This post will look at chapter four. In this chapter we find out about Ali. We learn that he is an orphan, the son of a Hazara couple killed on the road by two brothers who were high on drugs and alcohol. Baba’s father had been the judge who had ordered the brothers to serve in the army for a year as punishment and who had then taken Ali into his own home. Ali and Baba grew up together just as Amir and Hassan have done a generation later. Amir says Baba never referred to Ali as his friend. Amir notes that he never thought of Hassan as his friend either. He is Pashtun and Sunni and Hassan is Hazara and Shi’a and nothing will ever change that. Of course, they had also fed from the same breast and nothing would change that either.
In this chapter Amir emphasises the differences between his father and Ali and Hassan and him: there are differences of class and wealth and the two classes can never really cross into each other. Amir goes on to describe all the different activities that he and Hassan shared, such as launching pebbles from Hassan’s slingshot and watching westerns but he stresses that Hassan also fulfills the role of his servant. Amir goes to school, but Hassan doesn’t so Amir reads to him. He even carved into the pomegranate tree: “Amir and Hassan, the Sultans of Kabul.” One of Hassan’s favorite stories was about Rostam and Sohrab, a tragic tale in which two warriors battle each other and one kills the other, only to learn that he has killed his own son. One day, instead of reading the words of the epic as written, Amir substitutes his own stories. Hassan loves them and begs him to read them again the next day. Amir is so amazed at Hassan’s reaction that he sits down that night and writes his first short story. He takes it to Baba but he doesn’t show any interest in even reading it. Luckily, Rahim Khan is also there and asks to read the story. Baba is relieved and leaves the room – Amir wishes he could “open his veins and drain his cursed blood from his body.” He feels he can never live up to what his father wants and that Baba hates him. The ending of the chapter is an ominous one because the life Amir and Hassan have always known is about to come to an end.
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Yay!