Blogging Around: Rachel and Lindsay

1. Rachel’s Blog - Connection: Lion King and Kite Runner

She talks about how Amir and Simba are both living in their fathers' shadows and how it affects them

I can definitely see the connection here. I would even go as far as to say that Amir and Simba are both hindered by their “oh so great” fathers. Amir constantly feels as if he is worth nothing because he isn’t enough like Baba, and Simba struggles to be the great man/lion (??) that his father wants him to be.

I can definitely relate to this because of my relationship with my brother. When I was little all I wanted to do was be just like him. At school, I was constantly compared to him; everyone expected that I would be just like him. Now, I know that this sounds like every younger sibling’s debocle, but you don’t know my brother. In high school, he was one of those guys that walked through the halls and everyone gave a shout out to, or high-fived, all the girls said hi ;). He’s funny; he’s smart; everyone likes him. We are similar in some ways, but totally the opposite in some. I always sort of felt like I should be more like him; if I didn’t do everything the same way, I wasn’t as good, I had done something wrong. Yet, I eventually learned that my brother had his strengths and so do I, and there’s no rule about them being different.

2. Lindsay’s Blog – Best of the Week: The “Real” Afghans

She tells us about how learning about the history of Afghanistan was helpful to better understand the way Hosseini wrote the novel in regards to the setting

This is some good insight. The part about how we criticized Amir and called him a whiny brat definitely struck a chord with me. All along I have been saying that we don’t truly understand why Amir is the way he is. We’re not in his position, and we can’t say what we would have done in the same situation. The biggest part, which is explained very well here, is that we don’t live in a world where there are Pashtuns and Hazaras. In America, everyone is American, no matter your heritage. Yet, the social divide that Amir and Hassan struggle with is realer than our reality television. Was it right for Amir, a Pashtun, to abandon Hassan, the Hazara boy? No. But, in some sense, didn’t he abide by the societal standards? I definitely am not saying that Amir should have watched Hassan get raped. My point is that we don’t live in 1970s Afghanistan, therefore there is no way for us to fully condemn Amir for his actions because we don’t know, for sure, that we wouldn’t have done the same thing ourselves. All over the world there are dynamics that we can’t begin to understand, and it is the effects of those dynamics that we most frequently and profoundly unfairly criticize.