against and marginalized throughout Afghan society. Baba and Ali are ethnic Pashtuns, which are the ruling Sunni majority in their home country of Afghanistan. Despite their close relationships with Baba and Amir, Ali and Hassan are their servants and viewed as second-class citizens. Baba and Amir never openly express their true feelings of love and appreciation for Ali and Hassan because of social pressure, due to the class hierarchy in Afghanistan. Ali and Hassan are essentially powerless in Afghan society and have limited rights and privileges. For example, Hassan does not go to school and is continually harassed by Pashtun children and adults.

Hosseini also examines power in the context of personal relationships. Many of Amir's decisions are a result of his desire to please his father. Baba possesses authority in the father-son relationship and withholds praising Amir and demonstrating affection. This forces Amir to resent Hassan and make drastic decisions in order to gain his father's attention. The complex relationship between Amir and Hassan is also examined in terms of power. While Amir is given power because of his social status, Hassan is considered powerful because Baba accepts him and shows him more attention than Amir. This imbalance of power makes Amir shun Hassan, which negatively affects their friendship. Assef also possesses power because he is a physically intimidating, ruthless Pashtun teenager. Assef gets away with raping Hassan because he knows that Hazaras have few rights and there will be no repercussions. When Assef becomes an adult, he remains powerful because he is a high-ranking Taliban officer. The oppressed citizens of Afghanistan are helpless and do not challenge the Taliban's authority.

Power is expressed in many ways in The Kite Runner. One way to think about it is the personal power of individuals, as expressed in the power to make choices. The ability to choose -- a privilege that Amir (as a Pashtun and Sunni) has, but Hassan (as a Hazara and Shia) does not -- is one way this "personal power" can be understood. An example of this is Amir's reaction to Assef's rape of Hassan. In a way, Amir's decision not to fight to protect Hassan is an expression of personal power -- his privilege allows him to betray his friend. In the same way, Amir's privilege allows him to immigrate to the United States, while Hassan ultimately ends up in an orphanage.

The rise of the Taliban, and Assef's becoming a Talib, provides another way of thinking about personal power at the end of the book. Amir, driven by guilt over his earlier betray of Hassan, now uses his privilege to seek out Hassan's orphaned son, Sohrab; the political reality of Afghanistan is reduced to his personal confrontation with Assef. While his fight with Assef for Sohrab is a kind of literal contest of personal powers, it's not clear that Amir's eventual victory, or the set of choices that led him to fight, will atone for his earlier betrayal. For good or bad, Amir will always be formed by the choices he was privileged to make.

I think that Hosseini's work displays the theme of power in a couple of ways.  One specific way would be through Assef.  In this rendering, power is shown to be predicated upon authority and control.  As a youngster, Assef is able to display power in the social stratification that places he and Amir above someone like Hassan.  It is this display that compels him to rape Hassan. If nothing else, the rape is representative of how Assef has power and how Hassan lacks it.  This helps to bring out how Hosseini defines power in modern day Afghanistan:  Someone has power at the expense of someone else.  Assef carries himself in this manner as a member of the Taliban, another construction of power that is more zero sum than anything else.  The Taliban are shown to hold power over others because they possess it and others do not.  The exclusivity of power is what enables them to establish and consolidate their control over others.  In this, power is shown to be something that excludes other and in this exclusion lies a dramatic decrease in power.  When Hassan leads the stoning of the couple in public or the imprisonment of Sohrab, it is a reminder of how power can be designed to limit worlds at the cost of others' expansion.

There are many quotes that deal with power. More importantly, we are able to look at power in different ways. One way we can look at power is the social structure of Afghanistan. Amir and Baba are from a higher social status. They have privileges, education, wealth, and the like. On the other hand, Hasan and Ali are servants a lower social status. They are Hazaras, who are powerless. Here is quote that shows the power differences:

That Hassan would grow up illiterate like Ali and most Hazaras had been decided the minute he had been born, perhaps even the moment he had been conceived in Sanaubar's unwelcoming womb – after all, what use did a servant have for the written word?

Another way to look at power is based on character such as courage. Baba says these words:

“A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”

If we apply these words to Amir, then we see that Amir is lacking. He does not have courage, unlike Baba or even Hasan. In this sense, there is a powerlessness to Amir in view of fear, which diminishes him as a person and fills him with guilt.

At the end of the story, Amir redeems himself. He is beaten up badly by Assef, but he finally stood up for something right. Because of this fact, he gain power over Assef and his own guilt and shortcomings.

“My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.”

That Amir can laugh says a lot.

The theme of power is prevalent throughout the novel and is most poignantly illustrated by the way that the Pashtuns marginalize and oppress the Hazaras, who are ethnic minorities in Afghanistan. One day, Amir finds an Afghanistan history book in Baba's study and learns how the Pashtuns gained power over the Hazaras. Amir says,

In it, I read that my people, the Pashtuns, had persecuted and oppressed the Hazaras. It said the Hazaras had tried to rise against the Pashtuns in the nineteenth century, but the Pashtuns had "quelled them with unspeakable violence." The book said that my people had killed the Hazaras, driven them from their lands, burned their homes, and sold their women. The books said part of the reason Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras was that Pashtuns were Sunni Muslims, while Hazaras were Shi'a. The book said a lot of things I didn't know, things my teachers hadn't mentioned. Things Baba hadn't mentioned either. It also said some things I did know, like that people called Hazaras mice-eating, flat-nosed, load-carrying donkeys.

The history book's brief description of the conflict between the ruling Pashtuns and the oppressed Hazaras provides valuable insight into the relationships and interactions between the main characters of the novel. Baba and Amir are both privileged Pashtuns, while Ali and Hassan are minority Hazaras. Despite the fact that both Baba and Amir admire and love Ali and Hassan, they refrain from publicly acknowledging and expressing their love for their Hazara companions. Amir refuses to call Hassan his friend, and Baba does not acknowledge the fact that Hassan is his biological son because of the social pressure. Ali, Hassan, and Sohrab are forced to live difficult lives because of their ethnicity in the majority Pashtun nation of Afghanistan. Throughout the novel, Hosseini illustrates the balance of power between the ruling Pashtuns and the oppressed Hazaras, which dramatically affects how the main characters interact with each other.

Power is one of the themes that run consistently through The Kite Runner. The power in Afghanistan shifts throughout the story: It is first held by the ruling Pashtuns, then the Russians and, later, the Taliban. Baba is one of the most powerful men in Kabul--rich, flamboyant, popular and philanthropic. When he flees the Russians after their takeover, Amir winds up working in a gas station--a considerable loss of the status he once held. His friend in San Jose, General Taheri, has a similar tale to tell. But despite their present conditions, the general has not forgotten the old Baba, and to him, power and greatness are things that can never be lost. The general tells his future son-in-law about Baba during their first meeting at the San Jose flea market.

"We Afghans are prone to a considerable degree of exaggeration... and I have heard many men foolishly labeled great. But your father has the distinction of belonging to the minority who truly deserves the label.