Comparative Essay Between the Kite Runner and Obasan

The novels, Obasan by Joy Kogawa and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini both express the development of character through theme. In The Kite Runner, Amir is haunted by his past. He tries to forget events that had left his best friend, Hassan to lead a terrible fate. In Obasan, as a child, Naomi lived with discrimination even in her homeland, Canada; she must escape and live in the shadows. Both characters return to their past; Amir must make up for his sins and learn a family secret while Naomi’s brought to rediscover the racism kept away from her in her youth. The protagonists, Amir and Naomi develop as individuals when they discover their past, learn from their past and deal with the events that had forever changed their lives. In†¦show more content†¦Amir thought, â€Å"I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past†¦. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.† (Hosseini, 82) It was this conflict that changed the lives of all the characters. This was Amir’s, â€Å"final opportunity to decide who [he] was going to be.† (Hosseini, 82) As a result, He spent his adolescence ‘running’ away from his mistakes, because everywhere he looked â€Å"Kabul had become a city of ghosts†¦A city of harelipped ghosts.† (Hosseini, 144) To Amir, Hassan was haunting his memories. Amir couldn’t stand it so Baba and Amir moved to America. â€Å"For [Amir], America was a place to bury [his] memories.† (Hosseini, 136) In contrast to Kogawa’s novel, Amir’s actions resulted to the change of his life and the lives of people around him. Rahim Khan, a family friend, calls Amir in his adulthood asking him to come to Pakistan. Rahim Khan urges Amir, â€Å"There is a way to be good again.† (Hosseini, 2) Obasan and The Kite Runner’s protagonists change as individuals when as adults, they learn the secrets of their past. In Obasan, Naomi had known what was going on in her past, but she did not know the magnitude of what was occurring. Naomi’s family sheltered her from the events of the war and the true facts of the where-abouts of her mother. By the end of the novel, Naomi’s family reveals that her mother had died in the Nagasaki bombing. In The