see it affect the present primarily through the dialogue and stage direction. In the first scene, Blanche notices a whiskey bottle and surreptitiously takes a drink, cluing the audience to how tense and nervous she is and that she might have a drinking problem. Williams's stage directions communicate her tension:

Blanche sits in a chair very stiffly with her shoulders slightly hunched and her legs pressed close together and her hands tightly clutching her purse as if she were quite cold.

Thus, the reader learns early on that Blanche is a character on edge, but does not know about her past until it is unveiled through dialogue. She tells other characters her past and Stanley uncovers other information and informs characters, both off-stage and onstage. Stanley tells Stella:

"Honey, I told you I thoroughly checked on these stories!" ... And as time went by she became a town character. Regarded as not just different but downright loco-nuts.

Blanche alludes to Stanley's talking to other characters about her off-stage when she says to Mitch, "Surely he must have told you how much he hates me!"

The two works—one a novel, the other a play—are set in very different times and places, and feature characters of different national, ethnic, and religious heritages. However, there are some notable similarities regarding past and present.

One similarity can be detected in the way that characters regard the effect of the past on their current and future possibilities. We can detect a strong similarity between Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire and Amir in The Kite Runner. Both of these characters were able to move away from a severely damaged and backward-looking social world that limited many people's chances to live a meaningful life. Although the situation in the American South was not nearly as drastic as that in Taliban-controlled, war-ravaged Afghanistan, the need to physically separate themselves from a damaging, conservative social system is something that Amir and Stella have in common.

In contrast, the characters of Hassan and Blanche can be seen as resembling each other in being trapped by difficult circumstances. A further similarity is the sibling relationships between the characters. Hassan is Amir’s half-brother, although both were unaware of this fact, while Blanche and Stella are sisters. In Streetcar, there is no character who is comparable in parental status to Baba in The Kite Runner. The sibling relationship, within the same generation, is therefore more significant. Another generational link is perhaps more important, as it indicates optimism for future possibilities: Amir decides to raise Hassan’s son, while Stella is pregnant.

The Kite Runner and A Streetcar Named Desire both concern the powerful influence of the past on the lives of the protagonists in each work. In Hosseini's novel, Amir is haunted by his past transgressions. As an adolescent, Amir refused to intervene while Hassan was being raped by Assef. Amir experiences overwhelming guilt stemming from the traumatic incident and carries his guilt with him into adulthood. Similarly, Tennessee Williams's protagonist Blanche DuBois cannot escape her past and continues to carry the burden of her deceased husband's death. Blanche assumes responsibility for Allan's death and recognizes that her hurtful words regarding his sexuality influenced him to commit suicide. Similar to the way Amir is haunted by Hassan's memory, Blanche is haunted by her husband's memory and drinks to calm her nerves.

Although the past significantly influences the psychology of each protagonist, Hosseini's novel concerns the importance of redemption while Tennessee Williams examines the nature of delusion. In The Kite Runner, Amir discovers that Hassan was his half-brother and decides to atone for his past sins to seek redemption. Amir proceeds to travel to Kabul, where he risks his life to save Hassan's son Sohrab. Amir's traumatic past motivates him to atone for his sins, and he discovers that true redemption is "when guilt leads to good."

In contrast, Blanche DuBois does not seek redemption and attempts to find peace by succumbing to her delusional thoughts. Blanche pretends that she is a Southern belle and a morally-upright woman. She hides the fact that she is a promiscuous alcoholic and tries to forget about her checkered past while she visits her sister in New Orleans. Rather than accept her transgressions and seek redemption, Blanche becomes increasingly delusional and eventually suffers a mental breakdown after Stanley sexually assaults her. Overall, Hosseini and Williams explore the significant influence of the past and examine how individuals respond to their painful memories and traumatic experiences.