Father Son Relationship

In the relationship between Amir and Baba, Amir feels as though he must win the love of his father, and his father is a distant, powerful and mysterious figure in his life. The stories told by Rahim feed into Amir’s sense of mystery regarding his successful father. Baba’s success and social standing make Amir feel as though he must be successful as well, in order to achieve praise and love from his father. Whereas Hassan and Ali’s relationship strongly contrasts this, as Hassan has a strong bond with his father, which is based on their similar struggles and experiences. Both father and son have the shared understanding of how it is to live with a physical difference from those around them, a limp, and a cleft lip.  As Amir must work for his father’s obviously conditional love, Hassan’s father seems to be more in tune with the needs and happiness of his son. Baba is cold and distant, except for when he wants to be fatherly and open with Amir, and this overtly conditional relationship is considerably different to that of Hassan and Ali.