The Kite Runner Socratic Seminar Reflection #1

      The seminar influenced the way I thought about Amir’s relationship with Baba and Hassan.  While completing preparation for the seminar, I realized that Amir’s relationships with Baba and Hassan were almost opposite because while Amir tries hard to please Baba but maintains a distant relationship, he is very close with Hassan but tries not to give him too much credit.  One thing that was said which I hadn’t thought of in depth was how Assef might not actually be a good son of Baba’s despite their friendliness displayed in the book.  This might be true because Assef’s tendency to manipulate others and prove himself superior might clash with Baba’s manliness and duty as leader and protector.

      The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that Amir is not a very likeable character due to his bullying of Hassan.  I found this statement to be true because in the story, Amir is constantly doing little things to prove himself superior to Hassan, like giving him the wrong definitions of words, or making fun of him.  Although there were small points that I may have disagreed with, I generally agreed with every statement made in the seminar, maybe because the story evoked the same emotional responses from my peers.  If I had the opportunity to add anything to the seminar, I would have mentioned that Amir’s belief that he should be superior to Hassan because Hassan is his servant.

      Surprisingly, some things that worked really well for the seminar were the use of emotional appeals.  On the surface, The Kite Runner is a story of social conflict, political turmoil, and new life in the USA.  However, beneath the surface, there is an entire dimension having to do with the relationships between Amir and Hassan, notably, Amir’s torturous guilt of never confessing the rape.  These emotional relationships in the books made up the majority of the conversation during the seminar, and therefore, the use of emotional appeals was a success for the first time.

      Some things that needed improvement in the seminar were the separation of people for the groups and lack of preparation.  The groups were split up by chance, and therefore, the first group ended up having many more people than the second one.  This was a problem because it changed the amount of speaking time people had in each group.  Another improvement that could be made was the lack of preparation.  Many people were very well prepared, but there were others who had clearly not studied the subject material beforehand.  This made it very difficult to include everyone I the seminar.