Fiction can compress political conflicts into individual moral showdowns resolved by revenge.

Evidence

The stark delineation of good and evil in the book is consistent with a simple, homespun morality wherein political forces are compressed into questions of personal conduct. The heavily literalized David-and-Goliath battles between Assef and his Hazara victims culminate when Sohrab blinds Assef with a slingshot. It is not necessary to explore all the cultural resonances of employing that particular story (twice in fact) as a symbol of good triumphing against overwhelming odds. Instead, we may simply note it as consistent with a worldview where moral instruction comes courtesy of the John Wayne Westerns that Amir and Hassan enjoy watching as boys, in which redemption takes place through action and, more specifically, revenge. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 252

Categorization

• SEED: The contrast between Amir’s revenge-and-redemption moral frame (John Wayne logic) and the ambiguity of The Reluctant Fundamentalist — a comparative essay could build on which narrative structure contests vs. reinforces Islamophobia.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s central question: this is exactly the polarity Morey uses to distinguish a novel that contests fear from one that placates it — the personalized-revenge frame vs. the unresolved, ambiguous frame of Naqvi and Hamid.