MLA SAMPLE A Review of Kite Runner and Glass Castle

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A Review of Kite Runner and Glass Castle
The Glass Castle and the Kite Runner are memoirs highlighting different obstacles that a
young girl and a young boy overcame as they grew up. The obstacles that are present on the life
of one often make the path to redemption quite tricky to follow but always rewards at the end
when one becomes satisfied with what they have turned out to be at last.
The Glass Castle is merely a biography which follows the simple life of one, Jeannette
Walls and the way she blossoms into the lovely and wonderful lady she is currently. During her
childhood, Jeannette was a self-sufficient individual, with both of her parents being too soft to
her siblings and her since there were no significant rules outlined for them. The irresponsibility is
visible in the instance when the family cat called Quixote was being mishandled and even
thrown off the window by Jeannette's brother, but their dad fails to comment, instead, just drives
off (Walls 18). This incident is evident in the fact that Jeanette's mother occasionally was unable
to fulfill her motherly responsibilities, hence leading to Jeannette growing while being close to
her father. Just like most of the children today, she held a firm belief in her father, hoping that all
things would be okay since he would fully take good care of them. Walls confirm this notion
through a conversation between Jeannette and her dad where he reassures her of his commitment
to take good care of her, to which she gladly accepts (17). As she grew up, she had great faith in
her family hence failing even to question their actions or even lifestyles. According to Walls,
Jeannette states that, "Then I would turn the stove on, and as the water kept on boiling, I put the
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hot dogs in, making my mum note that I was greatly mature for my age, which led to me
commenting that she usually leaves me to cook too much for myself" (11).
On the other hand, Kite Runner revolves around the life lived by Amir, who bravely
battles to put behind him the traumatic events he had been faced with since his childhood in a bid
to be “good again” (Hosseini 22). During his childhood, Amir happens to have heard a chat
between Baba and Rahim making him feel quite unworthy and very insecure. According to
Priebe, Trisha, and Jenkins, although Baba had a substantial interest on Amir, it was always split
between him and Hassan, with Baba failing to approve of the interest's shown by Amir by even
going further and showing him a cold shoulder in his writing. For instance, Hosseini notes the
instance where Baba demeans Amir by questioning his progress and accusing him of being a boy
who can't stand up for himself and even going a step further by stating that he may become a
man who may fail to stand up for anything (22). Baba and Amir had a relatively weaker
relationship as compared to the one which existed between Hassan and Ali. Amir complains of
the fact that if only he could have had a scar that would attract sympathy from Baba, then he
would be quite glad (Hosseini 46). This absence of affection towards Amir led to him
undergoing poor development; making him jealous and quite selfish always not feeling ready to
share his father together with Hassan. According to Hosseini, Amir complains and narrates the
existing warm relationship between Baba and Ali (23).
There are a lot of comparisons between Kite Runner and Glass Castle as both of the
protagonists often find themselves in their given situations due to severe complications in their
families. For instance, according to Forster et al., Amir did lose his mother at birth making his
father and brother Ali as the sole parents in the course of his life (102). On the other hand,
Benioff, David, and Khaled, indicate that Jeannette’s mother fails to fully take up her motherly
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responsibility, preferring her art over her very own children. Further, although Jeannette
considers her father as being so special to her, Amir has nothing in common with his father.
However, although there are variations on the characters, both of them share similar ideologies
about their fathers.
According to Cretton and his co-authors, although she was still young and quite gullible,
Jeanette fails to realize the real faults in her life, opting to always travel from one place to the
other, faced with irresponsible mother and an alcoholic dad who had a questionable judgment.
From the book, the existing bond between Jeannette, Rex, and their father becomes a reason for
her downfall. For instance, although Rex always had the desire of supporting his family, he
consistently failed mostly during hard times as he would become abusive while drunk. Besides,
on the part of Amir, Hassan always tend to be like a brother to him, choosing to be loyal and
protective, as they were earlier fighting off Assef. Amir couldn't defend Hassan, always fearing
the consequences hence preferring to work on improving his connection to Baba. Both Amir and
Jeanette had the same drive of making their fathers proud. Nevertheless, both of them showcase
struggles of overcoming their very own flows. For instance, although Amir was yearning for the
favorite son to Baba, Jeanette held to a sincere hope of having a life of being prosperous.
In conclusion, both Amir and Jeanette follow a road to redemption. For example, Jeanette
becomes tired of always being the caretaker to her family and makes the decision of questioning
her parents as to why they were failing on their parental duties (Walls 221). She later decides to
create her own life, free from the influence of her parents (Walls 237). Besides, because Amir
lacked bravery and was self-centered, this negatively affected the life of Hassan. Furthermore,
according to Pearson, although Amir has the chance of redeeming himself through Rahim, Amir
must decide what he had to do next (66). This situation involved the decision of either going
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back to America or just makeup with Hassan (Hosseini 227). Amir must therefore get
redemption through Sohrab, to save Hassan's son. As opposed to Amir, according to
Bartkevicius, Jeanette receives redemption through her success of bringing a new life to her
siblings' lives (151). On the other hand, Amir had to remember his very past and get lessons from
her past mistakes as Jeanette struggles to replace the strong memories of her childhood with the
brighter future in front of her. Both the characters therefore achieve redemption, managing to
escape from their past horrors and getting a clear path of that which the world kept for them in
store.
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Work Cited
Bartkevicius, Jocelyn. "The Glass Castle (Review)." Fourth Genre: Explorations in
Nonfiction 8.1 (2006): 150-152. Web.
Benioff, David, and Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner: A Portrait of the Marc Forster Film:
Screenplay. New York: Newmarket Press, 2007. Print.
Cretton, Destin D, Andrew Lanham, Gil Netter, Ken Kao, Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson,
Naomi Watts, Max Greenfield, Sarah Snook, Robin Bartlett, Brett Pawlak, Nat Sanders,
Joel P. West, and Jeannette Walls. The Glass Castle. , 2017.
Forster, Marc, William Horberg, and Walter Parkes. The Kite Runner. , 2015. Internet resource.
Gale, Cengage L. A Study Guide for Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Farmington Hills: Gale,
Cengage Learning, 2015. Internet resource.
Hosseini, Khaled. Kite Runner, the. London: Bloomsbury, 2011. Print.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner with Myreadinglab Access Code. , 2013. Print.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. , 2017. Print.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead Books, 2003. Internet resource.
Pearson, Geraldine S. "The Kite Runner - By Khaled Hosseini." Journal of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatric Nursing 20.1 (2007): 66-66. Web.
Priebe, Trisha W, and Jaimee Draper. The Glass Castle. Carol Stream, IL: Oasis Audio, 2016.
Sound recording.
Priebe, Trisha W, and Jerry B. Jenkins. The Glass Castle. , 2016. Print.
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. Toronto: CNIB, 2014. Sound recording.
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2017.
Sound recording.

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