Kite Runner Character Analysis

Although Amir thinks his father, Baba, is angry at him for not living up to his family’s beliefs, Baba does not hate Amir. Baba just wants Amir to be a proud man, so Baba can relate to him and further extend their relationship, but Amir does not live up to his father’s specific expectations. When Baba sees that Amir is not growing up like he did he becomes disappointed in Amir. Baba does not agree with Amir’s love and passion for reading poetry and writing stories, because he believes it shows a lack of courage and this does help their relationship. Amir simply wants to make his father happy and try and live in his footsteps. In the book I believe this relationship is part of the reason why Amir didn’t help Hassan when he was being raped, because he wanted to please his father with the victory kite of the contest. If he were to help Hassan the kite would be taken by Assef, but in actual fact I believe Baba would be happier if he stood up for his friend rather than winning the tournament. Amir could have also left Hassan because he is jealous of his father and Hassan friendship.

Throughout the whole book, Amir has been vying for love from his father, often against Hassan, and feels powerless when he does not get it; this causes him to attempt to assert power in other aspects of his life, usually over Hassan. Amir feels as if Baba does not love him, and feels powerless to fix it; he says, “I always felt like Baba hated me a little, And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could have done was to have the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him. Not at all” (Hosseini 19). He believes there is nothing he can do to make his father love him; after all, he cannot change the past, and he cannot change himself substantially. This feeling of powerlessness affects him in such a way that he feels the need to compensate for this loss of power elsewhere in his life. He would exploit the kindness and forgiveness Hassan always showed him, and would try and prove his superiority and worth in that relationship. Amir once asked if Hassan would eat dirt if he asked him to, and afterwards said, “I knew I was being cruel, like when I’d taunt him if he didn’t know some big word. But there was something fascinating--albeit in a sick way--about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play insect torture. Except now he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass,” (Hosseini 54). Amir is filling the power gap he feels in his life with power over Hassan, and is trying to show Hassan how much control he has over him. Hassan, Amir’s servant and a genuinely kind person, is in a vulnerable position against Amir,

“ For you, a thousand times over”. This one sentence sums up the immense love, loyalty and friendship Hassan had for Amir.

When Amir was looking for Hassan after the kite flying contest he is talking to someone asking if they had seen him. He refers to Hassan as “our servant’s son” (69). He and Hassan are best friends at home through their entire childhoods. Despite this, he still does not even refer to him as a friend to society; to the people around him Hassan is just his servant. Then later in the novel after he has witnessed Hassan getting raped, he does not want Hassan to be living with them anymore. He asks Baba “have you ever thought about getting new servants?” (89). He tries to exile his best friend for no reason at all even though they have been through everything together. This is the foundation of Amir showing this theme of exile towards Hassan, and it only gets worse. Hassan begins to notice what Amir is doing and tells him “I don’t know what i’ve done, Amir agah I wish you’d tell me. I don’t know why we don’t play anymore” (88). He ignores Hassan and shuts him out into exile even though all he has done is be loyal to Amir. Soon after Amir wants to completely exile Hassan and get him out of his home for good. Amir decides to frame him so he “lifted Hassan’s mattress and planted [his] new watch and handful of Afghani bills under it” (104). Amir lets Hassan take the blame for this act completely and exiles him out of his life forever. Hassan even writes to him but Amir does not respond. Amir exiles Hassan and shows the theme of exile through his actions toward Hassan throughout the

In life there are people that you could judge like a book, but others are morally ambiguous where you don’t know the other side to that story.In the book The Kite Runner there are many characters that are morally ambiguous which means the appear something but there a complete opposite. The Kite runner by Khaled Hosseini is an adventure book with many different characters. Some of those character are morally ambiguous. Zaman is the chacheter I will be talking about is a middle aged man that has a family later on in the novel you get to meet him, he appears to be good. But soon to come you learn a dark thing he is doing. Although he tries to reason with his bad doing.

A character that is morally ambiguous is unclear and they make rash decisions that make others think differently or confuse them. In the story, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the main character, and narrator of the story, Amir, face harsh realities and dwells on his bad decisions and qualities throughout the story. Amir’s friend and brother, Hassan, is there with Amir throughout the story and experiences tough decisions and horrible tragedies as well. More horrible than Amir experiences. The author put morally ambiguous characters like Amir into the story to represent why it is important to have clear thoughts and good decision making. Amir’s decisions he has made are not bad nor not all good, and that is why Amir is chosen to be a morally ambiguous character in The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.

“I thought about Hassan’s dream, the one about us swimming in the lake. There is no monster, he’s said, just water. Expect he’d been wrong about that. There was a monster in the lake… I was that monster.” When looking at this quote some may wonder who would be considered the monster; and in this case Amir would be. The idea of him redeeming himself from being a monster is a recurring theme in the story and the movie.

A morally ambiguous character is one who shows positive and negative moral traits. Khaled Hosseini points out that, the main character in his story, The Kite Runner is morally ambiguous. That being Amir, who shows a great deal of moral traits. Hosseini put morally ambiguous characters in the reading to show the reader that good can overcome any negative situation. Amir shows how he is a terrible kid at the beginning of the story and towards the end, as he grows up, he shows a new character in himself.

After he nearly convinces himself Hassan is “not [his] friend,” Amir is ashamed for neglecting his best friend in pursuit of his own safety. By portraying Amir’s guilt, the author displays Amir’s conflicted feelings for Hassan—the person who he has always treated “like a brother”—thus highlighting his inability to be decisive. Hosseini seems to believe that, although humans make mistakes, the following guilt can strengthen a person’s relationships in the long-term, provided they avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Later in the story, Amir and Hassan have a second encounter with Assef when Hassan is raped, but Amir simply watches the scene as a bystander, traumatized and scared to stand up for his friend. Amir continues to carry the burden of guilt for the rest of the novel and expresses his frustration by attempting to cut ties with Hassan. In chapter 9, Amir frames Hassan for stealing by placing his birthday money and his watch under Hassan’s mattress. When Baba finds out that Hassan had “stolen” from Amir—as Amir had planned— Hassan shockingly admits to stealing the watch and money, even though he was not responsible. However, Baba forgives Hassan, leaving Amir in a

Betrayal is something that can’t be exonerated. Trust is lost when someone is betrayed. A bond between two friends is slowly broken. There are times when Amir tried to get rid of Hassan. He is doing this to rid himself of the severe guilt that is slowly deteriorating him on the inside. Amir’s lack of action during Hassan’s rape causes him to use Hassan as a scapegoat to abscond from his guilt. Amir is clearly using Hassan and hoping to get him in trouble when, “Baba came right out and asked, ‘Did you steal that money? Did you steal Amir’s watch, Hassan?’ Hassan’s reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: Yes” (Hosseini 105). The sexual assault incident with Hassan symbolizes a kite. A kite is free, happy, carefree, and represents a strong bond between itself and the owner. However, a sudden gust of wind can violently change the kite’s

Hosseini shows that it is Amirs immense guilt that drives him to want to make things right and to earn redemption. We learn the basis Amir's guilt through his memories. It is caused by a lack of response at a time when his loyal servant and close friend Hassan is in trouble. Amir makes a conscious decision to hide in the distance and just watch, not because he was afraid. He sacrifices Hassan in order to earn his fathers attention and affection. This decision results in Hassan suffering though a traumatic experience and is the root of Amir's lasting regret.

As much as the book showed growth within Amir and how he realized his mistakes, he primarily disregards Hassan as a friend because he put Baba’s love in front of the relationship and always took into consideration his race and his social class. While Hosseini writes about Amir fulfilling his destiny and fixing his wrongdoings with Hassan, it brings up questions about how to treat each other: can you always fix mistakes later, or should you do the correct decision right

Social conditions are what shape a country. Over the years, people, not only in Afghanistan, but around the world create norms that define people’s roles in life, their future, and how they should be treated based on their gender and beliefs. Khaled Hosseini’s first novel, The Kite Runner, comments on the social conditions of Afghanistan through telling a story about the lives of two Muslim boys; a privileged Sunni Pashtun, Amir, and his long-time friend and servant, Hassan, a loyal but disadvantaged Shia Hazara. Hosseini expresses Amir’s uncertain feelings toward Hassan which form the decisions he makes throughout the book. These choices result in Amir destroying his relationship with Hassan. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini is a commentary on the social conditions in Afghanistan as shown through the roles of women and men in society and the ideals of Afghan culture. Unfortunately, these problems are still active in most of Afghanistan.

Throughout the novel, Amir endeavors to be approved by his father, Baba, who is admired by people in Kabul. Unfortunately, Baba believes that Amir, unlike him, is very unmanly “and [that he] never fights back. He just... drops his head ” (Hosseini 24). Since Baba wishes for a son who would stand up for himself, he can’t help but observe that Amir’s friend Hassan, as the guy who “steps in and fends the [bullies] off” (Hosseini 24) is his idea of the ideal son. Though aware of his father’s expectations, Amir is unable to change himself and instead envies Hassan and the fact that Baba treats him like his own son by“[patting]Hassan on the back. [and even putting] his arm around his shoulder [like a fatherly figure]”(Hosseini 15). Despite the manifestation of this hatred in Amir, he continues to recognize the bond that he shares with Hassan, “ brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast” (Hosseini 11) which is because both their mothers died during birth. The confusing emotions he feels for Hassan has Amir face a situation in which he acts inappropriately and allows the guilt to manifest upon him. After winning a very important kite tournament for the first time and “seeing Baba on that roof, proud of [him] at last” (Hosseini 71) Amir begins to search for Hassan who had gone to run his kite earlier. Finally, Amir finds him in a dark alley and as he “peeks around the corner” (Hosseini 75) he witnesses a sight that eradicated not only his relationship with Hassan but also Baba’s brotherly relationship with Ali, Hassan’s father. Peeking through the corner of the alley, like a bystander, he watches his one and only friend getting raped. The guilt that came upon him was for two reason; one, his lack of courage to stand up to

Amir stumbles upon an alley. In the alley, he sees the Hassan trap by three boys named Assef, Kamal, and Wali. All they asked of Hassan is to give up the blue kite. However, Hassan’s loyalty and friendship toward Amir prevented Hassan to give up the kite. As the tension built, Assef lets Hassan have the kite, but in-return he does unthinkable. Assef rapes Hassan as Amir watched unnoticeably from the alley (Hosseini 62-66). This was Amir’s chance to prove his true friendship by stepping in to save Hassan. Instead, Amir ran “because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he could do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan” (Hosseini 68). According to Amir, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (Hosseini 68). “He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 68).