Reviewing Khaled Hosseini's Novel The Act of Betrayal in and The Mountains Echoed

Betrayal in Khaled Hosseni’s And the Mountains Echoed

The foundation of trust is paramount in family and the quality of relationships. A person puts the most trust in family and friends. People feel betrayed at least once in their lives. Betrayal is the act of disloyalty, unfaithfulness, or the disappointment in the hopes or expectations of an individual. In Khaled Hosseni’s novel, “And the Mountains Echoed” many of the protagonists’ express feelings of betrayal. When Abdullah’s father Saboor, sells Pari, both siblings feel betrayed. Parwana feels she deceived her sister Masooma by being responsible for her paraplegic condition, and Adel is deluded by his father when he realizes a certain truth. All of these characters’ are impacted by the act of betrayal, causing them to become different people emotionally, and mentally. These characters’ all share one thing in common; they were betrayed by their loved ones whom a person would trust the most. Putting abundant amounts of trust in your family and then being deceived is the worst type of betrayal.

Pari and Abdullah were both impacted significantly by the actions taken by their father Saboor and uncle Nabi earlier in their lives. At the beginning of the novel, Saboor told a story to his two children. The story was about a monster called a Div, who chose a child every year to take away from their family. The Div chose a house, and the family living in it was to give one of their children to the Div, or else all their children would be taken. The father is given a magic potion for the pain of giving up his son which causes him to forget his child. In the story the father mentioned, “A finger had to be cut, to save the hand.” (5) This meant that if they needed to pick one child or else all the children would be taken, just like if Pari was not adopted then worse events could occur. When Pari leaves, Abdullah repeats the same words about a finger being cut to save the hand. At this point he says, “and he would long for a swig of the magic potion the Div had given Baba Ayoub so that he too could forget.” (48) This shows irony because many years later he does forget due to Alzheimer’s. With time, Abdullah forgets every memory of Pari, along with knowing that he had a sister. This event displays how his memories also betrayed him due to her adoption. Abdullah forgetting Pari helped him forget the pain, however he lost any happy memory he had of his sister. Pari was four years old when she was adopted and taken away from her family. Her Uncle was the person who made arrangements for her adoption. With this Pari feels deceit by him because he is family, whom one trusts most. Uncle Nabi is Parwana’s brother and ironically; Pari’s step-uncle. There is no blood relation between them so this relationship being step helps readers’ understand how Nabi’s personal choices were influenced by a weak bond. Saboor allowing this, betrays his daughter by selling her as parents should never abandon their child. When Saboor and Abdullah come back home, the father says to him, “’I won’t have any crying,’ Father had said. ‘No crying, I won’t have it.’” (47) Saboor understands what took place was wrong, however he decides to go through with Pari’s adoption. He does not even want to talk about it because of the pain he will feel knowing he sold his daughter. Abdullah feels the same pain and deceitfulness as he lost the one person he loved most in his life. Since their biological mother had died, Abdullah cared for Pari all her life. When she left, Abdullah said, “There was nothing left for him here. He had no name here.” (49) Abdullah had an attachment to her and when she was given away he felt there was no meaning to life. His father also in a way betrayed himself. He lost one of the last memories he had of his first wife. Abdullah and Pari’s mother died in childbirth when Pari was born. This adoption symbolized Saboor giving away his daughter along with her being at fault for the mother’s death. Abdullah losing Pari impacted him in ways where his love lessoned for his father. Saboor’s relationship with Uncle Nabi weakened and his own respect for himself decreased as well.

Parwana betrayed Masooma indirectly almost all her life. She always felt inferior to her sister; and although they had a good relationship, it seemed they were bitter to each other in secret. Since the day they were born, Masooma was superior to her. From the way Masooma was born effortlessly, while Parwana had her umbilical cord around her neck, and the differences in beauty; Masooma was always in the shadows. Parwana and Masooma both had fallen inlove with Saboor. Masooma went to tell Parwana about her marriage to Saboor, and in an act of jealousy, Parwana caused Masooma to fall from a tree. Masooma then became paraplegic and was not able to marry Saboor. Prior to the accident in an act of ambiguous vengeance; in the text it says, “Parwana planted the heels of her hands on the branch, lifted her bottom, and then let it drop.” (67) When Masooma fell from the tree Parwana came back to reality and realized she not only betrayed and took away her sister’s love but also was not able to keep her head up. She felt ashamed in what she did and Masooma started feeling like a burden and asked her sister to help her commit suicide. Although this did not impact Masooma as being deceived Parwana felt she herself was impacted as she betrayed herself by being selfish with her sister’s love. Parwana felt guilty because she allowed herself to ruin her sister’s life. Parwana did end up marrying Saboor, meaning she took away her sister’s hopes to marry him. Parwana’s actions with her sister left her with a bitter-sweet ending of marrying Saboor but never being able to be truly happy about it.

Adel is a young boy living with his family. His father is known to be a great man who always helps everybody. When Adel made a new friend named Gholam, he told him how his father wasn’t a good person. Adel learns about his father’s violence and his illegal businesses. Adel learnt his father took Gholam’s and his family’s land when they left to run away from the war. This land happened to be Saboor’s from many years back as Gholam was his great grand-son. Gholam said to Adel, “Imagine how my family felt, coming all the way from Pakistan, only to get off the bus and find this thing on our land.” (267) Adel’s father not only betrays Adel but also cheats Gholam’s family by taking what was theirs. When Adel and Gholam were arguing about Adel’s father, Gholam said to him, “I hold nothing against you. You’re just and ignorant little boy. But next time Baba goes to Helmand, ask him to take you to that factory of his. See what he’s got growing out there. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not cotton.” (268) Gholam was right about Adel being ignorant because Adel was put in the shadows and blinded by his father since he was a child. When Adel realizes who his father really is, he started to believe everything Gholam. One day a man threw a few rocks at his home which broke a window, Adel was taken to his room on lockdown with his mother and found himself curious as well as afraid in what his father was going to do with the man. He asked his mother, “What is he going to do with that old man?” (273) Adel feared that the old man would be punished by his father as he now understood the cruelty that would take place. It is now understood by readers’ that with Adel’s maturity and character development his father’s violence and power is shown more. Adel is deluded by his father in ways that make him start to always second-guess him. He found his love for his father lessened significantly. He was not able to love his father genuinely like he used to and learned that people are not always how they are portrayed.

Despite all the deceit and delusion the characters’ in “And the Mountains Echoed” went through or caused, they learned their individual lessons through their actions and choices. When Saboor and Uncle Nabi sold Pari, Abdullah learned through his betrayal how important family was. Parwana learned that a bitter-sweet ending was not worth losing someone important, and Adel learned that there was more to things than what he was aware of. Each of the characters’ endure pain and suffering whether they were responsible for it or not, but overall betrayal impacted them greatly in their lives and changed the way they looked at certain aspects of life. Furthermore, the characters’ interchanged and developed through the novel and learned that betrayal and deceit are not more important than loved ones.