Kite Runner Analysis

Amir is the narrator of the story and he tells his story about his childhood in Afghanistan and all the sins he had committed over the years against his brother Hassan. Amir’s journey to salvation is the key theme of the story. I liked Amir because he comes off as a good man and and a good boy for that matter, but he does make a few serious mistakes along the way. He fights for his father’s affection and attention in the beginning of the story. Hassan is Amir’s best friend and at the end of the story he leanrs that Hassan is also his brother. He has the best character traits of anyone in the story. He is honest, loyal and brave. Hassan has to hold up against discrimination every day because he is a Hazara. Which are a minority who people like Amir treat like slaves. The whole plot of the story was from the viewpoint of Amir who tells about the sins he has committed during his childhood and now gets a chance to redeem himself by saving Hassan’s son from bad men. I believe that the theme of the story is Amir’s strength in character because he commits some horrifying sins against his best friend, and finds a chance to redeem himself. He takes it and learns a lesson that everyone should have instilled into their minds. Amir also tells us about his trouble sleeping, because of nightmares and demons he hasn't faced. Mainly, those demons are him and how he knows deep down that he was bad to Hassan. However, the bad dreams and demons go away once he has faced them. He faces them by standing up to Assef and getting beaten by him in an attempt to save Hassan's son. He ends up adopting Hassan's son and has a rough year to start out with but there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the book, where Hassan's son smiles at Amir after not talking for a year.

Chapters 21-25 (The Kite Runner)

Chapters 21-25

Amir continues farther into Kabul, and sees all the violence and brutality of the Taliban. People are dead on the streets and men are fighting over body parts. Everything Amir sees makes him realize that his childhood was very sheltered and he never had to endure real violence or cruelty. Amir drives into his neighborhood and finally comes to his old house. He is soon frisked by guards who stand outside the house and then proceed to take him into a room upstairs. Amir then awaits to have a meeting with the Taliban. He then thinks about how long it’s been since he had seen Assef, who is in fact the very person he is meeting with. Amir also speculates if he even deserved the decency and goodness he had in his childhood and life. Amir seems to realize that he had a good life growing up and that he occasionally took it for granted. Amir while in the hotel room with Assef, also has to endure the pain that Hassan had suffered that day that Amir didn’t help him in the alley with Assef. Assef fights Amir and half way through Amir starts to laugh uncontrollably and finally thinks he is at peace. Everything fades in and out while Amir is in and out of perception while he fights with Assef to give him the child. While in this state Amir dreams of his father wrestling a bear, however when the wrestler looks up it isn’t Baba, it’s Amir. Amir had slipped back into consciousness when he saw Sohrab with a slingshot and a brass ball in it. Sohrab shot it at Assef and saved Amir. When he finally awake, Amir is with a doctor, who tells him he has suffered many injuries. They had escaped. Amir then gets Hassan’s son Sohrab into the United States. They stay in a hotel room and Sohrab becomes intrigued by the color tv in the room and the painting on the wall. Farid, the driver tells Amir he must leave once they were situated. Amir repays him by giving Farid money. Amir drifts into sleep and when he wakes up Sohrab is gone. Amir looked for him at the Mosque. He found him in a field of grass near the mosque. When they got back to the hotel room, Amir calls lawyers and speaks to an immigration lawyer about adopting Sohrab. Amir tells Sohrab that he has to stay in an orphange for a little while. He doesn’t take it well and cries himself to sleep in Amir’s arms. Amir’s wife calls and says they can get him in without bringing Sohrab to an orphanage, but when Amir goes to tell Sohrab the news, he is shocked and screams for an ambulance. Sohrab slit his wrists in the bathtub. At the Hospital, the doctors told Amir that Sohrab was alive. Sohrab was alive but very guarded. He didn’t speak for a year. His eyes were vacant and finally one day when kites were flying, Amir took him outside, bought him a kite and taught him how to fly it. Sohrab smiled and one smile gave Amir hope. It will take a long time for Sohrab and Amir to have a good relationship again because Sohrab seemed to think that he couldn’t trust Amir, also he missed his parents and wanted his old life back very much. Finding Sohrab and helping him, gave Amir peace and helped him relieve him of the cruelty he had committed to Hassan when he was younger, and had released some of the demons Amir had.

Chapters 16-20 (The Kite Runner)

These chapters start out by Rahim saying why he went to see Hassan in the first place, which was loneliness. Amir went to find Hassan and was told he lived in the only house with a walled garden. Amir gets to Hassan’s house only to find an envelope and a picture. Hassan is dead and has a son. In the envelope is a letter and the letter goes on to tell Amir that Hassan wishes him good health and mentions that he has told stories of their childhood to his son. Also, in the photo that Hassan gives to Amir shows the resemblance between Hassan and Baba. After finding this out Amir decides to wander streets, feeling disoriented and stupid because he hadn’t seen it before. Amir begins to go through his past and own up to his wrongs and find strength that he didn’t have before. In the car going to Afghanistan, Amir gets car sick and his driver tells him that car sickness is a trait of a weak man. Amir realizes that he grew up spoiled and he learns a lot about himself on this journey. While looking for Sohrab, Hassan’s son, Amir drives around Afghanistan to see the real Afghanistan, where orphaned children wander the streets. Most people that lived in the empty villages Amir passes are either dead or in refugee camps in Pakistan.

Chapters 7-15 (Kite Runner)

Chapters 7-15


It starts off on the morning of the kite tournament. Hassan had a dream they are at a lake with thousands of other people, but no one is swimming, because there is suppose to be a monster in the lake. Amir jumps into the lake and Hassan follows him. They swim to the middle of the lake and back to prove that there is in fact, no monster. Amir gets scared and wants to withdraw from the tournament but Hassan convinces him otherwise. Amir becomes surprised at how well Hassan knows him and he thinks that maybe Hassan made up the dream. The kite tournament starts, and the two boys send the kite in the air with Amir controlling the string and Hassan feeding it from the reel. Amir makes it to the last dozen and then the last half dozen. Amir ends up neck to neck with a blue kite. Finally, it comes down to the two of them. Amir cuts the blue kite and wins the tournament and sees his father clapping for him and Amir becomes happy that his father is finally proud of him. Hassan runs after the kite for Amir as a trophy. When Amir gets home he gives his kite to Ali and runs to find Hassan. Unfortunately, Amir is unable to find Hassan. People stop him to congratulate him which distracts him from finding Hassan. Finally, an old man, tells him that he saw Hassan run by being chased by three boys. Amir knows immediately who they are and anxiously tries to find Hassan. He finds Hassan in an alley caught against the three boys. However, Amir just stands and watches as they approach Hassan. The three boys try to take the blue kite from Hassan but he refuses to give it to them. Meanwhile, Amir stays hidden and doesn’t go to help his friend. The boys attack Hassan and Amir watches and remembers how the two of them had visited a fortune teller together and that the blind man was so shocked by what he felt in Hassan’s hand that he had not told him his fortune. Amir focuses on what is happening and realizes that the three boys plan on raping Hassan.Hassan accepts his fate. Amir, instead of helping his friend, turns and runs away. Later catching up with Hassan. Hassan doesn’t tell Amir what happened and when they go home, everything happens the way Amir wanted it to. His father is proud of him and gives him a hug as Amir hands Baba the blue kite. For the next week after the kite tournament, Amir scarcely sees Hassan. He still makes Amir’s breakfast and lays out his clothes, but he doesn’t stay around to talk to him and Amir can no longer hear him sing. Ali and Baba become worried about Hassan and ask Amir about him. Amir lies and says he is sick. Amir and Hassan’s friendship becomes very shaky after that. Hassan tries to rekindle their old friendship but Amir just pushes him away. That summer Amir turned 13 and his father throws a big birthday party for him which becomes a success. Rahim Khan tells Amir about the fact that he was once married to a Hazara girl named Homaira. His family was so shocked at what he had done that they sent her away and he never saw her again. This is Rahim’s way of trying to get Amir to tell him why he seems so unhappy and Amir almost tells him everything. He stops himself because he fears that Rahim would hate him. Rahim Khan then gives Amir his present: a leather-bound notebook to hold his stories. The next morning after Amir’s birthday party, he opens presents, however his presents do not bring him joy. Amir thinks that Baba would never have thrown him a party if he had not won the kite tournament. It is March 1981 in the book now, and Amir and Baba are in a truck fleeing from the Russians into Pakistan. When the truck stops they are in Mahipar Falls. Chapter 11 starts out in Fremont, California in the 1980’s. Amir and Baba have come to America and Baba loves the idea of America but doesn’t particularly like living in it. Amir recalls staying up late with Ali and Hassan telling stories about sultans and theives. Amir meets Soraya and begins to love her and seriously date her. At the same time however, his father dies. In the next two months, Amir is faced with two ceremonies that are very emotional to him, his wedding to Soraya and his father’s funeral. In chapter 14, Amir’s life goes back to the present with the phone call from Rahim Khan. He tells his wife he has to go to Pakistan. Amir realizes he has to face his demons and sins that he has committed. Amir arrives in Pakistan and is reminded of his hometown.

The Kite Runner (Chapters 1-6)

During the first few chapters of The Kite Runner, it started off with one of the main characters, Amir as an adult living in San Francisco and getting a phone call from an old friend in Pakistan. As he gets off the phone he starts to recollect times of his youth, starting up around 1960 into 1975. He was around 12 years old at the time when things went downhill for him and his country. The flashback starts with all the people that have impacted Amir at this age. Such as his father, who he calls Baba, Ali who was the servant of the house, Hassan who was the servant’s son, who Amir spends most of his time with, and the detail that his mother had died giving birth to him. Amir, doesn’t have a good relationship with his father and as a result every time his father, who treats Hassan almost as a son, shows Hassan a little more attention than Amir he resents it. I particularly don’t like Baba because he doesn’t pay the attention he should to his son. For example, in chapter 2 when Amir and Baba have lunch one day together , Amir told his father that he thought he had cancer, all Baba did was grunt and to go get a soda from the car. Amir desperately requests his father’s acceptance but rarely receives it. No child should have to endure that kind of unspoken abuse. Then book then goes on to speak about different activities that Amir and Hassan shared during their childhoods. During most of their time, Amir reads to Hassan, stories in his mother’s books. Amir likes to read so much that instead of reading to Hassan he makes one of his own stories, Hassan, after hearing it loves it. Amir, feels rejected by his father when he refuses to read his story. Toward the end of their discussion, gunshots are heard from the street for a little under an hour. The morning after the gunshots, the two boys decided to go climb a tree but are stopped by the neighborhood bully, Assef, who Amir refers to as a sociopath. Assef has the intention of beating the boys up but Hassan steps up and threatens Assef with a sling shot saying he will take out his eye if Assef didn’t leave them alone. Hassan’s birthday is in the winter and Baba always gets Hassan a gift. This year it was surgery for his lip, because he had a harelip. This part of the book foreshadows something about Hassan, and about an event that causes him to stop smiling. Also, from what I’ve read so far it seems that Hassan has a better character and more strength in him than Amir, which is showing more of Amir’s flaws. The season’s change in chapter 6 and it’s winter. Winter is the season for kite flying, and every year there is a kite flying tournament. The tournament started early in the morning and would only end when the last kite was out of the sky. This tournament was not just for fun, it was also for social order. They way Baba looked at it was, as his people could fight in war, they could fly their kites. Hassan was one of the best kite runners Amir had ever seen. Amir becomes nervous about the kite tournament and goes to Hassan in need of assurance. He feels comfortable with Hassan because he feels that Hassan can read his mind, since being so close to him.