On the surface, tyranny looks different in different countries and cultural contexts, but the underlying feelings and emotions which it engenders are the same. Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner vividly portrays the suffocating feelings of injustice, helplessness, despair and bitterness caused by tyranny in Afghanistan over the years at the hands of racist Afghans, Russian invaders, and members of the Taliban.
The main themes of the book are fear, cowardice, failing to stand up to injustice, regret, bitterness, and then finally the high price of redemption requiring courage, confrontation with evil, and sacrifice. At times the narrator seems overly sensitive in continuing to dwell on his failure to stand up for a friend in cirucmstances where by standing up he would have done nothing more than subject himself to the same fate as that suffered by his friend. However, it is the narrator’s sensitivity to right and wrong, justice and injustice, that gives the story its poignancy and power.
I am not sure whether the book can be relied upon as an accurate source of information about the conditions and customs of Afghanistan during the Taliban period. I am sure that the author has a well-founded disdain for the Taliban, but the portrayal of the former school bully as a Taliban leader and rapist seems a little far-fetched given the strict moral code apparently followed by the Taliban. Nonetheless, I highly recommend the book to strong-stomached readers.