The relationship between father and son

“Like father like son” is a well known expression that holds true for many father and son relationships; yet this is not the case for Baba and Amir. The term father and son relationships, the father is a very important role model for his son, and everybody needs a fatherly figure. For one Babe isn’t there for Amir as a result that he is nothing like his father. In The Kite Runner Baba speaks to his business friend Rahim khan about his son and why aren’t they similar. “He’s always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he’s lost in some dream I wasn’t like that”.

He overlooks Cory?s efforts to please him and make a career for his son, learned from his past with his own father, is responsible for the tension that builds between him and Cory. This tension will eventually be the cause of the lost relationship that is identical to the lost relationship that is identical to the lost relationship between Troy and his father. Troy?s damaging relationship with his father had a dual effect in his life. It created a conscious awareness of how not to conduct his life and built fences, which inevitably recreated his father in his personality. These fences shaped and formed his relationships with his son.

The hope that his son would be a good person rather than an intelligent one with no soul pushed him to be harsh and cruel but overall, left his son with empathy, strength, a relationship with his father, and a connection with God and the world around him. In the final chapter, after Reb Saunders is finished talking to Reuven, he turns to his son. For the first time outside of services, Reb Saunders speaks to his son directly, without Reuven’s help. This is a big moment for their relationship and is a turning point where Danny sees that his father is making an effort at finally communicating with him. He also sees that his father finally knows that he is a good and empathetic person and is willing to trust him to go out in the world with inner strength and the knowledge of suffering.

Baba is not there for Amir because he does not understand why Amir is not exactly like him. Baba speaks to Rahim Khan, his best friend and business partner, about his confusion with Amir, and doesn’t understand why his son’s interests aren’t similar to his own: “He’s always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he’s lost in some dream…I wasn’t like that.’ Baba sounded frustrated, almost angry” (p.23). Baba is disappointed that his son is not a reflection of himself, carrying out the family name and business; and thus this creates tension between father and son: “If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son... ... middle of paper ... ...ather, because he never gave up on Sohrab after the pain he felt in the orphanage. He treated him like a son, took interest in him, and finally got Sohrab to open up, leaving the book with a sense of hope for a better tomorrow because Amir has finally learned the true meaning of being a father. Khaled Hosseini uses the love-hate relationship and hardships between fathers and sons to demonstrate the necessity of an empathetic fatherly figure in one’s life.

Children often think that their parents know nothing and it is not until something actually happens that proves the parents are right that the children realize how erroneous they had been. Baldwin's representation of his father while his father is alive is that of total detestation towards him and his ideas. Most of Baldwin's memories of his father are bad ones: "I could see him, sitting at the window, locked up in his terrors' hating and fearing every living soul including his children who had betrayed him"(54). The vivid memories Baldwin has of his father are ones of his father's down falls. Baldwin rarely remembers the good things about his father: "I had forgotten, in the rage of my growing up, how proud my father had been of me when I was little"(64).

Multiple times in the novel The Kite Runner, the protagonist, Amir, lives through an alienation that causes him to search for alternative routes in order to feel accepted. Amir struggles to stand up for himself which concerns his father, Baba, about his future well-being as an adult. The values that Amir possesses that make him so unique from ordinary children his age aggravate Baba. He endeavors to please his father who ignores him; but what Amir perceives to be attention worthy, is unappreciated by Baba. Despite being is raised in a privileged-society, Amir has interests and talents that are atypical of a boy throughout his childhood.

In most cases, it is the oldest son that is being favored while the younger son is ignored. Usually, the father does not realize that he is picking a favorite; he simply gets caught up in the successes of the oldest and does not try to leave out of it. Throughout the novel, Willy makes references on how wonderful Biff is and he never pays enough attention to Happy. Willy constantly shows favoritism and true love to one of his sons, while his other son is left behind. As Willy shows truly favoritism in Biff, he takes this advantage of that and his dad becomes his role model as compared to Biff, the younger son Happy was really never important to Willy, eventually creating a more negative relationship.

In the novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini proves that there is need of a fatherly figure when growing up. Having a father-son bond helps the child differentiate right from wrong. The relationship which demonstrates the need of a father figure is depicted by Baba and Amir, Hassan and Sohrab as well as Amir and Sohrab. A father is an important role in a child’s life, but more than that, a father expects his son to be the same or at least similar in one way or another to themselves. However, this was not the case for Baba or Amir.

(32) This builds an immunity to neglect from experiencing it in their younger lives. However, the strength each boy needs comes from the lack of solicitude, creating harsh men. Only Cyrus’s teachings train them, “physically and mentally” which he strives for and achieves through fear. (21) Nevertheless, this creates disdain in their hearts. Knowledge given to them by him, creates a set of guidelines each son follows and lives by.

James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son" demonstrates his complex and unique relationship with his father. Baldwin's relationship with his father is very similar to most father-son relationships but the effect of racial discrimination on the lives of both, (the father and the son) makes it distinctive. At the outset, Baldwin accepts the fact that his father was only trying to look out for him, but deep down, he cannot help but feel that his father was imposing his thoughts and experiences on him. Baldwin's depiction of his relationship with his father while he was alive is full of loathing and detest for him and his ideologies, but as he matures, he discovers his father in himself. His father's hatred in relation to the white American society had filled him with hatred towards his father.