{"id":10174,"date":"2026-02-04T15:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T15:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/?p=10174"},"modified":"2026-02-07T13:41:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T13:41:31","slug":"baba-and-the-bear-the-kite-runner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/2026\/02\/04\/baba-and-the-bear-the-kite-runner\/","title":{"rendered":"Baba and the Bear – The Kite Runner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My senior year of high school we were assigned to read three books. After a painful run of acting out Othello<\/em>, we were given The Kite Runner<\/em> as our next reading assignment. We did an immense amount of background research on the many dynamics occurring in Afghanistan in order to prepare. I did not have high hopes for the book, but it moved me in a way that no other book had in a really long time. I don’t remember every aspect of the book since it’s been so long since I had read it, but I do remember the way it made me feel during the especially triumphant moments. I tried to think of media I had consumed that involved immigration, and The Kite Runner was the best example I had where I was touched by it years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I Remember<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before revisiting the book, I remembered the extremely harrowing moments of the book. From my memory of discussing it in class, I remember saying that just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, there would be a new turn. The book exists in three parts. Part I sets up Amir and Hassan’s relationship as they grow up in Kabul, this part I remember well because it establishes the most prominent theme to me, courage. Part II details Amir’s move to America and how immigration impacted Amir and his father. This is where I want to spend the majority of my discussion. The final part of the book was the most important to me because it highlighted the complexity of the story and connected each theme that had been introduced throughout the book. What I remember most was the emotional journey the third part took me through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first read the prompt for the assignment at hand, I was brought back to a distinct aspect of the book, Amir’s father, Baba, fighting a bear. It made me cry when I read it the first time, and as I sit here today it still makes me cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Classifying my Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The concept of the bear in the context of Baba is visited three separate times. The first two times this is introduced, I felt Awe<\/strong>. This is defined in the glossary as “The feeling admiration or astonishment (wonder) mixed with fear or respect, often inspired by something that seems powerful”. The key aspect of this definition for me is “mixed with fear and respect”. Baba is a complex character, and as much as Amir feels mixed emotions about his father, I felt them with him. As much as you can resent Baba in the book for his actions, there is a sense of admiration, or awe, for him in the same way a child would view their parent as a superhero. The very last time Baba is mentioned in the context of the bear, I felt Frustration<\/strong>. This is defined as “An emotional response to the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual\u2019s will or goal. Frustration is likely to increase when a will or goal is denied or blocked”. I just remember feeling so gutted for both Baba and Amir towards the end of the book. It seemed like everything the book had built up to was gone for Baba, and I felt mad for Amir when he was frustrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Features and Narrative Technologies Prompting my Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

“Lore has it my father once wrestled a black bear in Baluchistan with his bare hands”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosseini 12<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Very early into the story, Amir shares this story about his father. The story defines Baba for the rest of the book. The narrative technology I think is being used here is Narrative without Core Values<\/strong>. The definition is “A story that holds no stable meaning and would prompt confusion unless the viewer or reader supplies their own beliefs to make sense of it”. Amir doesn’t explicitly tell us how to feel about his father, or use an any adjective to describe his father during the bear fight. As a reader, we have to assign our own perception to Baba under the context of what we know about Amir and about Baba so early on. For me, I felt a sense of awe towards Baba. I saw him as a brave man, a man whose child was in awe of him, so I was in awe of him too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“I have imagined Baba wrestling match countless times, even dreamed about it. And in those dreams, I can never tell Baba from the bear”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosseini 13<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Later we return to Baba and the bear. This time, Amir lets us in to the complexity this story has created for him in the context of his father. Baba has been portrayed with complexity, but suddenly we see that his son isn’t just in awe of his dad, and there is a fear there. The narrative technology I think is at play is Opportunity to Observe<\/strong>, defined as “Constructing a story in which characters display many emotions, perhaps unpredictably, encouraging the viewers or readers to observe and recognize the emotions they are experiencing”. In this quote, suddenly I felt the mix of fear and respect that Amir feels. I think this moment in the book is especially powerful in combination with the use of I Voice<\/strong>, without which I may have assigned my own feelings to Baba. Because we see from Amir’s perspective only, I found myself feeling his feelings as my own. At this point, the book is still set in Afghanistan, where there is a clear definition of Baba’s power and strength. There is also a clear sense that Amir is viewing his father from a child’s perspective, yet the complexity of their relationship is incredibly apparent to me because Amir is displaying it as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“As words from the Koran reverberated through the room, I thought of the old story of Baba wrestling a black bear in Baluchistan. Baba had wrestled bears his whole life. Losing his young wife. Raising a son by himself. Leaving his beloved homeland, his watan. Poverty. Indignity. In the end, a bear had come that he couldn’t best. But even then, he had lost on his own terms”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosseini 185<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The last time Baba’s bear fight is mentioned is at the end of his life. Baba and Amir immigrate to America together during the Soviet invasion and rise of the Taliban. Part II of the book spends a great deal of time discussing the differences between Baba’s immigrant experience and Amir’s immigrant experience. Baba is still determined to work and be seen nobly, but his age becomes a hinderance for him because he was so accustomed to life in Kabul. Meanwhile Amir thrives in America, finding new opportunities that were not possible previously. For me, there was an incredible sense of dissonance during their relationship in America. For the entire book prior, Baba was strong, and Amir was weak. Amir spent his older life working to please his father, but when they come to America, suddenly Baba doesn’t have the power he once had. Their relationship dynamic changes for the better, and Baba can be proud of Amir’s accomplishments. However, watching Amir watch his dignified father struggle made it difficult for me to appreciate their growing bond. When Baba gets diagnosed with cancer, it becomes a metaphor for me that signifies his relationship with living in America. He tried to stop immigration from overcoming him, but experience killed him in a way. This final moment with Baba made me feel so frustrated because he had been fighting his entire life, and it defined him. Describing his move to America as a bear fight made me feel so mad for Baba because he was once so prominent in Afghanistan, and that had been taken from him even after his sacrifice for his child to receive a better life. To watch him dwindle physically was a tangible representation of his bear fight with immigration. I felt so frustrated that even though he had a better relationship with his son, that his sacrifice didn’t pay off for him. Partial Dopamine<\/strong> is defined as “Dissonance that isn\u2019t resolved into full harmony”. Their entire journey to the United States was never completely harmonious, and that is something that lead me to feel frustrated more for Baba this time, instead of for Amir. I never resonated with Baba as a character until they moved to America, where suddenly I felt so angry that he could ever be perceived as weak, because it wasn’t how Amir had known him, and it wasn’t how I knew him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason this theme elicited such an emotional response is due to Poetic Narrative<\/strong>. This is defined as “Rearranging a single element of a familiar story to help us see it afresh”. I hadn’t thought about this at first, but this exact definition is the reason I felt I needed to include all three quotes. The context of the first two times the bear is mentioned builds a tension that allows the final quote to exist within a great context. Despite frustration being the term I used, the underlying sense of awe stills exists because we now see this bear come full circle, but it’s presented in a new light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The main theme of The Kite Runner to me is courage. Amir battles with his own courage from the beginning. It is establish very early during their life in Afghanistan that Amir is cowardly, and Baba is courageous. It defines their relationship. There is a cross-section between them aging and them moving to the United States. Amir spends his adult life trying to find a semblance of redemption, while Baba simultaneously dwindles in his frustration and inability to adapt to new customs. Everything Amir had known to be true about his father is questioned when he is forced out of the home he knew, and as a reader this change in their relationship is prominent. Baba’s admirable qualities haven’t changed, but the customs he has to assimilate to show Amir his father in a new light. Even though Amir is thriving in their new environment, it’s frustrating for him and for me to watch his father not have that same experience. Baba’s black bear proves to be a more difficult fight in America, even though he believed in the American Dream. Despite his courage, Baba couldn’t overcome the bear that killed him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Experiences – WonderCat<\/em>. https:\/\/wonder-cat.org\/experiences\/<\/a>. Accessed 31 Jan. 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner<\/em>. Riverhead Books, 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technologies – WonderCat. https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/scl\/fi\/ubdvm0fpx6rvs6ha9fwtz\/Technologies-WonderCat.pdf?rlkey=3un6lgc0m84iftwbz0bv0ipuc&e=1&dl=0<\/a>. Accessed 31 Jan. 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured Image<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cover Art. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Riverhead Books. All Rights Reserved. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My senior year of high school we were assigned to read three books. After a painful run of acting out Othello, we were given The Kite Runner as our next reading assignment. We did an immense amount of background research on the many dynamics occurring in Afghanistan in order to prepare. I did not have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":684,"featured_media":10297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post-1","has-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10174"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10484,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174\/revisions\/10484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}