Classism in 1984 and The Kite Runner Essay Example

📌Category: 1984, Books, Orwell, The Kite Runner, Writers
📌Words: 1242
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 17 April 2022

Classism is the act of prejudice against or in favour of people belonging to a particular social class or social status. The novels 1984 written by George Orwell and The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini both have classism as an underlying theme in their writings. Both these authors adequately display classism that is well written and contributes to their overall novels. Hosenni and Orwell effectively demonstrate the use of classism within their novels through characters, setting and the main plot of the storeys. 

The characters Amri from the Kite Runner and Winston from 1984 are crucial factors that help show the theme of classism, and how the characters often struggle with relationships due to social status. The character Amir is blessed with social status from birth as his father “Baba” is considered to be a hero and leader in the town of Kabul, Afghanistan, which gives Amir a high social class compared to others in his town. However, Amir often struggles with his high social class in regards to his relationship with his slave Hassan as he often questions their relationship due to social class and the differences between Hazaras and Pashtuns. Amir questions his relationship when he has an encounter with Assef who is a boy of high status, Amir struggles with the embarrassment of being friends with him as Assef makes fun of him. “But he is not my friend! I almost blurted. He’s my servant! Had I really thought that? Of course I hadn’t. I hadn’t” (Hosenni 41). Winson is part of the outer party which is considered to be “middle class” in Oceania. Has interactions and develops a relationship with a character O’Brien who is part of the inner party which is considered to be “high class”. Although Winston is drawn to O’Brien he acknowledges that he must keep his beliefs and interactions a secret as they are of different social classes and he questions if he can talk about them. “He felt deeply drawn to him and not solely because he was intrigued by the contrast between O'briens urbane body and his prizefighter physique. Much more it was a secretly held belief” (Orwell 13). This quote proves how Winston is unsure if he can trust or discuss his actions between O’Brian and him not believing about the party. The authors effectively use these characters to actively demonstrate classism. Both Winston and Amir go through similar thoughts and feelings as they question their thoughts about their relationship with Hassan and O’Brien due to different social classes. The critique written by Yohanes Eko Rubiyanto describes how the diversity of social class can lead to many different thoughts about one another and can potentially lead to a conflict “The diversities that may result in different cases of point of view, social economic status, backgrounds, and even their class in society in this country are more likely to lead to various conflicts. The conflicts may create an imbalance of social interaction” ( Rubiyanto 4), this quote describes how The characters feel as the differences in class create a conflict between friendships and trust between characters. 

The setting of the novels contributes to the classism of Oceania and Kabul as they both are controlled by high power. The people of Oceania are greatly affected and controlled by every aspect of life from the upper-class individuals known as the party and Big Brother. Although two plus two equals four, the Party has the power to let others believe it equals five; they are telling these people how to think. By being dominant in power, the Party is capable of changing and altering the perception of anything. This shows that power within the class is used negatively to influence perception, leading to chaos. In the critique written by Domenico Mario, he states that the party is harsh and has control over things that they should not “The ultimate purpose of the system - power - is crude and not the same thing as what the system obtains” (Mario 17). The Party makes people believe they are constantly being watched “BIG BROTHER IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU” (Orwell 3), controlling their lives completely and making the lower classes act in a way they want. The setting of Kabul, Afghanistan connects to classism as the Taliban has great power over the people who live in Afghanistan. The Taliban are harsh in the way they assert power and force their ideas over as many people as possible. They try to enforce an overly strict version of Islam in a way of overcompensating for the shift in the culture they feel. Instead of having the regular form of Islam, they resort to an overly extreme version to try and dispel any perceived Western threats. They assert their authority in the harshest ways possible and do everything they can to send warnings to obey the citizens of Afghanistan. The violence they use is shown in everyday scenarios. For example, the soccer game Amir and Farid attend has public executions during half-time: “When it was all over, when the bloodied corpses had been unceremoniously tossed into the backs of red pickup trucks--separate ones--a few men with shovels hurriedly filled the holes. One of them made a passing attempt at covering up the large bloodstains by kicking dirt over them. A few minutes later, the teams took the field. The second half was underway” (Hosseini 272). The Taliban is in higher power over the rest of Kabul as well as Afghanistan and uses their higher class to control the citizens. The setting portrays classism because where both the novels take place both have people or groups in a higher power, they use classism as an act of prejudice against the lower individuals. Both Orwell and Khaled use setting and act of power in similar ways to show and advance the underlying theme of classism in their writing. 

The main plot in both of the novels plays an important part in demonstrating the use of classism, playing a large role in aspects of this theme using the protagonists. The main plot of 1984 is essentially the life of Winston Smith, who is at low ranked social status. His life is affected as he struggles with the prejudice of his class, he is unable to live a free life as he is constantly being controlled. His life is run by manipulation from the high class ‘Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ (Orwell 37), the party uses this slogan to manipulate the lower classes into believing that they will always be at power. The Kite Runner displays a plot through the protagonist Amir, who struggles to find his place in the world because of the aftereffects and fallout from a series of traumatic childhood events. Amir was faced with traumatic experiences as a child due to the Taliban taking control. He once was at a high social class but that later fell into him being put at the lower class, this affected him greatly and even caused him to realize this place was no longer his country. “I feel like a tourist in my own country, I said, taking in adozen emaciatedding half-dozenemaicated goats alongside the road, Farid snickered. Tossed his cigarette, ‘you still call this place your country?” (Khaled 203). The author's use of the plot to show classism greatly presented this theme. Together the books displayed this in similar ways as their social status and the discrimination against them greatly affected their lives. Both higher classes are selfish and simply take power for their good. “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.” (Orwell 275). 

Overall, Orwell likewise Khaled did an astonishing job at effectively displaying classism through each of their novels 1984 along with The Kite Runner. The use of characters and the main protagonists in the story Winston and Amir greatly contributed to this underlying theme, along with the setting of Oceania and the Party and Kabul, Afghanistan with the Taliban, in addition to the plot added to the ideology of classism.

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