The Kite Runner

Rahim Khan essentially means that there is a way for Amir to atone for his past sins and redeem himself by telling him that there is a way to be good again. Rahim Khan knows that Amir witnessed...

Amir and Baba's relationship seems to grow distant after they move to the United States. It seems like Baba is a broken man, having lost his wealth and lifestyle from when they lived in the Middle...

The most significant example of betrayal in The Kite Runner is Amir's abandoning of Hassan to be brutally attacked and raped by Assef, the local bully. Amir could and should have intervened, but...

Aside from the fact that Amir never saw his mother and that he feels the guilt of causing her death during childbirth--and believes that Baba blames him as well--Amir knows very little about his...

In The Kite Runner, Amir and Hassan are close friends who come from different classes. As children, Hassan lives in Amir's family's house—his father is a family servant. However, he shares a deep...

As was mentioned in the previous post, kite flying in Afghanistan is very popular. Throughout the novel, Amir and Hassan join and win Kabul's kite-fighting tournament. Hassan, Amir's best friend...

In The Kite Runner, Ali probably knows that Hassan is not his son, but it is never stated and it also does not matter. For all intents and purposes, Hassan is his son. Ali loves Hassan as if he...

This quote from Khaled Hossein's The Kite Runner occurs in chapter seven and it comes during one of the pivotal events of the novel. It is not a very difficult quote to understand, as Amir says...

Amir redeems himself at the end of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini when he adopts Hassan’s son Sohrab. Amir goes back to the Middle East to get Sohrab and bring him to the United States. He...

Chapter 22 of Kite Runner contains many "full circle" endings. Returning to the country under Taliban control is dangerous, which Amir recognizes. Nevertheless, he is determined to get Sohrab. He...

Amir sees emigrating to the United States as a way of escaping his troubled past. So long as he remains in Afghanistan, he will forever be wracked by guilt over his betrayal of Hassan. Upping...

A metaphor is a comparison that does not use the words "like" or "as." In one use of a metaphor, Amir likens the past to an object you can bury. An object that is buried is easily forgotten because...

Sanaubar is Ali's wife and Hassan's mother who abandoned her family shortly after she gave birth to Hassan. Sanaubar is not a righteous person like Ali, and is known throughout Kabul as a whore. In...

Self-conscious-Amir struggles to live up to his father's expectations as a child. He wishes to please his father by joining the soccer team and acting masculine, but cannot seem to win his father's...

Kamal is Assef’s friend, and they mostly spend time together. Kamal’s first appearance in the story occurs when Assef meets Amir and Hassan as they are walking up the hill to the pomegranate tree....

In The Kite Runner, Baba and Amir have dramatically different interests and personalities. Baba is portrayed as an aggressive, bold man who is intimidating and hypermasculine. Baba is also...

The flashbacks in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner serve to establish protagonist Amir's central motivation in the story, as well as to draw connections between two generations of Afghani...

There is also a class and ethic dynamic in The Kite Runner that I believe is reflected in the use of this statement, first by Hassan to Amir and then later by Amir to Sohrab. Amir and Hassan are...

Farid serves as Amir’s driver and guides him when he goes on a trip to rescue Sohrab from the war-torn country. Farid tells Amir that he has always been a tourist because he was not properly...

When Amir travels back to Kabul to rescue Sohrab, he is forced to visit his past enemy, Assef, who is a member of the Taliban. Assef has been molesting Sohrab, and Amir attempts to convince Assef...

In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the story of “Rostam and Sohrab” is important because of the significance the characters in book attach to it and because on some level, it parallels the...

The best place to start is to go into the text and examine the words of Amir. As words from the Koran reverberated through the room, I thought of the old story of Baba wrestling a black bear in...

In Chapter 7, on page 51 of the Riverhead Books Edition of the novel The Kite Runner, Amir tells Hassan to come back with the blue kite. As Hassan is running after the kite, he stops and turns...

This quote from The Kite Runner occurs in the pivotal chapter of the novel, chapter 7, in which Amir and Hassan have just won the kite-fighting tournament and Hassan goes to run the second-place...

Sanaubar was known as a promiscuous woman and was ashamed to have Ali as her husband. Sanaubar had eloped with a band of singers and dancers in 1964 and left behind her husband and newborn infant,...

Amir carries a lasting guilt over his treatment of Hassan, his childhood best friend. Hassan was a devoted and loyal friend, and Amir let him get sexually assaulted in order to win a kite to...

As mentioned previously, Baba is Hassan's father, making Amir Hassan's half-brother. As a child, Amir is jealous of Baba's affection toward Hassan. Unaware that Hassan is his half-brother, Amir...

There are several ironies in Amir’s first story and his telling of it to Hassan. The story is a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his...

The ending of The Kite Runner shows Amir running a kite for Sorhab, his former best friend Hassam's son, whom he has adopted. The heartbreaking story has come all the way around, because Amir and...

In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Baba is different in the US than he is in Afghanistan. Baba is an important person in Afghanistan. He is wealthy. The home he and Amir share in Afghanistan is...

Amir is a Pashtun and understands the social restrictions concerning relationships with the lower-class Hazaras. Despite the fact that Hassan is Amir's close friend, he is hesitant to acknowledge...

The relationship between Amir and Hassan is crucial to the themes of this novel because it is this friendship and the changes it undergoes that illustrate betrayal, regret (guilt) and forgiveness....

During Amir’s birthday, his father gave him two presents, a brand new Schwinn Stingray bicycle, and a wrist watch. According to Amir, he did not feel worthy of his father’s efforts to organize the...

I will focus on Hassan and Amir to provide examples of courage from The Kite Runner. You will notice that early in the book there are examples of Hassan's courage and that it is not until later in...

We cannot pinpoint with accuracy why Khaled Hosseini wrote the novel. He even says that the story was imaginary. But we can take a few educated guesses. First, Khaled Hosseini grew up in Kabul,...

The passage is significant on many levels including, as other educators have noted, that it represents the first sign of what will hopefully be a bond between Amir and Sohrab and that Amir has been...

Baba has a very close relationship with Hassan; he treats him like he's his own son. There's a good reason for this: he is his son. Amir doesn't find out about this until later on, but when he...

Khaled Hosseini raises numerous issues throughout The Kite Runner regarding ethnicity, prejudice, religion, political unrest, friendship, guilt, violence, and redemption. Hosseini examines the...

In The Kite Runner we see the beginning of the terror that the Taliban has brought. Amir has traveled back to Afghanistan to try and get Sohrab, Hassan's son, and take him to a couple who will take...

Baba and Ali's relationship is strikingly similar to Amir and Hassan's relationship because both friendships are affected by society's expectations, which prevent Baba and Amir from genuinely...

There are several dreams in this novel, so I will address another dream not mentioned in the other answer. In chapter 7, Amir reflects on a few dreams and memories that punctuate his narration of...

In Chapter 4, Amir recalls the times that he and Hassan would read underneath the pomegranate tree and mentions that Hassan's favorite story was the Shahnamah. The Shahnamah was a tenth-century...

During his visit with Wahid's family, Amir witnesses the abject poverty in Afghanistan and realizes that Wahid gave his children's dinner to him and Fahrid in the ultimate display of hospitality...

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Kamal is one of two cowardly, obsequious “lieutenants” to Assef, a sadistic bully who torments weaker boys, and who rapes Hassan while Amir looks on helplessly...

Kite fighting symbolically represents the positive and negative events of Amir's childhood in the story. One of Amir's favorite pastimes is kite fighting alongside his best friend, Hassan. Hassan...

In The Kite Runner, Baba is defined by his strong personal beliefs. Baba clearly articulates his beliefs. He speaks forcefully, with a commitment to show that he knows what is right. One quote...