Power and Wealth Theme Analysis

Because And the Mountains Echoed takes place in multiple countries at multiple points in time, its characters differ from one another in nearly every way. Perhaps the most obvious kind of difference between the characters is monetary: some are wealthy, while others struggle just to survive. Even in the earliest pages of the novel, we’re forced to notice the differences between the “have-nots”—such as Saboor, who’s traveling through the desert to do construction work on a mansion—and the “haves”—like Mr. Wahdati, who owns the mansion. It’s worth understanding how power and wealth influence people’s relationships with each other in the novel, and specifically whether they serve to bring people closer together or further isolate them.

From the beginning, Hosseini makes it clear that wealth can be a barrier between different kinds of people. Indeed, as the novel begins, Mr. Wahdati is paying Saboor to build a literal wall between his own family and the rest of the city. Understood in a slightly different sense, wealth is a distraction as well as a barrier. Idris, an Afghan immigrant to the United States, often notes that his children seem uninterested in the rest of the world—they’ve grown so accustomed to their luxurious lifestyle in the United States that they’ve lost all interest in the lives of others. Idris himself is no better. While he expresses an interest in helping Roshana, a young girl who was wounded during war in Afghanistan, the elements of his life in America (a nice house, a home theater, etc.) “drown out” his innate concern for other people.

And yet wealth is also used for good in And the Mountains Echoed. Idris’s cousin, Timur, arranges for Roshana to have an operation, using the money he’s earned as a used car dealer in the United States. There are many other instances of powerful, elite characters using their power to help others, rather than ignore them: Nabi, who donates his house to the foreign doctors who’ve come to Kabul to treat the sick and dying; Dr. Markos, who uses his first-rate medical training to care for people who are too poor to pay, etc. Wealth gives people a way to reach across the world, passing on their gifts to those who need them most.

Power and wealth, much like interconnectedness, are portrayed as “neutral multipliers.” (Indeed, the interconnectedness that we see in And the Mountains Echoed couldn’t exist without money and influence enabling it.) On its own, money is neither a curse nor a blessing. Rather, it’s an invitation for the money-holder to use his or her power with great responsibility—an invitation that’s all the more important, considering that Hosseini is writing during an era that has seen tremendous inequality between the very rich and the very poor.