The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini’s, “The Kite Runner”, uses an abundance of diction and tone, to convey a centralized motif. Hosseini, uses three specific symbols throughout the story, the cleft lip; kites; the lamb. The central symbols, tie into what the overall theme is of the story, the search of redemption, tension and love between father and son. Hosseini expressed his centralized motif of irony and regressing in time by using symbolism and figurative language to make his point more clear “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.”

The Kite Runner is the first novel of Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It tells the story of Amir, a boy from Kabul, Afghanistan, whose closest friend is Hassan, a young Hazara servant. Novel turns around these two characters and Baba, Amir’s father, by telling their tragic stories, guilt and redemption that are woven throughout the novel. Even in the difficult moments, characters build up to their guilt and later on to their redemption. Their sins and faults alter the lives of innocent people. First, Amir and Baba fail to take action on the path to justice for Ali and Hassan. Moreover, Amir and Baba continue to build up their guilt due to their decisions and actions. Although Amir builds up more guilt than Baba throughout the novel, he eventually succeeds in the road to redemption unlike his father. After all, Amir and Baba have many chances to fix their atonements but Baba chooses not to and Amir does. Baba uses his wealth to cover up his sins but never atone himself while Amir decides to stand up and save Sohrab and finally finds peace. Amir and Baba’s reaction to sins essentially indicate their peace of mind and how they react to guilt and injustice.

People are different in many ways. Ranging from colour of their skin to their ethnic backgrounds. How society copes with these differences is what defines prejudice and discrimination. Racism, social class and ethnicity have become a never ending cycle that begins to shape the opinions of how people treat one another. The novel The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini revolves around a society constructed around two socially diverse ethnic groups the Pashtuns who practice Sunni Islam and the Hazaras who follow Shia Islam. Throughout the novel The Kite Runner, a variety of characters have made decisions that affect the overall outcome of the novel which base around ethnicity, race and social class.

The novel The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is the story of a young, upper class boy by the name of Amir and his friend, a lower class boy named Hassan. While Amir is a Pashtun and a Sunni Muslim, Hassan is a Hazara and a Shi’a muslim, which causes the main conflict between the two. Amir and Hassan learn more and more about their social status, as well as their personal friendships and problems as they grow up in Afghanistan.

Atonement is the focal point of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner as portrayed through Amir’s guilt, the repercussions of his guilt and his effort to remove this guilt by atoning his sins.

symbols such as kite flying, his mother’s death, and the characters’ facial scars, the author asks readers to question their own internal strifes and if they too have demons. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the search for redemption is symbolized, time and time again, showing that redemption is the driving force behind self­discovery. Everyone is plagued with internal strifes; however, none more that Amir. The author brings Amir and Hassan together by making them fly kites with one another every year. After Hassan’s sexual assault, Amir never flew kites again. That was until Amir saved Sohrab, Hassan’s child. Amir states just how long it has been since he had last flown kites “ I hadn’t flown a kite in a quarter century, but suddenly I was 12 again and all the old instincts came rushing back.” (Hosseini 368). By having Amir fly kites with Sohrab in the end of the novel, the author shows that dishonesty is redeemable,

Khaled Hosseini’s uses of metaphor, juxtaposition, and parallelism in The Kite Runner help exude a variety of motifs, such as redemption and regret, along with one of the book’s central themes: in order to truly live life, one has to stop dwelling on the events of the past and move forward. If not for these stylistic choices of the author, much of The Kite Runner’s meaning would be lost entirely because of their importance in developing both the story’s characters and plot, as well as the emotional impact of the scenarios various characters are placed in. In particular, the character arc of Amir, the main protagonist of the book, would be stripped of an immense amount of significance. Other than the aforementioned reasons, these literary devices

“There is a way to be good again”(Hosseini,2). This thought represents the underlying message of the novel The Kite Runner, as author Khaled Hosseini tells a heartbreaking tale of a lifetime spent in the search of redemption for a “past of unatoned sins” (Hosseini, 1). Very often people undergo numerous internal conflicts throughout their lives, and they find that some of their problems change who they are as a person. Most people will not have the courage or the motivation to deal with and fix their problems, however, Khaled Hosseini’s novel inspires people to face and deal with internal conflicts. In the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir constantly struggles with guilt about his childhood mistakes and he finds it very hard to deal with them. The ending of The Kite Runner appropriately concludes the story because it portrays a journey of redemption for a childhood betrayal and ends with a hopeful message of new beginnings and freedom from past sins.

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is a fascinating book that through the story it releases a remorse content. Amirs character in the novel centers on Amir struggling throughout his life. When we discover how the winter of 1975 in Kabul makes Amir Jan become guilty of his actions. Amir is a character who Hosseini makes us feel compassion for. Amir has conflicted feelings toward his father, Baba, and especially his best friend servant, Hassan. Amir attempts to avoid his guilt, but it does nothing to help him redeem himself and therefore his guilt remains. That is why every time he hears his friend's name, Hassan, he quivers from the flashbacks he gets. Making us grasp how Amir stops himself from actually moving on and achieving more, proving that a life

​In the novel, “The Kite Runner”, written by Khaled Hosseini, was taken place in Afghanistan during the 1970’s to the year of 2002. Many historical events happened during this time period and Hosseini portrayed it into his novel. Kabul, the capitol of Afghanistan, was a free, living area for many Afghanistan families to enjoy the life they were given. Until one day, Afghanistan was then taken over and attacked. In the novel, Amir, the protagonist, must redeem himself and the history behind his actions because of his past decisions and make himself good again for the Afghanistan people.

sin and forget about it. Amir then faced the long bumpy road to redemption. Khaled Hosseini’s

Hosseini also states that Hassan’s lip symbolizes the cultural and social differences throughout the novel, and how Amir's slingshot symbolizes the loyalty, their childhood, and explains standing up for what is right. The Kite Runner is a story of about an Afghan­American boy named Amir who has flashbacks that visually depict how his life was when he was just a young boy living in Afghanistan. It was a time of injustice as he searches for a redemption of his past guilts. Hosseini shows readers how Amir matures, and how he felt about different experiences during his life back in Afghanistan. The Kite Runner employs symbolism to show the experiences and moments in Amir’s life that have meaning to him and have left an impact on his life forever. By using symbolism, Hosseini makes readers think about how much earlier experiences and moments have shaped Amir’s life in The Kite Runner.

Plot summary: Amir flashbacks to when he was twelve years old in Afghanistan. He lives with his father, Baba, and has two servants, Ali and Hassan, who are also a father and son duo. The latter two are Hazaras, Afghan’s minority, and as such, are subjected to racial slurs and cruelty. Amir and Hassan are playing when Assef, Kamal, and

Khaled Hosseini once said: “there are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.” Rape in Afghanistan is said to be an “epidemic,” but according to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of the term is “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.” Rape in this country is viewed as something that is inevitable and cannot be stopped. Usually, rape also involves domestic violence, hence the reason they’re paired together. Contrary to common misconception, men are raped as well as women, especially children of both genders. In the Kite Runner, rape is a topic that is prevalent in and throughout the book. Bacha Bazi is even a part of the Kite Runner.

The story is based on the life and journey undertaken by Amir, the protagonist. Hosseini expresses essential ideas in his novel through the themes of redemption/atonement, the relationship between father and son and lastly, the theme of degradation/discrimination. The author expresses these themes through the setting and characterization. Hosseini presents characters from different social status in Afghanistan and how this affected their childhood. Amir despite coming from a privileged class had to work hard for his atonement by going back to Afghanistan to face his demons as well as to mend his relationship with his father who had rejected him since his birth. On the other hand, Hassan, from the minority class suffered because of his social status after he was abused and mistreated by those in power. The Kite Runner is a story about two boys who grew up in different worlds because of the presence of various social classes in