Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Reevaluating the Protagonist: Amir, Hassan, Shorab
How does this novel challenge the definition of protagonist, hero, dynamic/round character? What role does point of view contribute to our understanding of the characters? Amir is the dominant character, but is he a protagonist or hero or even dynamic/round character? How do we interpret Hassan? What role do he and his son play in the novel?
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Amir is our narator for this story, and in the story we are inside his head through all the events in his life. However this book does challenge the typical role of the protaganist being the narator, because Amir is not quite the hero of the story. Hassan, who is extremely loving and loyal, does seem to be the clear protaganist, but we do not really get to see inside of his head as we do Amir, therefore our understanding of his thoughts are not very clear. In the end of the story Amir does seem to become more of the hero, and changes for the better after a seemingly endless internal struggle, making him somewhat of a dynamic character.
ReplyDeleteThe novel kind of blurs the lines almost between the different types of characters, giving the protagonists, almost antagonists troubles and portraying the antagonists as sometimes good, doing what they believe is right, which might be wrong to some, but not to others. Usually, we are put into the viewpoint of the protagonist, and we take on their ideas. However, if we were put into the antagonist point of view, we might also change our way of thinking while reading this novel.
ReplyDeleteAmir, the main character, seems more like a round character, never really taking on the role of pro/antagonist. He changes and evolves, sometimes doing things that would make us think he is against us, sometimes doing things that would make us think he was on the good side. Hassan, seems as a protagonist, seeing as for the short time he was in the novel, he was a good person, helping the main character and assisting in his scenes. He and his son play sort of the final goal in the book, or at least his son does. Hassan, never really leaving the story line, serves as actually more of a round character, changing and evolving in other peoples' minds as the novel went on. His son is the antagonist, it would seem, until Amir adopts him and takes him in; then he would seem more the protagonist.
Amir may not be a hero, but he proves himself to be a dynamic character throughout the course of the book. We, as readers, watched Amir slowly shift from the boy who would watch in silence as his best friend is raped, to the man who would passionately defend Sohrab. Amir was always quietly desperate. At first he fought for his father's love, then for reconciliation with his past, and finally to protect Hassan's son.
ReplyDeleteHassan and his son exist as a diving board for Amir's leap into moral and psychological dilemmas. This is a story of man finding peace with his past and defining his future as an independent entity. Hassan and Sohrab act as a constant reminder, a relentless whisper, and a horrifically glorified promise.
This novel challenges the concepts of protagonist as ultimately, Amir wears the face of a good, wholesome person, but has grown up with a sense of entitlement, that leads his actions astray, which thus leads to the occurrence of his closest friends defilement.He then lives with guilt and strives to redeem himself, which he does throughout self sacrifice and with intelligence, but not all he has done in his life can be seen as a good thing, and in a way he could be seen as an antagonist of Hassan. He treats him poorly although Hassan only offers friendship towards him without asking for anything in return. Hassan can be interpreted as the constant, his character does not change, and by nature he is an innocent, good person. Which is vital towards the theme of corruption of the innocent within the book.
ReplyDeleteAmir is the main character of this novel. But he doesn't exactly fit in to the classic definition of a protagonist. And can be considered the hero? Maybe not, since he helped some of the problems in the book. We see things through Amir's point of view, so we can't help but see things like Amir sees them. Hate the people he hates, be quick to forgive Amir for his mistakes. But I think in the end he does right by the people he hurt, and I think that makes him a modern hero. Hassan, on the other hand, is a really flat character. I do believe Amir to be dynamic, but Hassan just isn't. Our image of him just doesn't change, or deepen. The author makes Hassan and his son the hook of the book. It was Hassan that created the deep internal struggle within Amir early on, and it was Hassan's son that drew him back to the dangers of Afghanistan in the end.
ReplyDeleteAmir may be the main character but he is not a hero, in fact he is an antihero. I think by exposing a chacters true being, faults, and mistakes you are able to understand or relate to them more and have a deeper of understanding of not only what actions they take but why they take those actions. If this story was told by another narrator it would be entirely different. An outside narrator would probably see Amir and Hassan's situation (specifically Amir not intervening during the rape) to be dispicable. However, by telling it through Amir's point of view we see it as how the situation happened through his eyes and can begin to imagine what we would've done instead of starting from a place of judgement.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand by seeing the story through Amir's eyes we can truly notice how amazingly pure and good Hassan is comparitively. Despite the fact that world is turned against him Hassan continues to be selfless. Hassan may be a representation of the unjust way Afganastan treated Hazaras and how world treats people lacking priviledge.
The novel challenges the definition of protagonist because the main character, Amir, wasn't a hero he was cowardly and then instead of accepting he was wrong and talking to someone about it he decided to change the lives of the people around him to better his life which was a cowardly thing to do. Though he eventually tries to redeem himself he remained a cowardly character throughout the novel. We are reading through his point of view which lets us understand his reasoning which made us feel sorry for him because he had always wanted affection from his father but the way he received it gave him a guilt so strong that it ruined the best friendship he had, and he wasn't able to keep his father's affection either. We interpreted Hassan as a high spirited, loyal, and confident person who had a rough past but was able to over come those hardships and still live a happy life. Hassan's role in the novel was to show Amir the bad attributes of his life that like his cowardice and jealousy. Sohrab's role in the novel was to give Amir the ability to over come his bad attributes to redeem himself for his past actions.
ReplyDeleteThe story may be told through the point of view of Amir but he is not the protagonist of the story, he is actually the opposite. Usually in the story the point of view the story is told through is usually supposed to be the hero of the story but you discover that this in not the case of Amir. He is self indulgent and only worries about himself and trying to make everyone around him like him. If you were looking at Amir through a third person point of view you would never truly know who he was as a person, he always hid his issues and never told anyone so from showing the story through his point of view you really start to understand him and realize why he made the choices he made because he dealt with issues more internally than externally. Hassan is the purity of the story, he is what makes everything good and supports the antagonist of the story which could be compared to Amir. Hassan and his son both make Amir a better person because without them having compassion towards Amir and helping him strive as a better person there wouldnt be a point behind the story, no redemption would be made and we wouldn't see Amir grow up as a person
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