The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

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.

“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.

The Kite Runner is a historical fiction book written by an Afghan-born American, Khaled Hosseini. Hosseini, the son of an Afghani diplomat, was born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he lived until the age of eleven. In his novel, The Kite Runner, Hosseini shows the path from guilt to redemption for Amir, the son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul. It shows Amir’s struggles and successes in finding and staying true to himself. Hosseini changes setting many times throughout the course of the book. He uses this element extraordinarily well to help the reader understand how life changed for Amir, to help the reader understand the emotions of the characters, and to help the reader relate to some of the circumstances that Amir encountered.

All human relationships are complicated, there are many instances in the Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, which portrays the complexity of human character. Throughout the book, the Amir is burden with his own guilt from his childhood summer of nineteen seventy-five . As the book progresses the reader is forced to grapple with the meaning if redemption and the true meaning of family. Many readers have often debated whether Amir has actually attained redemption for his actions; however through the latter half of the novel the reader comes to understand that Amir does in fact redeem himself.

​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.

According to the new data from UNICEF, fifty seven percent of marriages in Afghanistan involve girls that are under sixteen. In Afghanistan, located in the southern Helmand province, as many as 144 forced marriages were reported. In particular, farmers have been forced to abandon their daughters to the creditor as pay off for his debts. After the daughter is sold, she would be forced into marriage with anyone the creditor chose. This pertained to girls that were six years old or some even younger. These types of marriages were deemed valid in Afghan society and were quite frequent as well. In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a man named Amir has an arduous time trying to deal with his past as he moves from Afghanistan to America. The text cites several examples of how some types of marriages were forbidden in Afghanistan. Common marriages are comprised of forced marriages, arranged marriages and love marriages in Afghan society.

“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, is the complex story about a father and a son who struggle to find common ground. They are from Kabul during a time where danger was everywhere. Amir was a conflicted boy trying to find his place and purpose. He believed his father; Baba disliked him because his birth was the reason his mother passed. While Amir’s father favored the son of their family servant, Hassan. Amir’s friendship with Hassan was genuine until a tragic event Amir witnessed of Hassan and Amir did not step into help. Amir’s father once told him he needed to learn to stand up to people. That crime against Hassan changed Amir for the worse, something he could never let go of throughout his life. These are the main characters of the

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

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, from minor to major mistakes. But the most important part is not the mistake itself, but how hard that person is trying to fix that mistake. This also applies to the novel The Kite Runner. The story revolves around the main character Amir, and his childhood friend, Hassan. After Amir came to America with Baba, his father, he still regrets the things he had done to his childhood friend. He left Hassan getting raped by Assef in a small alley in 1975. Thereafter, Amir always feel regret and seeks for redemption. Hosseini -the author, argues that redemption can be achieved by helping others, teach others not to repeat the same mistake and acknowledge your mistake and try to fix it.

As a child, we are often told that we can be whatever we want when we grow up. Each child has the potential to be a police officer, a firefighter, or an astronaut. Although every destination in life is reachable, depending on the environment of the child, one might have to work harder than the other in order to reach it. Each environment creates a pathway of right or wrong in what the child should believe in, become, and achieve. In the Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini tells the story of a young Afghan boy, Amir, whose childhood interactions with his father and his Pashtun culture shapes his moral compass. He is especially influenced by the pride he desires to achieve by fulfilling his father 's expectations as well as Pashtunwali, the set of

In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the theme, “true redemption is when guilt leads to good” (302), plays a major role in the book. Feeling endless guilt is tiring; it clings to a person and drags him or her down constantly. Amir felt endless remorse his whole life from the way he treated Hassan and after he overheard Baba talking to Rahim Khan about how Amir never stands up for himself. Amir tried to find redemption, but did not succeed until he went back to Kabul to find Sohrab. Amir’s cowardice caused him to live a guilty life, but in the end it led to true redemption.

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.