Amir’s realization of his own delusion into thinking he was truly Afghan shows us he faces the facts and “mans up” to himself. From the bottom of 231 to the bottom of 232, Amir hears and realizes he was more American than Afghan. The scene starts with Farid and Amir in a truck on the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan from Pakistan. They had just crossed the border and he had seen, “the signs of poverty were everywhere” (231). Later, Amir comments saying, “I feel like a tourist in my own country.” (231). Farid snickers and asks Amir, “You still think of this place as your country?” (231). Amir says it will always be a small part of him. Farid wonders, “After twenty years of living in America,” (231). Amir responds saying he grew up in Afghanistan.
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Farid then proceeds to expose everything non-Afghan in Amir’s life, saying, “You probably lived in a big two or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees...Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends would come over to drink and boast about their travels to Europe or America. And I bet my first son’s eyes that this is the first time you’ve ever worn a pakol.” (232). Amir asks why he is saying these things, and Farid responds by pointing to an old man in ragged clothes, pulling a large burlap sack filled with scrub grass and saying, “That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.” (232). This scene teaches Amir that he never experienced Afghanistan the way it really is. He was surrounded by this delusion that his family was normal and the servants and poorer people were just lower class, when in reality, those people were normal and Amir’s family was upper class. Farid says it like it is; Amir is not
Farid then proceeds to expose everything non-Afghan in Amir’s life, saying, “You probably lived in a big two or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees...Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends would come over to drink and boast about their travels to Europe or America. And I bet my first son’s eyes that this is the first time you’ve ever worn a pakol.” (232). Amir asks why he is saying these things, and Farid responds by pointing to an old man in ragged clothes, pulling a large burlap sack filled with scrub grass and saying, “That’s the Afghanistan I know. You? You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.” (232). This scene teaches Amir that he never experienced Afghanistan the way it really is. He was surrounded by this delusion that his family was normal and the servants and poorer people were just lower class, when in reality, those people were normal and Amir’s family was upper class. Farid says it like it is; Amir is not