The Kite Runner Short Story Analysis

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 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.

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 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.

Amir’s mother, Sofia, dies in childbirth; Amir inherits her love of literature and probably her looks to some extent, but, her being dead, never receives any motherly love or guidance, which could have helped him out of the cowardly hole he later digs himself into. Amir’s father’s best friend and business partner, Rahim Khan, tries to give Amir the motherly love he clearly needs, fostering Amir’s love of writing and steadfastly standing up for him when Amir’s father, Baba, criticizes him, but Rahim Khan does not do enough to instill honesty, courage, and strength of conviction in young Amir. Amir’s best friend, Hassan, a servant a year younger than Amir, is everything Amir is not: athletic, brave, loyal, honest, and kind, inciting jealousy in Amir. Assef, a local bully, poses a real threat to Amir, hating Amir for the crime of befriending a Hazara (oppressed ethnic minority), but Amir is protected by Hassan, allowing young Amir to freeze and not stand up for himself in Assef’s presence. Last, but most importantly, is Amir’s father, Baba, and his views on Amir: he blames Amir for Sofia’s death,

19). Since Amir thought that he had killed his mother, he always believed that his father, Baba, hated him for it. Amir uses this perceived reason as explanation for why Baba stayed distant from him, and never addressed this issue, keeping the shame for something that he should not feel guilty for. Adding on, Amir also felt guilty for allowing Hassan to get attacked by Assef and not saving his best friend. After the attack occurred near the beginning of the book, Hosseini continuously mentions the event and how terrible Amir feels, even years after. This shame motivated Amir to go back to Afghanistan and find Hassan’s son, as well as bringing him back to America (Hosseini, 2003). Finally, Baba also had guilt to bear in the novel. Baba was Hassan’s biological father. “How had Baba brought himself to

“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.

Amir even says himself, “‘And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name. Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975-and all that followed-was already laid in those first words’” (11). Hassan’s death even after years of not seeing Amir, is still in service of him. Hassan dies protecting Amir’s home in the hopes that Amir will come back to him. Amir, on the other hand, receives his own version of his dad’s love, and after coming to terms with the mistakes that he made as a child, adopts Hassan’s son with the hope that he can right his wrongs, and make up for his mistakes with

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.

In chapter 1, Foster exclaims that “the real reason for a quest never involves the stated reason]” (3). Usually when a task is given to a character, there is a specified reason to go, however, as Foster stated, the real reason the character went on the quest was to achieve something greater: self-knowledge. To summarize, “they go because of the stated task, mistakenly believing that it is their real mission” (3).

In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Rahim Khan kept a deep secret from Amir for many years. He revealed that Hassan, Amir’s servant and “friend” from when he was a child, was his half-brother from his father’s side. Amir is left dumbfounded, and realizes that his whole life has been a lie. This major revelation raises questions and drastically changes the plot, as it introduces new conflicts and events.

The Kite Runner is an Afghan American fiction novel written by Khaled Hosseini. In the text readers are told the story of a young boy, named Amir’s, life. In continuation, a reader of the novel may get the impression, at the beginning of the book, that Amir is just an ungrateful child that gets everything he wants, but in reality that is not the case. Throughout his life he dealt with various hardships that inflicted drastic alterations on it. As readers take a journey down memory lane with Amir many themes are presented through the challenges that Amir faces. Ultimately, the obstacles that people face in life help mold them into who they are.

People say that everyone makes mistakes to justify their wrongs in the past. Some people have spent their entire lives trying to make up for something they did in their younger years, while others have preferred to suffer. Many have carried the guilt of their past actions and have only felt relief when they had done something about it. People and the way they involve themselves in other people’s lives can cause much turmoil and guilt depending on how their relationship turns out. In the novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the author uses Amir’s journey to portray that past mistakes will haunt a person until he is forced to seek redemption. Amir’s betrayal of Hassan and the result of that betrayal illustrate this idea.

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.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a story of a boy as he unravels his journey throughout his life. The novel consists of multiple themes such as love, friendship, betrayal, guilt, , secrets, loyalty, and redemption. As the main character, Amir recalls his past events, all of these themes start to unravel specific events that occurred in his life. “There is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 2) is where the novel unfolds the deep dark life of Amir’s regret and guilt, Baba’s secret, and Hassan’s devotion. The book is a true masterpiece which keeps the readers glued to the story as it unfolds. One of the reasons, the story attracts many readers is due to The United States recent conflict with Afghanistan. However, the story has a personal