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Compare And Contrast The Kite Runner Insecurities

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Throughout our lives we all experience things that may make us feel uncomfortable or make us feel insecure, some people experience these more than others. By being put into situations like these people’s insecurities are shown. Here we will be looking at two characters from two different stories. The first character is Amir, he starts off as a young boy growing up wishing to please his father and make him proud of him for the work that he wants to do and we follow him as he grows throughout his journey. The second character is Lucy, she is an 18 year old single mom living on her own with her 8 month old son. In this essay we will look at common experiences that point out these two characters’ insecurities and how they either developed or were …show more content…

This thereby demonstrates that through a number of ways someone's insecurities can be developed and amplified through dire conditions. Onto our first common experience, the lack of emotional support from family or friends. In this case we are looking at Amir from Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Amir is flying his kite in a competition, he wants to win but the main reason is to impress his father so that his father is finally proud of him for something he wants to do. Looking at a quote from The Kite Runner on page 67 it shows, “I kept stealing glances at Baba sitting with Rahim Khan on the roof, wondered what he was thinking. Was he cheering for me? Or did a part of him enjoy watching me fail?” In this quote we see Amir is doubting if his own father is even cheering for him or if by not showing him support his father actually hates him, so we can see that by having a lack of emotional support Amir is showing he is insecure about being accepted in his family. Another quote from that shows Amir's insecurities. “If I hadn't seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own very eyes, I'd never believe he's my son.” -Pg …show more content…

An example in text of Lucy feeling disgraceful is in this next quote where she talks directly to the reader. “I should tell you right now how I got to where I am: single mother on the door, public housing, all that. It wasn’t a goal of mine, certainly.”-Pg15 As Lucy tells the story of her having a child she talks about how embarrassing and painful it is to be in her situation. She speaks of how she never dreamed for this and that she had other plans but in the end she has failed herself. Later in the story Lucy has to go to a dole appointment. While she is there she talks about how the workers there recognize that she is of lower class and it disgusts the worker at the desk. “With the puke now on his pants and one boot missing he looked horrible, and I think seeing him depressed the dole staff. Anyway, they got me in and out of there pretty quickly.” Pg-50 At the end of this quote she says that they got her in and out really quick, thinking that the staff wanted her out as fast as they could so they didn’t have to deal with her because they didn’t want her there because her lower class, grossed them out making her feel like a stain on society. Seeing this Lucy takes into account that just because she’s a single mom people start thinking of her differently adding onto her insecurities. Amir also faces the feelings of disgrace, for example in this quote

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