Conflict and Resolution

Conflict and Resolution

Introduction

In every fictional story, there must be a conflict to enhance the development of the plot of the fictional story. More often than not, these conflicts often depict the conflicts that are present in our societies. Therefore, it is very important for the reader of a story to be able to accurately identify the conflict in the story. There should include a resolution of the identified conflict because the presence of a resolution in any story shows that all challenges can be overcome and how to overcome them. Most times, the conflict in a fictional story is made up of the main adventures or events that take place between the protagonist and antagonist of the fictional story. This paper is going to use “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini as its fictional story.

Summary

            The story begins when Amir, the protagonist in the story, remembers what happened when he was just a boy back in Afghanistan, his home country. He lived with his father, Baba, and two other servants, Hassan and his father, Ali. Hassan was like a brother to Amir and was considered to be part of the family by Baba, who treated him like a second son. Hassan and Amir would often play together and shared everything. However, things were never so simple between the two boys because of their differences in social class. Amir was from a wealthy family while Hassan was from a poor family and worked as servants for rich families such as Amir’s. Amir grows jealous of all the attention Hassan is getting from his father and Baba, and this makes him want to compete and win the kite fighting competition. Amir knows that if he wins the kite fighting competition, his father would be proud of him. The kite fighting competition involved two partners where one would fly the kite, and the other would run the severed kite. In this case, Amir was to fly the kite while his best friend Hassan was to run the kite.

On the day of the competition, Amir is able to cut the line of an opponent’s kite, and Hassan runs after the severed kite. When Hassan takes too long to retrieve the severed kite, Amir decides to go looking for him and finds him being bullied by three boys at the back of an alleyway. Despite Hassan being his best friend, Amir does nothing to help and helplessly watches as Hassan is raped by Assef while the other two boys hold down Hassan. Amir’s conflict in the story is that he desperately wanted to impress his father by finding the severed kite to show as a trophy, and he was too scared to go and help his best friend who was being raped. This is an internal conflict between himself and his guilt. He shows up later to where Hassan was and pretended that he did not see what had happened to his best friend. After the incident, Hassan’s behavior changes and become distant. He rarely sings, smiles, or even plays with Amir. This new behavior worries Amir, and he is overcome by so much guilt that he frames his best friend for theft in the hope that his father, Baba, would be furious and chase him away. Amir chose to do that because he could no longer bear to look at Hassan and remember what happened to him. However, Baba forgives Hassan instead of chasing him away as Amir secretly wanted. Hassan took the blame for the stolen goods even though he did not do anything wrong as a way of protecting Amir from his father. Later on, Hassan’s father learns what really happened and decides to leave Baba’s house with his son.

Chaos erupted in Afghanistan a few years later, and Baba is forced to move to Pakistan and eventually to the United States, where Amir meets Soraya and get married before his father dies. After his father’s death, Rahim, an old friend of his father, reaches out and tells him that Hassan’s son Sohrab is in danger after his father was killed by the Taliban. Rahim also tells Amir that Hassan’s father was Baba. The news makes Amir want to go and rescue his nephew, who now orphaned in a war-torn country. When Amir goes back in search of Sohrab, he finds that the Taliban who has him is none other than Assef. Amir decides to fight Assef in order to secure Sohrab’s freedom and in badly injured in the process. This is an external conflict between himself and Assef.

In both the internal and external conflicts, Amir emerges victorious. He overcame his guilt and decided to rescue Sohrab as a way of atoning for the mistake he made very many years ago when he did not do anything to help Hassan when he was being raped by Assef. Amir also overcame his fear of Assef when he deiced to fight him as a way of ensuring that Sohrab was free from the Taliban. Although Assef beat him and even broke several ribs, Amir was determined not to live Sohrab behind. He organized for how his nephew would get to the United States.

It is evident that after Amir has managed to deal with both his internal and external conflict, he changed for the better. Amir and his wife Soraya decide to adopt Sohrab because they were having difficulties in child-bearing. One day when Amir takes Sohrab and buys him a kite. Together, they compete against other Afghans in the park, and eventually, they win. Amir plays the role initially played by Hassan and goes to get the severed kite. Amir is seen to smile at their small victory. However, for him, it is a double victory for him having won their kite duel in the park and having overcome his internal conflict of feeling guilty and his external conflict with Assef.

Conclusion

            From the beginning of the story, there is a rising action that is followed by a climax where Amir discovers that Hassan was his brother. He then takes action to resolve the existing conflicts, and then the story ends with a happy resolution (Rajput, 2019). Every fictional story needs conflict to make the plot look interesting and resolution at the end to show that conflicts should always be resolved.