ever be and just a few minutes later they would begin to be torn apart by the violence of Assef against Hassam. When Amir wins the tournament, Hassam tells him that he will run the kite for him.  Amir tells him to bring the kite back to him.  Hassan, "cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, " For you, a thousand times over."  Now years later and thousands of miles away in California Amir cuts a kite and turns to Sohrab, Hassan's son, and asks,

"Do you want me to run that kite for you?"  I thought I saw hin nod. "For you a thousand times over, " I heard myself say.  Then I turned and ran. 

This scene is significant because Amir's life has now come full circle.  He is now running the kite, not just for Sohrab, but for Hassam, and for himself and the history that they shared.

In the first chapter of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, it is 2001, and the protagonist Amir is an adult in his late-thirties when he receives a phone call from Rahim Khan, a figure from his past. Rahim Khan was his father's best friend and business partner in Afghanistan and something of a surrogate father to Amir, as Rahim was more supportive and understanding than Amir's father, Baba, was. Rahim Khan tells Amir that he is very ill and wants Amir to come see him in Pakistan. He also tells Amir, "There is a way to be good again." This brief suggestion sets the stage for the entire novel. We know from the start that Amir has done something he regrets and that he has an opportunity to make up for it if he returns to the land of his childhood.

Significantly, Amir refers to himself twice in this very short chapter as a nonhuman entity. He says, "I became what I am today" due to events that occurred in Kabul in 1975. The use of the word "what" instead of "who" indicates that whatever happened (we learn that he watched his best friend Hassan be sexually assaulted while trying to bring the last kite from the tournament to Amir) has made Amir feel as though he is not entirely human, as though he is a monster (like the "monster in the lake" he claims to be later in the novel). In this chapter, Amir also reflects on other aspects of his childhood in Afghanistan, mentioning the names of characters we will soon meet and kite-flying more generally.

After this opening scene, Amir revisits the 1970s and relates his childhood, specifically his relationship with Hassan, as he leads up to the pivotal event in chapter 7. Later in the novel, he does indeed return to Afghanistan to attempt "to be good again."

In the opening scene of the novel, Amir mentions that his life changed on a cold winter day in 1975. He then says that twenty-six years later, Rahim Khan gave him a call from Pakistan with a chance to atone for his past sins. Amir then walks down to the Golden Gate Park and imagines Hassan's voice whispering, "For you, a thousand times over." That night, Amir thinks about that cold day in 1975 that made him who he was today.

This scene is significant because it foreshadows the main events in the novel. Although Amir does not reveal what happened on the cold day in 1975, the reader understands something took place that dramatically affected Amir's life. The reader also gains insight into Amir's quest for redemption by returning to Pakistan after speaking with Rahim Khan. Throughout the novel, we learn that Amir does not intervene when he sees his best friend getting raped. Amir's actions haunt him for the rest of his life until Rahim Khan presents him with a chance to atone for his sins. Amir's main quest throughout the story is his search for atonement. 

The central character, Amir, gets right to the heart of the matter in the opening scene in "The Kite Runner". He describes his memory of "crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek". The scene he is remembering is where the defining moment of his life took place. It was in that alley that his loyal childhood friend Hassan was viciously raped while trying to retrieve a kite for Amir's benefit. Amir, a witness to the atrocity, kept himself hidden, and allowed his friend to be victimized without coming to his aid. That moment "changed everything" in Amir's life, and "made (him) what (he) (is) today" - a man who sees himself as being without courage or integrity, a man without honor who would heartlessly betray a friend.

Everything that happens in the narrative is connected to the opening scene described. Amir cannot forget what he did there, and because his sin is hidden, his whole life after that incident is a lie. The phone call he receives from Rahim Khan offers Amir a chance to atone for his transgression, and sets the stage for the central theme of the book. Amir is offered an opportunity for redemption; "a way to be good again" (Chapter 1).

I think author Khaled Hosseini comes up with a magnificent title to his novel of life in wartorn Afghanistan. It represents the single most memorable event in the lives of both Amir and Hassan--the day of Kabul's annual kite flying tournament--and the repercussions of both Amir's victory and the horrors that occur to both boys afterward. Kite flying represents both pleasure and terror to the boys: Amir and Hassan never experience greater comaraderie during their time together, Amir flying the kites and Hassan running them down for his master. Hassan's own uncanny mastery of knowing just where the defeated kites will fall makes him the greatest kite runner in Kabul, but it also leads to misery. Hassan is raped by Assef and his young thugs when he refuses to hand over the defeated prized blue kite, and it leads to a life of guilt for Amir whem he fails to summon the courage to aid his friend. Kite running defines Hassan, and it becomes a source of bad memories and nightmares for Amir. The kite, a symbol of freedom which is later banned by the Taliban, returns at the end of the novel when Amir finally makes a connection with Sohrab; and Amir volunteers to run the kite for his troubled young nephew, breaking the ice between them and allowing Amir to feel a sense of redemption for his past sins against Hassan. He is thrilled to run the kite "a thousand times over" for Sohrab, just as Hassan had done for him. The cover of the novel (my version is a large paperback from 2005) showing a kite flying freely over the ancient buildings of Kabul seems appropriate: Though Amir migrates to America, he can never escape the past he leaves behind in Afghanistan. And, though the nation is often controlled by the stifling influences of the Russians and Taliban, the single kite flying high above the city signifies the freedom that Afghan people will always seek.

In the novel The Kite Runner, the author describes when young Amir and Hassan enter into a kite flying competition. The Kite Runner position is taken by Hassan, Amir's best friend and the son of their family servant. It is a position of servitude, which Hassan takes willingly and joyfully for his friend. Following a tournament, Amir witnesses Hassan get raped by another boy, and their relationship grows distant immediately.

Years later, in an attempt to reconcile, Amir travels back to Afghanistan to find Hassan, and he eventually saves the man's son from the now grown-up boy who had raped Hassan. Amir adopts Hassan's son and takes him to America. At the end of the novel, he volunteers to run the boy's kite for him. The position, and by extension the title, are meant as loving servants, willingly taking a lower position to help raise someone else up. That is what Hassan had done for Amir, which Amir feels like he betrayed. Now, Amir does this for Hassan's son, promising to love him and raise him up well, as a servant father.

The story's title alludes to the popular Afghan competition of kite-fighting and specifically refers to Hassan's position as kite runner. The story is about Amir and Hassan's complex relationship, which takes a turn for the worse after Amir witnesses Hassan being raped by Assef following a kite-fighting tournament. Amir spends the rest of the novel attempting to atone for his past sins of allowing Hassan's rape and then distancing himself from his close friend. Amir and Hassan were initially kite-fighting partners, and Hassan was considered an excellent kite runner. When Amir would cut his competitor's kite, Hassan had the uncanny ability to track down the broken kite and outrun the other boys to capture it. Hosseini's title alludes to Hassan's position as Amir's kite-fighting partner and implies that Hassan plays a crucial role in the story.

This is a great question. The title is about the most important incident in Amir's life. He witnesses the rape of Hassan as Hassan was going to look for the second place kite in a kite tournament. Amir sees the action, but he does not do anything to help his faithful friend. 

This cowardice of Amir shapes his life. And he can never forget it. He feels an overwhelming sense of guilt, because he knows that Hassan would die for him. Eventually he falsely accuses Hassan and he is sent away. This, too, defines him in a negative way. 

As an adult, Amir is able to redeem himself. He finds out that Hassan had a son and that Hassan was killed by the Taliban. In light of this, Amir goes to get Hassan's son and in the end adopts him. 

In short, Amir never forgot his friend, the best kite runner in the world. 

The Kite Runner is both a powerful story about redemption and family, and a catharsis for author Khaled Hosseini, who lived through some of the historical events detailed within. Amir, the protagonist, is guilty of betraying his friend (and half-brother) Hassan, and must redeem himself by saving Hassan's son. Through his actions, he discovers that family ties are more powerful than guilt and anger. Hosseini lived a similar life to Amir, although less dramatic, and included his own childhood friendships, displacement from Afghanistan, and settling in California; this allowed him to show non-Afghans some of the traumas and hardships that his people went through during the Soviet invasion.

The title of Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner, refers to the sport of kite flying so popular among the people of Afghanistan. As boys in Kabul, Amir often flew kites, even winning the city's most important competition. While Amir flew his kite, Hassan served as the kite runner, following it and retrieving other kites that had been cut by the glass-sharpened string. It is at the end of this competition that Hassan is sodomized by a group of boys while trying to retrieve Amir's kite. At the end of the story, Amir trades places, running the kite being flown by Sohrab (Hassan's son) at their home in California. The title symbolizes the close relationship between Amir and Hassan--one the son of a wealthy man, and the other a poor servant boy. Amir's running of Sohrab's kite at the end of the novel helps to break the ice with the reticent boy and helps to atone for Amir's past sins against Hassan.

Khaled Hosseini's choice of title for his novel, The Kite Runner, seems highly appropriate to me. First, it refers to Hassan, who runs kites for Amir as a youth. Hassan, a servant boy in Amir's household, is Amir's best friend; however, Amir can never forget the social status that separates the two boys. When they are flying kites, they are happier than at virtually any other time. But their status remains: Amir flies the kite, while Hassan has the subservient duty of chasing it. Hassan becomes expert at his duty, and Amir wonders how he develops such skill at knowing exactly where the kite will fall. It is Hassan who Amir deserts in a time of need, creating a guilt that overwhelms Amir for years to come. On the same day that Hassan is raped as Amir stands silently by, Amir wins the kite-flying contest--a day that should be triumphal to both boys. Amir comes full circle by the end of the story, when he becomes the kite runner for Sohrab, Hassan's son. I also found the title interesting because of the unique style of kite flying exhibited by the Afghani boys, using glass-lined string for strength and cutting ability--both to other kites as well as the flyers' own hands.

Given that the entire action of the story centers around Hassan and the action that took place following his successful running of the last kite in the contest, the title obviously speaks to this central focus of the text.

Perhaps Hosseini was also trying to suggest that the "kite runner" was going to be an important symbol of some of the themes of the story.  The fact that horrible things happen to good people, the running theme of redemption as Amir tries to make up for his inaction that fateful day, the final symbol of Hassan's son flying a kite at the close of the novel, all of these perhaps are hinted at or suggested by the title.