The Kite Runner

Themes in The Kite Runner

“For you a thousand times over.” In Khaled Hosseini's “The Kite Runner” Afghanistan is portrayed in a flashback of this family's life. Baba and his son Amir lives in Kabul with their servants Hassan and Ali. Being that Hassan and Amir grew up together they have a very strong bond that is unbreakable under any circumstance or obstacles. In “The Kite Runner” there are three themes in the book, love, loyalty and guilt. First theme being love in “The Kite Runner”,Baba had a love strong for Hassan and Ali. Though they were him and his son's servant he loved them as his own family. “Please” Baba was saying but Ali had already turned to the door, Hassan trailing him. I'll never forget the way Baba said that, the pain in his plea, the fear.(Hosseini 114). Another example of love is the love between Hassan and Amir that is unexplainable because they grew up together and also did everything together but not as friends but it was more like servant and master yet their love for each other was strong. This is shown when Amir says, “Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.”(Hosseini 11). Third example of love is the love that Baba wished he could have openly showed his other son Hassan. Because of this Rahim Khan said, “He loved you both, but he could not love Hassan the way he longed to openly and as a father.”(Hosseini
316).Therefore he could only love Hassan to a certain extent which really killed him inside as a

father.
The second main theme in “The Kite Runner” is loyalty. Hassan being Amir servant/ half brother was very loyal to Amir. The night of the kite tournament Assef and the two boys met up with Hassan and wanted the kite that Amir had won but he stayed loyal when he said, “Amir agha won the tournament and I ran this kite for him. I ran it fairly. This is his kite.”(Hosseini 77). Hassan was willing to take whatever Assef and the boys were going to do to him just for Amir’s kite. Another example of loyalty was when Hassan always stood up for Amir. This is shown when Assef and the other boys were bothering Hassan and Amir but Hassan was defending them with his slingshot.(Hosseini 45). Third example of loyalty is how loyal Hassan was to Baba. Hassan was willing to pick up his life and move back to Kabul to take care of Baba’s house. He shows his loyalty when he said to Rahim Khan, “We’ll go with you. We’ll help you take care of the house.”(Hosseini 219).
The final theme of “The Kite Runner” is guilt. Amir grew up without a mother because she died while giving birth. Amir had always felt guilty for killing his mother and this was shown when he said, “And maybe just maybe, I would finally pardoned for killing my mother.” (Hosseini 60). Amir believed that his father hated him for killing his mother and felt a guilt inside for something that he could not control. Another example of guilt was the guilt Amir felt after he watched Hassan get raped and not doing anything about it. He feels this way when he says, “If he knew then what would I see if I did look in his eyes? Blame? Indignation? Or God forbid, what I feared most guileless devotion? That most of all, I couldn't bear to see.”(Hosseini 83). The fact that he was too cowardice to do anything because he was scared of what might of happened to him was taunting him and he tried hard to forget but his mind would somehow go right back to that night through the alley. Third example of guilt was the guilt that Baba felt as a father. He had hoped that Amir would be just like him. Athletic and manly instead Hassan was just like him but he took out his anger on Amir because he couldn't figure out why Amir was different. This was shown when Rahim Khan said to Amir, “So he took it out on you instead-Amir, the socially legitimate half that represented the riches he had inherited and the-sin-with-impunity privileges that came with them. When he saw you, he saw himself. And his guilt.”(Hosseini 316). Amir longed for Baba's love and just could not get it only to be loved harshly.

Therefore in “The Kite Runner” the three themes love, loyalty and guilt are shown in the book. Khaled Hosseini's shows a wide range of different information about Afghanistan. And in the book all the characters had their fair share of all of these with the love between them all, the loyalty and guilt of things that happened in flashbacks that presently affected their lives.