January 5, 2013
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a captivating book which narrates the life of an Afghani boy from his childhood to manhood and ultimately, his road to redemption. Amir and his father, whom he calls Baba, live in a large home located in Kabul, Afghanistan along with their two beloved servants Hassan and his father Ali. On many occasions Hassan stands up for Amir and the two form a very close relationship. But when Amir witnesses Hassan getting raped and does nothing to stop it, their close relationship deteriorates and Amir frames Hassan for stealing his money in order to get him fired. Ali, knowing what Amir had done, decides to quit despite Baba’s pleas for them to stay. Later on, Amir and Baba are forced to move to America due to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and there they start a new life. One day, after the death of Amir’s Father, Baba’s closest friend calls Amir and tells him to go back to Afghanistan to find Hassan’s son Sohrab who had become orphaned. Amir finds out that Hassan was actually his half-brother and upon retrieval of Sohrab, he decides to adopt him. The author’s description of Amir’s origins, a call to action from Rahim Khan to go back to Afghanistan, and the ultimate rewards Amir received at the end of his quest prove that a physical journey from America back to Afghanistan was required so that Amir would finally be able to come at peace with himself and his past.
The events that took place during Amir’s childhood in Afghanistan caused him to become uneasy and shamed in the eyes of his father and continuously troubled him up until the completion his journey. After Amir saw Hassan getting raped, he decided to not talk about it to anyone. Slowly but surely the secret started to eat away at him until it reached the point where Amir felt like he needed to receive some sort of punishment for it. When Amir and Hassan went out together for the first time since
Bibliography: Works Cited Bloom, Harold. Khaled Hosseini 's The Kite Runner. New York: Infobase Pub., 2009. Print.