The+Kite+Runner

= **Title of the Work** = The Kite Runner

= Author = Khaled Hosseini

= Nationality/Ethnic Background = Born and raised in Afghanistan/Persian

= Pertinent Biographical Information = Hosseini was born in Afghanistan. His father worked for the embassy until his family moved to Paris when Hosseini was eleven due to his father getting a job there. They were unable to move back to Afghanistan afterwards because the Soviets organized a coup. The family then sought political asylum in the U.S. and found a home in San Jose. He became a doctor and was one until 18 months following the release of //The Kite Runner.//

= Literary Historical Period/Movement and Pertinent Background = The period this book is set is significant because it was a period of great change for Afghanistan. The Taliban took over right after the Soviets tried to invade and caused a whole bunch of chaos for all the people in the country. The second part of the novel is relevant because it was right before 9/11 happened and the United States of America kicked the Taliban out. The author was still able to use the threat of the Taliban as a large force in the novel. It also allows the audience of the novel to connect to the book as well as compare Amir's tellings from the first half of the novel, when Kabul was a pleasant place to be, to the second half, where it was hell on Earth.

= Genre and Sub-genres = Historical Fiction, War Drama

= Major Characters, Their Relationships, Their Conflicts =
 * Amir-** The main protaganist. He was born in Kabul and lives with his father (Baba) and the servants until he is in his teens and he and his father flee. He is best friends with Hassan, who was nursed by the same wet nurse as he. He looks up to Rahim Khan, a friend of his fathers and supporter of Amir's writing skills. He feels unloved by his father while Hassan is around but is very good at kite fighting in an attempt to make up for this. He feels guilty about not helping Hassan when Hassan was getting raped. Amir dislikes Assef but is very afraid of him because Assef is a large, crazy child. When Amir moves to California he marries Soraya and they adopt Sohrab after Amir manage to extract him from the middle east.
 * Hassan**- Hassan is the servant of Baba and Amir and lives in the servant's quarters with his "father" Ali. He and Ali are Hazaras, an ethnic minority that faces discrimination in Afganistan. Ali is actually infertile, so Baba impregnated his wife so that Ali would not feel bad about it, so Baba is Hassan's biological father. Although rather timid at times, he is brave when defending Amir and stands up to Assef. He also helps Amir pilot his kite and run down the enemy's kite after it has been defeated. He is raped by Assef after he finds it, which makes him much quieter and unhappy, and leaves after Amir hides money and a watch under his mattress. He gets married to Farzana and has a son named Sohrab. Hassan and Farzana are both executed in the street by the Taliban.
 * Baba-** Amir's father. He has quite a lot of political power while he lives in Kabul and got to speak with or at least sit near Henry Kissinger at a soccer game once. He is a wealthy man who owns a nice estate. He is good friends with his servant Ali and impregnated his wife so he could have a son. He has a lot of affection towards Hassan which Amir does not approve of. He is large and intimidating, but is a morally earnest man. After he moved to the states he worked very hard and returned food stamps to welfare after he got back on his feet. He dies of cancer right after giving his blessing to Amir and Soraya's wedding.
 * Assef**- The main antagonist. He is a psychopathic child who is racist against hazaras. He gives Amir Hitler's //Mein Kampf// for his birthday in a really creepy fashion. He rapes Hassan to show his dominance over Hassan even though his goons don't approve. He joins the Taliban at some point and turns into a pedophile who has sex with young boys. He gets his eye poked out by a brass ball shot from a slingshot in Sohrab's hand.
 * Sohrab**- Hassan's son. He is in Afghanistan as an orphan and later sex slave until Amir manages to rescue him. He is very quiet and tries to commit suicide after Amir says he will have to be put into an orphanage before he can be adopted. Amir later successfully adopts him and gets him stateside. He is still quiet but doesn't seem to be too unhappy.

= Brief Plot Summary = Amir lives with his father, Baba, in a house in Kabul, along with their servants, Ali and his son Hassan. Baba is a fairly high-ranking government official type and is wealthy. Amir and Hassan are good friends and very close because they shared the same wet nurse as children, but Amir sometimes feels inferior to Hassan because Baba will often show more affection towards Hassan than to him, even though Hassan is a hazara, an ethnic minority that is discriminated against. Baba also dislikes Amir's love of writing rather than more masculine things like sports. Amir decides that he is going to win a kite-fighting tournament because that is the one thing both he and his father seem to appreciate. Along with Hassan's help Amir manages to become the only remaining kite in the sky, all the others having had their strings cut as the sport entails. Amir sends Hassan to chase down the kite they cut, as he is a fast runner, and this is the second part of the game. Hassan chases down the kite and is on his way back when he runs into Assef (a psychopath) and his two goons, who want revenge because Hassan had previously hit Assef with a rock or something form a slingshot. Assef brutally rapes Hassan while the goons watch. Amir, who was also looking for the kite, stumbles upon the situation but is too afraid of Assef to defend his friend. Amir flees. Hassan finds his way back and is noticably disturbed by the incedent, but both he and Amir speak not of it. Even though they won the kite-fighting tournament, Baba still shows little affection towards Amir and grows increasingly fond of Hassan until Amir decides to drive Ali and Hassan away for good. He hides money and a watch under Hassan's mattress, tells Baba, and gets the servants evicted after Hassan admits to stealing the stuff, which greatly saddens his father. Not long after these events, Baba and Amir are forced to flee Afghanistan because Soviet Russia has arrived. They sneak across the border into Pakistan and catch a plane to California. Although America is the greatest country the world has ever seen, Baba and Amir have a hard time adapting. Baba is forced to work very hard and for long hours, although they usually have to sell stuff at a flee market anyway to make ends meet. There, Amir meets Soraya, another Afgan woman who fled to America, who's family also had high ranking officials. Unfortunalety, Baba gets sick and they figure out he has the cancer. He lives just long enough to give his consent to Amir and Soraya's marriage. Amir and Soraya get married and after they have sex the story cuts ahead a few years. Also they can't have babies. In 2001, Rahim Khan, an old friend of Baba's who atually supported Amir's writing passion, calls him up and tells him that there is a way to be good again. Amir drops everything and flys to Pakistan. When he meets Rahim, Rahim tells him all that has happened since Baba and Amir fled. Rahim, Hassan, and Hassan's wife had moved into Baba's house, and Hassan had had a son named Sohrab. The Taliban executed Hassan and his wife in the street, leaving Sohrab an orphan. Rahim wants Amir to go to Kabul and find Sohrab and bring him back, and although Amir is initially against the idea due to the danger presented, he agrees when Rahim tells him that Hassan was actually his half-brother. Amir goes to the orphanage that Sohrab is supposed to be at but the man in charge tells him the he was taken as payment by a Taliban official. Amir goes to the official's place and finds out that the official's real identity is Assef. They get into a fight and Assef destroys Amir until Sohrab shoots Assef's eye out with a sling shot an brass ball. They book it out of there. Amir takes Sohrab back Pakistan and tries to give him to the couple that Rahim Khan said wanted to adopt Sohrab, but it turns out that they never really existed. Amir then tries to adopt Sohrab himself but since Hassan and his wife's death certifacits were never registered, he would have to give him to an orphanage before any adoption could take place. Sohrab doesn't want to be put in another orphanage and Amir had promised him that that wouldn't happen, but now it seems it will have to happen. To prevent this, Sohrab tries to commit suicide, but is not successful Amir gets him to America somehow anyway even though Sohrab doesn't trust him anymore, and the novel ends with Amir and Sohrab working together to fly and take down another kite while celebrating the Afgan new year at a park. = Motifs (Recurring Images, Ideas, Figures of Speech, Symbols, Colors) & Their Thematic Significance = ====Rape: The image of rape is repeatedly shown throughout the novel. First with Assef and Hassan, later with Assef and Sohrab, and again when Baba stops a man from raping a woman in a truck. The coinsurance of rapee is the source of Amir’s guilt. His lack of action has haunted him since it happened and he has sought redemption ever since. Rape shows the physical and mental harm on those without power by those who have power. We then see the trauma that comes with it. ==== ====Cleft Lip: This cleft lip shows Hassan’s place in society. It shows poverty in how he can not afford to fix it. Also the lip is often what Amir uses to describe Hassan, showing how they are divided in society. However, Assef later splits Amir’s lip when he stands up for Hassan showing that they are no longer divided in society but now the same. Baba also pays for his lip to be fixed by a surgeon, showing his secret love for Hassan that Amir does not understand. ==== ====Kites: In this novel Kite flying is what Amir seems to love the most. By doing this he feels as if he is finally connecting with Baba. He wants more than anything to retrieve the kite to Baba which allows him not to step in and save Hassan from rape. Kites them become a source of guilt for Amir and he quits flying them. However, the next time he flies a kite is with little Sohrab, which represents his redemption that he has finally achieved. ==== ====The Lamb: The lamb represents a sacrifice of something innocent in Islam and Christian religions. In this novel Amir refers to both Hassan and Sohrab as looking like an innocent lamb waiting to be slaughtered. Both of these characters were innocent but instead of being slaughtered they were raped. This completely changed the way that both of them acted as a whole. ====

**Other Significant Thematic Elements (Significant Character's Names, Significant Quotations, Significant Actions/Events)** ====Betrayal: In this novel betrayal serves as a significant thematic element. Amir finds everything he thinks he knows to be false and when he has to face his guilt he just simply avoids it. However, this does nothing for him except increase his guilt. He feels betrayed by his father and Ali when he finds out the truth of Hassan. He also betrays Hassan by letting him get raped just so he can win his own fathers heart. ==== ====Rahim Khan: Rahim is essential in the novel to help Amir find himself. Amir is faced with so much pain and suffering throughout the novel and guilt he can not face. However, Rahim allows Amir to understand the principle of forgiveness. He explains to him how God always forgiveness but it is the humans that do not. This allows Amir to forgive himself and find the redemption that he has been searching for the whole time. ==== ====Government: In this novel the government of Afghanistan serves as a significant thematic element. We see the corrupt principles of the government and how they only destroy the people. We also see how the deranged little boy Assef grew up to be one of the leaders of the government. Through him we can see what is wrong with the country and have a realistic view of the horrible choice of leaders. ==== = Major Themes =

====Search for redemption: Throughout the novel we see Amir constantly trying to please Baba. This is because he feels responsible for his mothers death. He believes that by winning the kite tournament he can finally win his father over. He also treats his best friend/half-brother Hassan wrong and as he grows older seeks redemption. Amir feels like he failed to stand up for himself as a boy so he must to it as a man to redeem himself. ====

====Love and Tension between fathers and sons: Throughout the novel there is a complex relationship between fathers and sons. Amir loves Baba but feels that he is not loved back. This drives him to go to extremes to try and gain his father's love. However, what he does not know is that Baba feels he can not truly love his son Amir because he can show no love to his other son Hassan. This creates a complex relationship and tension throughout the novel. Towards the end of the novel we see full grown Amir adopt Sohrab and treat him as his own son to make up for his childhood. ====

====Persistence of the past: Throughout the novel we see past events haunting certain people and affecting the way they act. Sohrab, for example, was sexually abused. He is a timid child who is quiet and flinches every time Amir touched him. He also has to deal with the death of his parents. Amir has a haunting past as well. He has to live with his failures as a child every single day and as a grown adult seeks redemption. He feels responsible for many things and can not seem to get rid of his past. ====