sick and asks if Amir would return to Pakistan to visit. After their phone call, Amir takes his son to Golden Gate Park to play catch. While Amir and his son play, his mind drifts toward something that Rahim told him during their conversation. Rahim told Amir that there is a way to make things right again. This is evidence of Amir's need to redeem himself in the eyes of others and atone for past mistakes and actions. That night Amir dreams of Hassan running through the snow. This is proof that, despite all the years behind them since the horrific incident, Amir retains an overwhelming sense of guilt.

It's important not to overlook the fact that Amir and his son play catch. This hits on another major theme in the book—assimilation. Rather than chasing kites, Amir is trying to teach his son "the American way." Amir moves to the United States to start a new life, but fitting into a new culture brings its own challenges.

This is a great question. This a very important chapter and there are a few key symbols, which you need to consider. 

In this chapter Amir gets a call from an old friend, Rahim Khan. Rahim tells him that he could do something good and that he needs to come to Afghanistan. This is obviously a big trip for Amir. To think about this decision, he goes to the park. While he is there he see two things.

First, he sees kites flying. This reminds him of his youth and what he did to Hassan. He is in need of redemption. 

Second, he sees children playing. This foreshadows what he will do. He will adopt Hassan's boy. In light of these points, we can say that this chapter sets up the rest of the book.  

There are actually a number of ways to answer this question, but the conflict that we have the most insight into is Amir's internal conflict. This internal conflict is with him his entire life, in part because he feels he is to blame for his mother's death in childbirth and for his father's indifference toward him. However, the inner struggle intensifies after the kite-fighting tournament. Because it is so important to him to win the tournament, Amir watches his friend Hassan be sexually assaulted (a bully is trying to take the kite from him, even though Hassan won the kite fairly) and doesn't try to intervene or get help. Amir's decision to flee the scene has lifelong ramifications, as he struggles to overcome the guilt associated with his weakness and betrayal. Amir takes more overt actions against Hassan, eventually resulting in Hassan and his father Ali leaving the house (they are servants to Baba and Amir). However, his acting out and his eventual move to California with Baba do not give Amir the solace he seeks. It is only when he goes back to Afghanistan and rescues Hassan's son Sohrab from the Taliban and brings him home as his adopted son that Amir begins to mend. He finally feels he is atoning for his sins, so he is working toward resolving his internal conflict.

The novel also presents conflicts in the relationship between Amir and Baba and in that of Amir, Hassan, and the bully Assef. The larger context of the novel presents the conflicts between racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups in Afghanistan. Hassan's status as Hazara makes him inferior to Amir and Assef in the social hierarchy, and these differences result in violence and verbal abuse. The racial and ethnic conflicts in Afghanistan certainly inform the personal conflicts between characters as well as Amir's internal conflict, as he must wrestle with the notion that he actually thought of Hassan as lesser than himself.

The main conflict in the book is the tension between the elite and the disenfranchised in Afghanistan. Amir is the legitimate son of his father, Baba, and enjoys a life of wealth and privilege. His friend (who turns out to be his half-brother) is Hassan, a boy born into a less privileged ethnic and social class. Amir is Pashtun, a member of the more elite ethnic group in Afghanistan, while Hassan comes from the Hazaras, whose members are treated as outcasts. Though there are many parallels between Amir and Hassan, Amir lives a life in which he is largely spared of hardship. Hassan, on the other hand, is raped for having tried to rescue Amir's kite, and, later, Amir blames Hassan for stealing money that Amir plants on him. It is only many years later, when Amir adopts Hassan's orphaned son, that Amir tries to make up for the wrongs he has committed as a member of the privileged class against his friend and half-brother, who is an illegitimate son and the member of a culture whose members are treated as pariahs.

One could argue the main conflict in the story is Man vs. Self as Amir struggles to atone for his past sins as an adolescent growing up in Kabul. As an adolescent, Amir struggles to please his father, which adversely affects his self-esteem and confidence. Amir's inability to make his father proud creates a sense of envy towards his Hazara friend, Hassan. Amir's lack of confidence and esteem manifests itself into his feelings of jealousy towards Hassan.

On the day Amir and Hassan win the kite-flying tournament, Hassan runs after the blue kite to finish the game without Amir. Amir ends up searching for Hassan and finds him in a dead-end alley surrounded by Assef and his two friends. Instead of defending Hassan and sticking up for his friend, Amir hides and witnesses Assef rape Hassan. After witnessing Hassan get raped, Amir suffers from extreme guilt and can no longer stand being in the same home with Hassan. Amir ends up forcing Hassan to leave Baba's estate and flees to America with his father, where he represses his memory of Hassan.

As an older man, Amir's repressed memories and guilt begin to haunt him. Amir becomes an insomniac and fortunately gets a call from Rahim Khan saying, "There is a way to be good again" (Hosseini, 2). Amir realizes that he finally has an opportunity to atone for his past sins and find redemption after having an enlightening conversation with Rahim Khan in Pakistan. For Amir to find redemption, he travels to war-torn Kabul, fights Assef, and ends up adopting Hassan's son, Sohrab. By the end of the novel, Amir atones for his past sins, by risking his life to save Sohrab, and finds redemption.

There are many kinds of conflict in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, some of which impact nearly every character's life. When the war begins and the Taliban come to Kabul, for example, every character is affected. When Ali's mother so cruelly denounces her son, Hassan, and leaves Ali, that family is forever changed. When Amir's mother dies, Amir is left with Baba, who is not an effective parent in many ways; this causes Amir great confusion about how to give and receive love. Conflict happens when Amir and his father come to America, as their lifestyle is dramatically different. Of course there is conflict between Assef and Hassan as well as between Amir and Hassan. And the list goes on.

While these are all real conflicts, Amir is the narrator of this story, and the true source of conflict in this novel centers around him. On a physical level, the conflict is caused by the fact that Baba has another son, Hassan, whom he loves. It is Amir's reaction to that knowledge, both intuitively before he knows the truth and after he knows it as a certainty, which is the greatest source of conflict in this novel. 

Though Amir and Hassan are inseparable for the first years of their life, Amir is often jealous of him. Hassan is a genuinely good boy who is implicitly trusting of and unquestionably loyal to Amir; however, Amir often treats him poorly out of his jealousy and an innate unhappiness which often makes him mean and even cruel. Because he is so intent on earning his father's love (which is rather a lost cause until much later), Amir allows an unspeakable thing to happen to Hassan. This is the manifestation of Amir's jealousy of Hassan and his desperation for Baba's love--and it is the thing which haunts him for the rest of his life.

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

While Hassan might still have been assaulted by Assef, Amir could have intervened and Hassan would not have had to live with the life-changing shame of such a foul deed. His life was forever changed by Amir's lack of action, though his loyalty to Amir is unwavering. Amir's life was also unalterably changed by his jealousy (which caused him to take a perverse pleasure in Hassan's humiliation) and inaction. 

At the beginning of the novel, Amir says, “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...” But what happened in that single day was the culmination of Amir's lifelong jealousy of Hassan and Amir's desperate longing for his father's unconditional love.

The Kite Runner's main message is that redemption from past mistakes is possible. Redemption is ultimately the heart of the entire story. The main character Amir is an individual haunted by guilt from his earliest days. He feels responsible for the death of his mother, who passed away while giving birth to him. He later witnesses the rape of his best friend and half-brother Hassan, then pretends he never saw it. Uncomfortable in Hassan's presence, he has him framed for theft in order to have him banished from his household. Amir's problem in these early parts of the novel is his inability to stand up for himself or other people. It protects him only in the short-term and alienates him from others.

In the end, Amir's moral redemption comes from standing up for Hassan's young son, Sohrab. Sohrab has been orphaned by the Taliban and repeatedly sexually abused. He becomes a symbolic double of the young, abused Hassan and allows Amir a second chance to do what is right. Amir risks everything to rescue the young boy and adopt him into his own family. This allows him to atone for his past and build a brighter future for the mutual benefit of himself and Sohrab.

To me, the most important theme of the novel is that of redemption and atonement--particularly as it applies to Amir. Nearly every chapter refers to the guilt that Amir feels for his past sins against Hassan, and the latter one-third of the novel concentrates on his "way to be good again" by returning to Afghanistan to find his nephew, Sohrab. In the end, the beating that Amir takes from Assef helps to "heal" him, but Amir finds that even when he returns to California, "It didn't make everything all right." But Sohrab's slight smile and Amir's willingness to run the kite for him as Hassan once did is a major step toward cleansing Amir's conscience.

There are other themes found in the story (see the link to eNotes' themes):

• "Identity and Self-Discovery"--such as Amir's change when he relocates in America, and finding that he still has a love for his homeland.
• "Abuse of Power"--found in the terror brought by the Taliban and the prejudice against the Hazara people.
• "Assimilation and Acculturation"--primarily in Amir's and Baba's new life in California.
• "Journey and Quest"--which applies to many of the characters, including Hassan and Soraya.
• "Heritage and Ancestry"--from the pride that Baba and General Taheri display to the lowly Hazara roots that Hassan lives with.
• Role of Family and Fatherhood--explored in the differences between the many fathers--Baba, Amir, Ali, Hassan and General Taheri among them.

Hosseini explores many themes in The Kite Runner, including those found in eNotes' TKR/Themes

• Identity and Self-Discovery
• Family and Fatherhood
• Journey and Quest
• Heritage and Ancestry
• Assimilation and Acculturation
• Abuse of Power

but for me, the primary theme is that of Redemption, Atonement and Salvation. From the very first chapter, in which Rahim Khan assures Amir that There is a way to be good again, the novel's characters battle their guilty consciences over their past actions. Amir has the heaviest burden, finding a way to forget the sins he has committed against Hassan. He begins a new life in America, but even the thousands of miles between California and Kabul cannot erase his past. He becomes an insomniac and, when he sleeps, terrible nightmares remind him of his misdeeds against Hassan. Even Baba's death cannot erase the memories, and it is only after Amir learns about his family's terrible secrets from Rahim does he understand the meaning of Rahim's promise. If Amir can find Sohrab in Taliban-held Afghanistan, perhaps he will be able to forgive himself. The beating he takes from Assef goes a long way toward self-atonement.

My body was broken--just how badly I wouldn't find out until later--but I felt healed. Healed at last.  (Chapter 22)

Baba has a secret that Amir does not discover until after his father's death. Baba's philanthropic endeavors in Afghanistan were no doubt fathered by the guilt of Hassan's true heritage, and Baba faithfully dotes on his remaining son during his final years in California. He takes his secret to the grave, further infuriating Amir, who uses his anger to garner the courage to return to Kabul in search of Sohrab.

He [Hassan] was gone now, but a little part of him lived on. It was in Kabul.
     Waiting.  (Chapter 18)

Sohrab, too, seeks salvation in California, and their is a "melting" of the icy relationship between he and his uncle at the end of the story. And even Soraya finds a way to make up for her past transgressions. She learns to stand up to her father, becomes a teacher instead of a lawyer or doctor, and accepts Sohrab into her household.

Two themes of the novel are the search for identity and the importance of sacrifice. Throughout the book the narrator and central character Amir struggles to understand and come to terms with himself, especially after an act of cowardice in his youth. In this act he watched the bully Assef beat and rape his lower-class friend Hassan. Amir does not intervene to help his friend and will not tell his father what happened, thus projecting a false identity, as he fears his father will despise him for cowardice. Amir is racked by guilt over having failed Hassan. Amid all this inner turmoil, he continues to grow up and must try to come to terms with himself. This search for identity is aggravated when the Soviet invasion forces him to flee to the United States. Much of his identity was family and community based and now that foundation has been ripped away—but this also acts as a gift that offers him a new beginning.

Sacrifice is symbolized by the way the kite runners rip their fingers cutting the kites from the sky with glass-embedded string. The young Amir is proud to cut his fingers to show his father his kite-fighting ability. Later, trying to redeem himself, Amir sacrifices to rescue his half nephew. Bringing the novel full circle, the adult Amir near the end will again cut his fingers flying a kite to try to bring life and hope back to this depressed half nephew. Also at the end Amir is willing to make sacrifices to save Hassan's son.

Throughout the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini explores several themes which include relationships among family members, redemption, and violence. The dynamics among family members are examined throughout the novel, in particular, Amir and Baba's father-son relationship. Amir seeks to gain his father's admiration as a child, while Baba takes his anger out on Amir because he himself is unable to openly claim Hassan as his son without incurring social repercussions. The importance of family in the Afghan community in America is significant and is portrayed when Amir marries Soraya. Ali, Hassan, and Sohrab's adoptions are also important, and the relationships among their family members are explored throughout the story.

Hosseini also explores the theme of redemption throughout his novel. Amir's personal journey to find redemption to atone for his past sins is the driving force behind his decision to rescue and adopt Sohrab. Hosseini suggests that only through personal sacrifice can one find redemption.

The theme of violence is also prevalent throughout the novel. Hassan's rape is a significant moment in the novel and the emotional toll it takes on the characters impacts their lives. Hosseini also depicts the destructive nature of violence by illustrating the damage done to Afghanistan. Characters not only suffer from violence, but its cyclical nature negatively impacts future generations.