KITE RUNNER

edafe ilaya — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:03:38 GMT

EDAFE ILAYA

PROF. HAYNES

THE KITE RUNNER ASSIGNMENT

Khaled Hosseini in the novel “The Kite Runner,” tells the story of an Afghan boy Amir in the city of Kabul the son of Baba a successful business man, a society where lies, violence, and betrayal is the order of the day.

In the summer of 200, Amir receives a phone call from Rahim Khan to come visit him in Pakistan because he was sick. Rahim Khan’s last words “Come. There is way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up ” (192) hit Amir very hard, who up till this time thought nobody knew what had happened the day he won the kite tournament. All of a sudden, he understood that his suspicion had been right all those years; Rahim Khan knew, and has always known what he did to Hassan- the rape, the lies and the setup.

“Winter was every kid’s favorite season in Kabul,” (48). Each winter, the city held a kite-fighting tournament, which was an old winter Kabul tradition, and this to many of the kids was the climax of the winter season. The tournament started early in the morning on that day of the contest and ended when only the winning kite was left flying alone in the sky. Each kite fighter had an assistant and in Amir’s case, it was Hassan. On the morning of the tournament, Hassan describes his dream to Amir. In the dream, they both stun the people of Kabul by swimming in the lake where there was a so-called monster and proving it contained no monster. When Amir hesitates and said he did not want to fly a kite that day for the fear that he was not going to win, because four day before the tournament Baba told Amir that he might win the tournament that year and Amir was scared not to fail Baba, Hassan urges him to carry on and that there was no monster. Their kite was one of the last two kites left in the sky after many hours. Eventually, Amir cut the last blue kite and won. Hassan took off to run the blue kite for Amir. Amir later follows to search for Hassan and the kite. An old man who claimed to have seen Hassan with the kite, told Amir the other boys might have caught up with him already. The other boys were Assef, a slightly older and violent teenager from Amir’s neighborhood, and his two friends, Wali and Kamal. By the time Amir got there, they have captured Hassan in the alley. Assef initially wanted the kite, but when Hassan refuses, he is raped. Instead of standing up for Hassan, he fled.

In Pakistan, Amir learns that Hassan lived with Rahim Khan in the house. Rahim Khan handed him a picture of Hassan, his wife and his son, Sohrab. With the picture was a letter from Hassan telling Amir of the present state of Kabul and the atrocities of the Taliban. Rahim Khan told Amir that the letter was written six months ago: A month after leaving Kabul to seek medical attention, Rahim Khan received a phone with news of the murder of Hassan and his wife. Rahim Khan also tells Amir that Hassan was his biological brother; Hassan never knew. Unable to believe the information, Amir storms out of the apartment. Even though he betrayed Hassan a long time ago, he felt betrayed by his father. Baba who holds an ethical belief that considered sin only as stealing from one’s fellow man had actually stolen from him.

Sohrab now lives in an orphanage in Afghanistan and Amir must redeem himself and correct his past mistakes by looking for the boy.

WORK SITED: Hosseni, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York, Riverhead Books, 2003.

General Discussion

KITE RUNNER