Chapter+Five+-+The+Kite+Runner

**Afghanistan** **becomes a republic.** **Baba shows concern for Amir’s safety.** “…I saw something on his face. Something I didn’t recognise right away because I’d never seen it before: fear. ‘They blocked all the roads and the telephone didn’t work. I was so worried!” We let him wrap us in his arms and, for a brief insane moment, I was glad about whatever had happened…” **Amir and Hassan approached by bullies on the way to their tree. Assef and two of his friends, Wali and Kamal. Assef was the son of an airline pilot. Had a German mother so was tall, blond with blue eyes. He used knuckle dusters to beat the neighbourhood children up.** “I will never forget how Assef’s blue eyes glinted with a light not entirely sane and how he grinned…as he pummelled that kid unconscious... I learned an English word for the creatur that Assef was… ‘sociopath’” **He decides to pick on Amir because he is friends with a Hazara. Assef followed the racist views of Hitler. He wanted to see the introduction of racial purity in Afghanistan and have the Haraza race eliminated.** “Hitler. Now there was a leader…a man with vision.” “Baba says Hitler was crazy, that he ordered a lot of innocent people killed,” I heard myself say … “…you have to read the books they don’t give out in school,” Assef said. “I have. And my eyes have been opened. Now I have a vision…Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns…We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat-nose here. His people //pollute our homeland//…They dirty our blood…too late for Hitler, but not for us.” “…you’re bothering me…How can you talk to him, play with him, let him touch you?” he said, his voice dripping with disgust. “How can you call him your ‘friend’?...You’re part of the problem, Amir. If idiots like you and your father didn’t take these people in, we’d be rid of them by now…You’re a disgrace to Afghanistan.” **Amir starts to question his relationship with Hassan. What was it if they weren’t friends?** “But he’s not my friend! I also blurted. He’s my servant!. But had I really thought that? Of course I hadn’t. I hadn’t. I treated Hassan well, just like a friend, better even, more like a brother. But if so, then why, when Baba’s friends to visit with their kids, didn’t I ever include Hassan in our games? Why did I play with Hassan only when no one lese was around?” Hassan gets his slingshot out and threatens to take out Assef’s eye if he attacks Amir. Pg 34 “I turned and came face to face with Hassan’s slingshot …Hassan held the slingshot pointed directly at Assef’s face. ‘Please leave us aone, Agha,’ Hassan said in a flat tone. He’d referred to Assef as “Agha”, and I wondered briefly what it must be like to live with such an ingrained sense of one’s place in a hierarchy.” **Amir knows that Hassan is scared in a way that only a dear friend or brother would know.** “ to an outsider, he didn’t look scared. But Hassan’s face was my earliest memory and I knew all of its subtle nuances, knew each and every twitch and flicker that ever rippled across it. And I saw that he was scared. He was scared plenty.” Baba never missed Hassan’s birthday. He organised for Hassan to have his harelip fixed. A huge expense for a servants boy? “I wished I too had some kind of scar that would beget Baba’s sympathy. It wasn’t fair. Hassan hadn’t done anything to earn Baba’s affections; he’d just been born with that stupid harelip.”
 * __ Chapter five – The Kite Runner __**
 * __ Foreshadowing __**
 * Assef was embarrassed in front of his friends “You should know something about me, Hazara,” Assef said gravely. …this doesn’t end today, believe me.” He turned to me. “This isn’t the end for you either, Amir. Someday, I’ll make you face me one on one.” **
 * __ Special treatment of Hassan by Baba __**
 * __ Amir was jealous __**