'The Kite Runner' and 'Crime and Punishment'

In the novel The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the main character or protagonist is a young Pashtun boy named Amir. Amir must overcome many boundaries of varying difficulties and types, for example mental, physical and emotional, for example he must flee to America, leaving his wealth and becoming very poor.

In the novel Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the protagonist is a Russian man by the name of Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, more commonly referred to as either Raskolnikov or Rodenka, Raskolnikov faces many boundaries himself, mentally for example, his curious trait of doing something then immediately wishing he hadn’t but he does not go back and undo it, for example he leaves some money on a friend’s windowsill, immediately regrets it because he desperately needs money, but does not go back to reclaim it.

“He will come in that day and He will ask: ‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to Me….Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee, for thou has loved much….” This is spoken by a drunken clerk, Marmeladov, on whose windowsill Raskolnikov places the money. It refers to the fact that he has squandered all his money on alcohol and his 17 year old daughter, Sonia, has been forced into prostitution to support the family. It actually has no corresponding statement with The Kite Runner, but I felt that I could ignore this due to the sentiment with which the statement is spoken, that of self loathing, which Amir feels after he has betrayed Hassan’s trust in The Kite Runner.




In The Kite Runner, Assef picks on both Amir and Hassan because they are smaller and younger than he is. He feels that he is superior genetically to Hassan, as he is a Pashtun and Hassan is a Hazara, a minority group in Afghanistan that is often discriminated against by the ruling Pashtuns. This is the reason that he gives for treating Hassan so badly and for raping him, his exact words are “It’s just a Hazara”. These are spoken just before the rape as he is trying to get his two henchmen Wali and Kamal to join him. A possible reason for trying to get them to join in is that he feels he will only be partly to blame, so saving what conscience he has, though he exhibits none in any case.

In Crime And Punishment, Raskolnikov feels it is perfectly acceptable to kill the pawnbroker because he has heard other students at the university he attends discuss it, their reasoning being that all the pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, has done is bad deeds, so killing her is morally the right thing to do. Furthermore, Raskolnikov feels that he is intellectually and morally superior to other criminals, though he does not identify himself as one, because of a thing he calls a ”disease of will”. He defines this as a loss of all reason following the act of a crime being committed on the part of the criminal. He feels that he is immune to this phenomenon due to him seeing himself as having the moral high ground. This belief in his own abilities is much like Assef as he sees himself as being better than others, as Assef so obviously does. In the end Assef is blinded in one eye, proving that he is not as good as he sees himself, Raskolnikov sees himself as better but becomes so affected by the murder that he faints upon hearing it mentioned at the police station, so obviously he is affected by what he calls the “disease of will”.

In The Kite Runner, Amir is wracked with guilt over his betrayal of Hassan, when he finally tries to fix everything, to make things right again, he goes back to Afghanistan, only to discover that Hassan is dead. Nearing the end of the novel he does however, discover Hassan’s son, Sohrab, who Amir takes back to America so that he can look after him and so that Amir and his wife Soraya could have a child to raise, as Soraya has “Unexplained infertility”. The novel closes with Sohrab and Amir flying kites together, but now with Amir as the kite runner, where it was Hassan when they were children.

In Crime And Punishment, Raskolnikov feels a degree of guilt from immediately after the murder. This is exhibited in various ways such as collapsing when he hears the murder discussed at the police station and nervousness when being interviewed by the police inspector Porfiry Petrovich. Raskolnikov confesses to Sonia that he murdered the pawnbroker and she offers him her Cypress Cross as a symbol of redemption and forgiveness but he refuses it. The novel concludes with Raskolnikov finally accepting Sonia’s cross and heading into the police station to confess to the murders, with Sonia following him, as she promises to do, reflecting the process of dealing with guilt that Amir endures throughout practically the entire novel

Two other characters stand out as being particularly similar in the novels. These are the adult Assef and Svidrigailov, from Crime And Punishment. As we know from having read The Kite Runner, Assef is not averse to raping a boy, this is not due to a homosexual tendency but of an addiction to power, common to many who hold more power, through strength or wealth, than others in society. Assef’s mind is warped, going so far as a to rape a child at 14 years of age, this and other examples show us clearly that Assef is mentally disturbed and unstable, possibly an undiagnosed mental disease.

However improbable it may seem, Svidrigailov is a considerably more interesting man, as well as being significantly more psychotic and sadistic, though that would hardy seem feasible. Svidrigailov is the man that Raskolnikov originally wanted to be, a man who had no issues with murder, who had no moral troubles, but also a man prone to random acts of kindness, for example saving the drunken clerk Marmeladov’s children, though Assef does not show that last factor. Svidrigailov chuckles and says to Raskolnikov “I like all children. I like them very much”. This is a reference to his disturbing sexual preferences, he is over 40 and mentions to Raskolnikov that he is getting married soon to a 16 year old girl.




Another connection between Assef and Svidrigailov is that they both have a twisted sort of honour. In The Kite Runner, before the fight between Assef and Amir, Assef tells his Taliban guards not to interfere and to let Amir go if he wins, when the guards question this, he yells at them. This shows that Assef has his own form of honour and that he respects people who can beat him.

Svidrigailov also has his own form of honour, though it is applied to himself only. Raskolnikov is to be exiled to Siberia for the murder if he turns himself in, he decides to do so, Sonia declares that she will go with him, Svidrigailov gives her the money for the train trip. This is the final scene containing Svidrigailov because shortly after this he dreams a perverse, sexual dream involving a 5 year old girl. When he wakes up his honour comes into play, he realizes how perverted he is and resolves to commit suicide, which he does shortly afterward.