...In life, there is always a way to be good again because no matter what happens you can always redeem yourself. This statement is especially true for the novel “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini. In the novel the main character is a Pashtun boy named Amir who is the son of a wealthy father and a Hazara boy named Hassan who is the son of a poor father. Hassan and his father Ali are the servents to Hassan and his father Baba located in Afghanastan. In a land where reputation is like a gun which is aimed at you at all times Amir is constantly reminded of how poorly Hazara’s are treated throughout the novel. Amir and Hassan are no exception to the problems in Afghan society and this is seen through Amir’s treatment and jeasolousy of Hassan. Throughout the entire novel all Amir wanted was his fathers love and attenetion but he realized that he had to constantly live up to his fathers expectations in order to gain it. Amir wants to be the only person in his fathers life but instead he has to share the spotlight with Hassan as well who Amir claims is just a “Hazara boy”. Amir feels guilty in many situations because Hassan always takes the blame for Amir’s actions and always shows love and dedication to Amir even in the face of danger. One such incident where Hassan was in the face of danger and even death was right after Amir and Hassan won the kite fighting championship. Hassan being Amirs servent decides to “run the kite” which means to get the kite that was cut and return it to Amir...
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...many of the characters. The novel progresses through the life of a boy named Amir and all the struggles he endures. He betrays others, he gets betrayed, and he learns to forgive. Amir allows his guilt to consume him and with that he becomes a man full of remorse and regrets. Forgiveness of not only others, but himself helps him overcome these hardships and allows readers to learn that yes, there is a way to be good again. Growing up wealthy in Afghanistan, Amir had a servant named named Hassan. Being the same age,...
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...were the last words Rahim Khan said to Amir before he hung up the phone. He wanted Amir to come back to pakistan and talk because he was very ill, Amir feared going back because of his wife and life in America. Rahim told him that coming back and seeing him would be a way to be good again but Amir had no idea how good his life would get through tough obstacles. Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, teaches the reader Amir’s redemption through honesty and coming clean about what happened thee winter of 1975, realizing the things he lied about caused more...
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...which mediates between the two. When making decisions we make them based on these two parts of our subconscious mind. Freud believed that the subconscious sexual drives were the bases for all human behavior, and that dreams were an important indicator for understanding human behavior. The kite runner is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini, which first takes place in the city of Kabul located in Afghanistan. It’s a story about a man who is named Amir who reflects on his past as a child in Afghanistan. Amir lived with his father, and his servants, ali and Hassan During that time period was a caste system in Afghanistan which was in place. Amir and his father were Pashtu, which is considered “pure” afghan. They were placed much higher than their servants Ali and Hassan who were Hazara. After a kite flying competition that Amir and Hassan attended together, Amir saw Hassan getting raped in an alleyway by a boy named Assef. Instead of Amir running to get help he kept this to himself and told nobody. He lived with this guilt all throughout his life. Through the Freudian lens, the author depicts the psychological imbalances of a society that is struggling through the jungle he creates. Three of Freud’s theories which were prominent in the story are the theory of the...
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...In the book it is shown that blood is not only a person's life line but their connections to those in their society. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, blood serves as a motif and combines with other motifs like rape and death to reveal a theme that speaks to family, power and loss of humanity. Rape and death are connected in that there is theft involved for both motifs. For rape it is the theft of one's humanity and for death is the theft of one's life. The motif of blood is what connects death and rape together to create the ideas of theft, loss of humanity and family. Rape is never about sex, it's always about power and the loss of one's humanity. In the kite runner there are many rapes that occur that change the lives of many people...
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...of the book, who also is apart of the story, is named Amir. Amir grew up peacefully when he was little, as he grew older, the country’s revolution began and Russian forces invade Afghanistan. There are two different kinds of Muslims, Amir was one kind and his servant, and also his one and only best friend, like a brother, is another kind of Muslim. Conflict between to different sides of the religion separates these two brothers apart, so does war. Amir and his father were rich, and Hassan and his father were poor. Amir and Hassan share the same father, who is Amir’s father, but nobody knows until it came time for the father to die. Amir and Hassans friendship fell apart for the fact that Amir was rich, and the presence of Hassan at his side at all times other than a servant embarrassed him. Also during the war, Amir and his father get away to America while Hassan and his father stay back in their country and try and live. This book shows you the different kinds of people. How there are some that will fight for what they believe in, and others who will let it all go and run away from it no matter how much money they have spent or how much they loved it. Years pass as Amir is now older; he worked hard in America with his father, and then marries. His father leaves him with the truth that Hassan is his blood brother. Guilt and suffering is also a big part of this story, for Amir had let his own brother get rapped by boys of his age when they were young because, of the...
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...Kite Runner’, Khaled Hossieni leads his audience down the path of a young boy growing up in Afghanistan and his road to find redemption. At the beginning of the novel, we find a grown man named Amir, still struggling to overcome his ‘shameful past’ of sins, lying and betrayal. As we are transported into the world of Amir in his home town of Kabul in North-East Afghanistan, we experience his life story; from early childhood, where he flew kites daily with his Hazara friend Hassan, to his adulthood in America where he struggled to live in the poor conditions with his ill father. Amir’s wrong-doings back in his childhood forever haunt him and the secrets of his past drive him to seek redemption and endeavor to find amends for his sins. Amir’s childhood consisted of mockery and disloyalty to Hassan. Even after moving away to America with his father, Amir finds it difficult and cannot bury his guilt. Amir’s return to Afghanistan in order to ‘be good again’, is a mere act of selfishness as his only motivation for returning was to relieve himself of the remorse that he felt for many years. In the beginning, Amir and Hassan’s friendship seems unbinding and they are practically inseparable. Whether flying kites out in the streets or reading books by the pomegranate tree, the two young Afghani boys did everything together. Hassan’s unyielding loyalty and willingness to serve Amir is truly astonishing and yet Amir tends never to return the favour, apart from perhaps reading his uneducated...
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...story about the life of one Afghani boy's struggle from riches to rags and finding the truth about people in general. The story is about two boys growing up in pre- Soviet and Taliban Afghanistan. Amir is a Sunni or the privileged class; Hassan is Shi'a, which is the lowest minority. Even still the two boys, grow up together as brothers. Until one horrible incident changes everything. The Kite Runner is a story about love, guilt, truth, and redemption. Amir grows up as the only son of a WEALTHY MAN in Kabul where life is rich and full of possibilities prior to the Soviet invasion. His father Baba is disappointed in the bookish, non-athletic child he must raise. Amirs' playmate Hassan, a Hazara servant seems to have more of Baba's respect than Amir. Baba's love for Hassan and his disappointment in his own son drive Amir to taunt and abandon Hassan, even though he loves him more deeply than even he himself knows. Amir, burdened by jealousy, can't come to his friend's aid when he brutally raped, not even on the most glorious day of their childhood when together they claim the kite-fighting title. When the Russian army invades, Amir and his father flee to the United States. Amir grows up poor and in a different land, but with the same Afghanistan culture. He marries, goes to college, while wondering what happened to his childhood friend, the one he betrayed. As time marches on, Amir loses his father and is summoned to Pakistan to meet with an old family friend. There Amir searches for...
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...the Afghan-born American novelist and physician, Khaled Hosseini. He was born into a Shia family in Kabul, and later on in his life when the family moved to Paris because of his father’s occupation, Hosseini’s family was unable to return to Kabul due to the bloody Saur Revolution; hence they had to seek political asylum in the United States. Being as young as he was, roughly 11 years of age, the actions of his home country must have left an impression on him. It is such a great read because among many other themes such as betrayal, redemption, bullying, inhumanities of revolution, discrimination, loyalty, hypocrisy, horrors of rapes etc. the main focus of this story is of a man who is haunted by his past demons. We see in some of the opening lines of the novel, “I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975… That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.” These opening lines gets the ball rolling on what is to come and to be expected from the story, of possibly an aged man who is looking back at the past and justifying how it has made him the way that he is to date. The setting vividly takes place in the disorderly country of Kabul, Afghanistan in the 20th century. Hosseini, through the character of Amir, does an excellent job describing the chaotic setting in contrast to any other parts of the western world such as Europe or North...
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...will assist Amir in his life threatening attempt to take Sohrab from Assef however he is furious with how Aamir left Afghanistan during the Russian Occupation, "Farid snickered. Tossed his cigarette. "You still think of this place as your country?... "Because you wanted to know," he spat. He pointed to an old man dressed in ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap pack filled with scrub grass tied to his back. "That's the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. That's the Afghanistan I know. You? You've always been a tourist here, you just didn't know it."(Pg.197-198) It is evident that this equates explains how a man with who devalues honor is a man with no respect, or in other words a "pussy". Amir a man who couldn't care less for honor since the day he was board and was being put down and treated him like a milksop from a taxi driver who was is his freind. Furthermore, In the passage, "2017 Passage about Pashtunwali" written by Jon Krakauer, a Ghani who employed at a military base comes across a manual laborer who had trouble with a task and beats him with the stock of his rifle. Subsequently he blutters, "“I am telling you, if the guy does something wrong, and you didn’t do something back against him, after this he will have no respect for you. He will think you are a pussy motherfucker. And then he will be...
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...Sins and Forgiveness How could one mistake affect someone's life forever? Amir is a young boy who lived with Baba, his father, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Amir and Baba had secrets that affected a dramatic portion of their lives. Both had spent most of their days trying to atone the mistakes that had been made to finally be in harmony. “But it's wrong what they say about the past , I've learned about how you can’t bury it because the past claws it’s way out”(169). They both wanted to make it up to a boy named Hassan. Hassan was Amir's loyal friend and their family servant. He was also Babas child but no one had known that except Baba. Amir felt the need to make it up to Baba as well because his wife died giving birth to Amir. As a young child...
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...‘The Kite Runner’, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a novel based on the life journey of a man named Amir. Although very dark, through the use of important themes the book is made strongly relatable to young people. Three of these include: degradation, the fragile relationship between a father and his son and the pursuit for redemption. The fragility of a father and his son’s relationship is shown through the strong characterisation of both males and the constant use of proleptic irony embedded throughout their relationship. The symbols of rape express the theme of degradation and class discrimination, whereas the pursuit for redemption is conveyed through the dramatic sequences of events that occur during the course of the novel. Hosseini heavily emphasises the Afghani class discrimination, with the ‘pure’ Pashtuns being the dominate race over the low class, minority group of Hazaras. This degradation makes it very difficult for anyone to marry into another class and the Hazaras are often victims of physical, emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of Pashtuns. Hosseini uses the act of rape since it carries a great deal of significance as it demonstrates a symbolic violation of the powerless by those who have power. In each instance of rape we see that the rapist is always in a position of greater power both socially and physically. For instance, Assef, a well-known bully, is rich and has a politically powerful father, while, Amir’s friend and later, found to be half-brother...
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...In the beginning of the story “The Kite Runner”, the narrator known as Amir begins by quoting, “I became what I am today at the age of twelve” (Hosseini, 1). He describes a mysterious crumbling mud wall and an alley besides a frozen creek in the year 1975. He then states that he has been “peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty- six years” (Hosseini, 1). Something is obviously bothering him, but it really takes affect after a chilling phone call from an old family friend Rhami Khan, in Pakistan. To Amir, it isn’t just Rahim Khan on the line; it is his past which is filled with sin for which he never reconciled for. After hanging up, Amir goes for a walk along Spreckels Lake on the Northern edge of Golden Gate Park where he sees a pair of kites soaring in the sky. They remind him of his childhood friend Hassan, the hair lipped kite runner who had once told Amir “for you a thousand times over” (Hosseini, 67). Everything from 1975 floods back into his mind and he starts to remember how he became who he is today. Amir starts to remember his childhood memories of him and Hassan climbing the popular tree in the drive way of his father’s home and playing with mirrors to reflect sunlight into the windows of the neighbor’s houses. He describes their boyish misbehavior due on his part and by always taking advantage of Hassan who he says would never...
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...to very few people, considering the Taliban, the war, and the bombing of family and friends. You never know what is going to happen next or if there will ever be a tomorrow. For Laila, she has had a very rough life and even worse, having her parents blown up right in front of her. Not being loved your entire life by your own mother is something everyone wants to avoid, but Laila was one of the unfortunate. She only had attention from her dad and then she became alone from the bombing. She married at a youth life to a man who was three times her age who was very abusive to Laila and his other wife, Mariam. This life she had never wanted, but it happened, and she didn’t know what to do. When she was a teenager before marrying Rasheed, she met a boy named Tariq. She fell in love with him from day one even after he moved away with his family. She thought she would never see him again until years later, after many journeys with Rasheed, Tariq shows up, unannounced. Rasheed found out that Tariq had visited and tried to choke Laila until she would die, but Mariam found a shovel and hit him against the head until he fell to floor in a pile of blood. That was the day that both ladies and children of their family became free. Laila never gave up on hope or of finally living life. She...
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...Summary Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara and the son of Amir's father's servant, Ali, spend their days in a peaceful Kabul, kite fighting, roaming the streets and being boys. Amir’s father (who is generally referred to as Baba, "daddy", throughout the book) loves both the boys, but seems critical of Amir for not being manly enough. Amir also fears his father blames him for his mother’s death during childbirth. However, he has a kind father figure in the form of Rahim Khan, Baba’s friend, who understands Amir better, and is supportive of his interest in writing stories. Assef, a notoriously mean and violent older boy with sadistic tendencies, blames Amir for socializing with a Hazara, according to Assef an inferior race that should only live in Hazarajat. He prepares to attack Amir with his steel knuckles, but Hassan bravely stands up to him, threatening to shoot Assef in the eye with his slingshot. Assef and his henchmen back off, but Assef says he will take revenge. Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir, knowing where the kite will land without even watching it. One triumphant day, Amir wins the local tournament, and finally Baba's praise. Hassan goes to run the last cut kite, a great trophy, for Amir saying "For you, a thousand times over." Unfortunately, Hassan runs into Assef and his two henchmen. Hassan refuses to give up Amir's kite, so Assef exacts his revenge, assaulting and raping him. Wondering why Hassan is taking so long, Amir searches...
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