Section1: Childhood and Brotherhood

As well as his need to recognize the past not hide from it. “I became what I am today…because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realise I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last 26 years” (1), this quote provides evidence that Amir has reflected his past mistakes and chooses to define himself as a result of them. Later in the novel, Amir finds a form of redemption for his inaction that night in the alleyway when he chooses to return to Afghanistan and save Hassan's only

He has traveled to Afghanistan to save his nephew he never knew. At this point Amir knows the dangers he faces in the war riddled country but he must seek a way to forgive himself for what he did to Hassan. In his quest to make things right again, Amir confronts Assef, ““WHAT’S SO FUNNY?" Assef bellowed. Another rib snapped, this time left lower. What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this.” (Pg. 289) This is a large turning point in the novel. Amir can finally feel like he is doing right by everyone and gaining redemption for his

Amir in the story starts off as a young boy living in Kabul, Pakistan. He and Hassan are friends to the end until Hassan is raped by Assef. While Hassan is being raped Amir is

The story starts out as Amir recalls an event that happened twenty-six years before, when he was growing up in Afghanistan, and this is what made him who he is today. Before the event, he lives in a decent home in Kabul, Afghanistan with his father named Baba. Ali and his son, Hassan, are servants of Amir and Baba, and are also an ethnic minority.

“For me America was a place to bury my memories, for Baba, a place to mourn his” (Hosseini 129). Once again, Hosseini shows that, even after moving across the country, Amir is still trying to shake his past. Rather than dealing with the past he often tries to block it out, but as he said, “the past always claws its way out” (Hosseini 1).

Amir thought, “I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past…. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” (Hosseini, 82) It was this conflict that changed the lives of all the characters. This was Amir’s, “final opportunity to decide who [he] was going to be.” (Hosseini, 82) As a result, He spent his adolescence ‘running’ away from his mistakes, because everywhere he looked “Kabul had become a city of ghosts…A city of harelipped ghosts.” (Hosseini, 144) To Amir, Hassan was haunting his memories. Amir couldn’t stand it so Baba and Amir moved to America. “For [Amir], America was a place to bury [his] memories.” (Hosseini, 136) In contrast to Kogawa’s novel, Amir’s actions resulted to the change of his life and the lives of people around him. Rahim Khan, a family friend, calls Amir in his adulthood asking him to come to Pakistan. Rahim Khan urges Amir, “There is a way to be good again.” (Hosseini, 2)

Throughout the novel, “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini, Amir is haunted by memories of his past. The theme has been, betrayal, loyalty, guilt and honor. The tone throughout is confessional. Amir the main character, is constantly troubled by his memory of Hassan’s rape and believes “he became what [he] is today at the age of 12,” because of his own cowardice at not stopping Hassan from being raped. After Hassan’s rape, Amir spends the rest of his life trying to redeem himself for his betrayal of his loyal friend. The rape leads Amir to his final quest for redemption when he is told “there is a way to be good again.” The climax of “The Kite Runner” is when Amir seeks to rectify the wrong he did to Hassan and finally finds Hassan’s son, Sohrab.

     After living their opposite lives for several years, the narrator fulfills a promise to his mother and watches over his younger brother. Through many revelations, the two find ultimately find a common ground about where they come from, the pain and the suffering of being trapped inside their status no matter how they tried altering it.

In contrast Ali’s hut is introduced to the reader by the heading ‘the Wall of Ailing Corn’ the corn that ‘never really took’ as if there is also something wrong with the hut. Whilst Baba’s house is given a detailed description Amir’s description of Ali’s hut is brief, perhaps because he doesn’t think its

“Kabul is not the way you remembered it,” Farid said while Amir was traveling through his once to be home country (Hosseini 244). Amir describes seeing mud-hut villages, grim-faced people, hands caked with mud, and no trees. This was once the place Amir called home in the book, The Kite Runner. Afghanistan used to be a place of happiness; kite flying, and beautiful sites, but not any more. A homeland is thought of as a safety place, but in the novel, The Kite Runner, there are several reasons why Afghanistan is and is not a homeland to the characters Amir, Assef, and Sohrab.

Context: It is winter time, December 2001 to be exact, and Amir is reflecting on his life, and his life shaping moment that also happened in winter of 1975. He constantly flashbacks to the moment of peeking into the alley behind the frozen creek in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the memories associated with it.

Amir: The main character and the narrator of the story. He is the delicate and smart child of a rich representative in Kabul,

Returning to his hometown, which has been destroyed by the new government, gives Amir a different perspective of what growing up in Kabul was really like for the lower class. In the novels

Amir had settled in America and had cut off all connections of himself with Afghanistan. The physical journey helps Amir to establish his identity. Amir’s confrontation

The Secret of Childhood by Maria Montessori Maria Montessori passionately reveals to us the inner workings of children as they develop into their full potential in an effort to assist adults in understanding and supporting this process. The ideas and methods shared have become the foundation for the Montessori model of education. In the introduction, Maria Montessori asserts “there is no real place for children” in today’s modern society where parents are working, cities are crowded and deemed dangerous, and the home is often filled with furnishings off limits to children. We are asked to consider where children feel they belong and are understood. Though Maria believed that great progress was underway when writing this book, with an