Norvey 1

Elizabeth Norvey

Mrs. Rutan

A.P Literature & Composition

31 October 2016

Poem Character Commentary Paper: Thy Brothers Blood:

Blood and heritage are what makes a person who they are; their religion, for the most part, how

they look, the traditions they practice. Hassan from Khaled Hosseinis The Kite Runner is a Hazara, a

Shia Muslim descended from the Mongols. Because of his blood and ancestors, he is shunned and made a

servant. The boy may be shunned, but unwittingly, he is not full Hazara. His father is, in fact, Baba, the

father of the protagonist which Hosseini so artfully paints for us, Amir. This is the point at which the

poem Thy Brothers Blood authored by Jones Very may be related in.

Thy Brothers Blood is an incredibly religious poem, seeing the line: Abels red blood upon the

earth is spilt, (Jones Very, Line 7). But, there is another theme in play here: one of brothers and blood.

The shared blood between a set of brothers, Jones seems to state, should not be spilled by one another,

and if it must be, it is a dirty thing. Go wash the hand that still betrays thy guilt;- Before the spirits gaze

what stain can hide? (Jones Very, Lines 5-6) Amir and Hassan have an odd relationship, one between the

love of brothers and the loyalty of servant and master. But foreshadowing for the harm that Amir would

bring to Hassan was clear: Id sooner eat dirt, he said with a look of indignation. Really? Youd do

that? Eat dirt if I told you to. (Khaled Hosseini, 54) Amir seems to want something to happen to

Hassan sometimes, and you can see how, while he cares for Hassan, he does not truly accept him as an

equal, as though Hassan will always be less than Amir.

Not only is shedding the blood of your kin a horrible sin, but, as Very states, it is with a guilty

conscience that you must live the rest of your life with it. It is a crime that must be rectified in some way:
 Norvey 2

Go, all its hidden plunder quickly sell, Then shalt thou cleanse thee from thy brothers gore, Then will I

take they gift;-That bloody stain shall not be seen upon thy hand again. (Jones Very, Lines 11-14) Those

who knew of Amirs treachery towards Hassan knew that it must be fixed, as Rahim Khan says, Come.

There is a way to be good again, (Khaled Hosseini, 192) But we also know that Amir knew, as well, that

what he did had to be fixed, or he would live the rest of his life consumed by guilt. Even his dream, after

hearing of Hassans murder, hints at his guilt gnawing at him from the inside out: His hands are tied

behind him...He is kneeling on the street, on the edge of a gutter filled with still water, his head drooping

between his shoulders...I step closer. A thousand times over, h e mutters. For you a thousand times

over...I see a faint scar above his upper lip...Then the man standing behind him. He is tall, dressed in a

herringbone vest and a black turban...The rifle roars with a deafening crack...I am the man in the

herringbone vest. (Khaled Hosseini, 239-240). Amirs life has revolved around the one moment that he

wasnt there for Hassan, made worse by the knowledge that they are brothers, even if it is only a

half-relation. The guilt swelling in Amir leads him to truly rectify what he did so many years ago.

Blood binds family together; the common link between us is the reason that we stay together. But

when you wrong family, you will find an insurmountable guilt chewing away at your soul. And this is

where we found Amir. Thy Brothers Blood begins by describing a horrific thing done by one brother to

another, and, in the end, the brother left standing had to be washed of his guilt to truly move on. Amir

must do the same, wash his sins away by righting the wrong, though he cant undo the past. Hosseini had

many messages in his book, The Kite Runner, however, the common link between his story and Verys

poem was the issue of blood, and how it affects everything, from how were treated to how we live our

lives.
 Norvey 3

Works Cited

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead, 2003. Print.

"Thy Brother's Blood by Jones Very | Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. Poetry

Foundation. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.