The Kite Runner Literary Analysis

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.

What would it be like if your best friend/acquaintance did not stand up for you when you were in trouble? This question is great for how the two protagonists Amir and Ralph lose their innocence after their closest relationship dies. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Lord of The Flies by William Golding can be associated with one another in many ways. The first way that they are similar is the loss of innocence that is evident in each novel. Both Amir and Ralph experience a loss of innocence because of events that take place throughout the novel. This loss of innocence change Amir and Ralph in positive and negative ways. Some ways the two novels can be compared with regards to loss of innocence is firstly, how a death of a friend affects them, secondly, how Ralph and Amir deal with it and finally how they mature after their friends' deaths.

One major theme that is evident in The Kite Runner is that scars are reminders of life’s pain and regret, and, though you can ease the regret and the scars will fade, neither will completely go away. We all have regrets and always will, but though it will be a long hard process we can lessen them through redemption. The majority of The Kite Runner is about the narrator and protagonist, Amir. Almost all of the characters in The Kite Runner have scars, whether they are physical or emotional. Baba has scars all down his back from fighting a bear, but he also has emotional scars from not being able to admit that Hassan was also his son. Hassan is born with a cleft lip, but for his birthday Baba pays for it to be fixed, which left a small scar above his mouth. Hassan also has emotional scars from being raped. The reader is probably shown the emotional scars of Amir the most. Amir has emotional scars because he feels that he killed his mother, and also because his father emotionally neglects him. In the end of the novel, Amir receives many physical scars from getting beaten up by Assef, when rescuing Sohrab. Though scars will never go away and are a reminder of the past, not all scars are bad.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was a touching book that revolved around loyalty within a friendship. The friendship between Hassan and Amir had some difficulties. A true friendship can be hard to find(,) but can be one of the most vital things to being truly happy. Both Hassan and Amir had proven their loyalty to each other by the end of The Kite Runner. Loyalty was a crucial part in Hassan and Amir’s friendship.

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

Throughout the story The Kite Runner an important central theme displayed by the other is the idea that it is important to be able to confront your past mistakes or else those mistakes will torture you for the rest of your life. Many of the main characters came face to face with this idea and each of them dealt with their mistakes in different ways. Despite this, it was made clear that the characters that were able to deal with their problems ended up much better off mentally than those of them that were unable to. Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, teachers the reader that confronting past mistakes is better than running from them through Amir’s feelings following his betrayal of Hassan, how Soraya felt after telling Amir about her past, and Amir’s reaction to finding out Baba was Hassan’s father.

The novel, The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a story about betrayal, forgiveness, and redemption that revolves around that two main characters, Amir and Hassan. Amir is a young selfish boy who constantly manipulates and exploits Hassan for personal gains. He uses Hassan as a scapegoat to win Baba, but upon accomplishing this task, he is riddled with guilt. Amir uses his friendship with Hassan for ulterior motives. His lack of action caused severe guilt, which he tries to escape throughout the entire story. He uses various scapegoats to rid himself of his guilty conscience.

“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.

Hosseini gives many examples of how political power such as the Taliban can bring out the evil in people but he also demonstrates how there is oppressive male power in relationships that also brings out the same human nature. He uses overbearing masculine characters in the The Kite Runner and gender roles to express how men were given the right to act in such horrific ways towards women. In Afghanistan there are many restrictions against women. Men have control over their wives and girlfriends. They have the dominant power and since it has been this way for so long it has become a social norm. Eastern culture is obviously different than Western culture when talking about gender roles but, Afghanistan men’s social power over them is immoral

Khaled Hosseini's 2003 novel of The Kite Runner, follows the journey of refugee and protagonist, Amir; who suffers with anguish and the inability to self-forgive. Consequently, Amir is confronted by the subconscious guilt and self-condemnation of repressed and concealed past mistakes. Hosseini explores imagery, foreshadowing, dialogue, juxtaposition, symbolism and motifs, to depict the significance of accepting and confronting the past, to forbid eternal repentance, and to empower and enable one's acceptance of previous faults, allowing for a fulfilled and content life.

The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini can be seen as a great book but at the same time one that is too simple and easy. In discussions of The Kite Runner, one controversial issue has been the inner levels of the novel. On one hand, many people believe that the novel is filled with numerous themes that are deep and make one think about the human experience and will leave you thinking long after you finish reading it. On the other hand, there are also many literary critics who contend that opinion and say that the novel is overly sentimental and simplistic. The view I obtained while reading The Kite Runner would be in agreement with the first statement. I also believe that the novel is deep and makes one think

When Khaled Hosseini wrote The Kite Runner, he made several important choices involving narration. He chose to write the story in first person from a limited point of view. This is a very fitting decision because, writing in the first person adds a sense of intimacy that is crucial to this story; writing from a limited perspective allows the reader to make their own conclusions about what the characters are thinking. The way Hosseini writes The Kite Runner makes it very intimate, and feels like a person telling their life story. If The Kite Runner had been written in third person, or omnisciently, the story would not have impacted readers as much, and would have been too cold and impersonal to create emotional connections with the reader.

The expression "riddled with guilt" is a good way to describe the main character's life, Amir, in the book The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner is a story about an Afghan boy, Amir, who has many hardships throughout his life as he grows from a boy living in war-torn Afghanistan, to a successful writer living in America. Amir experiences many events that caused him to carry a great amount of guilt throughout his life. So much guilt that it even turned him into an insomniac. He needed to find a way to make amends which would allow him to forgive himself and hopefully, one day, be able to sleep soundly again.

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.

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. HIs mother taught high school and his father was a diplomat for the Afghan Foreign Ministry. They were forced to relocate to Paris, and later the United States, all because because of a communist coup in Kabul. Hosseini enrolled at Santa Clara University and graduated as a biology major in 1988. He then went on to earn a medical degree in 1993. He became a practicing intern at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from 1996 to 2004. In 2001, Hosseini began to write his first novel, The Kite Runner, and later published it in 2003.