Foreshadowing

"I will never forget how Assef's blue eyes glinted with a light not entirely sane and how he grinned... as he pummeled that poor kid unconscious." This quote comes from the scene where Amir and Hassan are cornered for the first time by the neighborhood bullies. Amir knows what they can do to them because he has seen it happen to other kids before. He refers to this look in Assef's eyes again when he is raping Hassan. This is used as foreshadowing to let the reader know of the horrible things that are about to happen. Assef is insane and gets genuine pleasure out of beating other kids up. He smiles to himself as he "pummels"someone. In this same way, he is cheerful when he rapes Hassan. Amir knows that he will not stop for anything because he is mentally insane."Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath." I didn't know what this word meant so I looked it up; a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. I think this describes him perfectly because he does not see the moral wrongness of what he is doing whatsoever.