"I was afraid I'd change my mind. I was afraid I'd deliberate, ruminate, agonize, rationalize, and talk myself into not going. I was afraid the appeal of my life in America would draw me back, that I would wade back into that great, big river and let myself forget, let the things I had learned these last few sink to the bottom. I was afraid that I'd let the waters carry me away from what I had to do. From Hassan. From the past that had come calling. And from this one last chance at redemption." (Hosseini, 2003)
I really like this quote. It embodies many of the topics which we talked about in class today. For example, the culture which Amir is ingrained in. Much like Hermann Hesse, Khaled Hosseini also embraces the imagery of water. Hosseini presents the water cycle as a change that has overtaken the character and the fact of the matter is Amir's life is a cycle in which, eastern philosophy states, what leaves, inevitably comes back--balance. However, Amir also portrays mans resistance to change: self-doubting, selfish, and restrained we subconsciously weigh the options (is the profit higher than the cost? Economic "common sense" right?). Yet blood succumbs profit.
There is also a theme of cleasing that occupies the motif of water. Has Amir's stay in America "cleansed" him of his culture?
Lets take a look at something much more close to home here--The "DREAMers". Most undocumented students, or DREAMers, have lived most, if not all, their lives in America. Their one pursuit--acceptance and embrace of who they are, not who they should be. Neither wholly American or Mexican (foreign), DREAMers live in the gray in utter limbo. These are exemplary people who are outcasts simply because they are not the warranted desire but rather foreigners in their only known home. My question here is, What defines culture and how does it affect the individual?
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Your culture is defined as the specific characteristics of your ethinicity that make them different from each other. Culture is also our environment: the people and things that you grow up and around that make you, you! The saying "product of your environment" is basically a person's culture. They become bi-products of what they are raised around. Amir was neglected by his father as a child, therefore, he neglected Hassan. Newton's Third Law of Motion states that for action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This affect personality as well.
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