them relies on them to survive and this causes them to disregard their own feelings at times and put the other person ahead of themselves. Hassan knows that Amir does not treat him with the same respect he gives Amir, but regardless, he continues to serve him with a smile on his face because he knows that’s what Amir needs from him. He also believes somewhere deep down that Amir appreciates his friendship and so he continues to make sacrifices for him. Similarly, the boy knows how much his father relies on him and how he has almost become his purpose in life. No matter how bad things get the boy is always there to remind his father to show sympathy to those they encounter. The boy is concerned that they remain the “good guys” in the story which, even though is hard for the man to agree with at times, helps to restore his faith in humanity.
Both Hassan and the boy are used by authors to represent humanity’s goodness and sympathy in their novels. While McCarthy crafts a more believable character, both authors show the importance of relationships and how interdependent they can become.
2 comments:
I completely agree with this comparison of Hassan from The Kite Runner and the Boy from The Road. Both characters display the perfect example of innocence, goodness, and love which make them so similar in many ways. Because Hassan and the Boy possess these traits, the Man and Amir depend on their purity and high spirits when situations become difficult. The one difference I have is that I actually found Hassan to be a believable character. Yes, most children do whine and complain which was a little unusual when Hassan never did throughout the whole book, but because of his social status and circumstances, his extremely well-behaved personality made sense to me. More than anything Hassan wanted to be accepted and seen as an equal by Amir, which caused him to do anything for Amir no matter what the consequences were in order to receive Amir’s respect and admiration. He may have feelings against what he does or has to do bottle up inside of him, but he never shows any pain or frustration on the outside. I found Hassan’s character very believable, because I know several people who do the same thing as Hassan does. They always act as if everything is fine on the outside in order to please others, but on the inside they are filled with frustration, anxiety, and pain. Overall, I agree with this comparison of Hassan and the Boy, because I also found similarities after reading The Kite Runner and The Road.
I really enjoyed the style you chose to write with as an author; sentence structure, vocabulary, etc., your techniques were all very strong and prominent, which made your comparison between Hassan from The Kite Runner and the Boy from The Road very interesting. Additionally, the perspectives from which you chose to compare the two characters and the points you focused on in your blog post were very insightful, and not something just anyone would pick up on by simply just reading the two books. You can tell that you truly comprehended the text and analyzed it for deeper meaning. Finally, I also agree with your comparison between Hassan from The Kite Runner and the Boy from The Road. After I finished reading The Road, I read the Kite Runner first, the characters reminded me of each other, and it stuck out in my head as I read more and more about the boy in The Road. The internal compassion and good will that each boy possessed was one of the greatest features both boys had, and the author of both books brought their personalities to life in the text. What I really found awesome that you included also was the fact that both Hassan and the boy and huge amounts of motivation. The motivation that both possessed was not something that the author of wither book came out and said directly, but something they highlighted through the characters actions specifically and repeatedly. I believe the motivation and natural goodwill that both Hassan and the boy possessed is what made these characters whole and brought them together as so similar, the comparison you made between these two characters was great!
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