the kite runner analysis essay

The Kite Runner

Introduction of the kite runner, summary of the kite runner, major themes in the kite runner,  major characters in the kite runner, writing style of the kite runner, analysis of literary devices in the kite runner  , related posts:, post navigation.

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Essay

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Introduction

The kite runner: summary of the novel, the main characters and themes of the narrative, personal opinion about the composition.

The Kite Runner is a novel written by an Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. When Hosseini was a child, his family moved from Afghanistan to France, and then to the USA. This experience is partially reflected in the narrative of the author. Hosseini has written three novels, and The Kite Runner “has sold millions of copies worldwide and been classified as one of a classic” (Khadawardi 2017, 88). In this essay, the summary of the story, information on the main characters and themes, as well as a personal opinion about the composition will be presented.

The story revolves around the life of a young boy from Kabul, Amir. He lives with his father, Baba, a wealthy man who never has time to spend with his son. Amir feels jealous when he notices Baba’s cordial treatment of his friend, Hasan, the son of their servant. To deserve his father’s love, Amir decides to take part in the kite competition with Hassan. Even though the two boys could keep their kite in the sky for a long time and won the first part of the competition, the event ended tragically. Hassan runs away, trying to find a place where the kite fell. After waiting for him for a long time, Amir decides to follow his friend and becomes a witness to the rape of Hassan by his enemy Assef. Amir is scared to interfere and help his friend and decides to go away and pretend he did not see anything. Feeling guilty for what he did, Amir stops talking to Hassan and does not want to be his friend anymore. He blames him for being a thief, and Hassan and his father leave their home.

Soon, the Soviet Union troops intervene in Afghanistan. To save their lives, Amir and his father immigrate to the USA. Many years later, after his parent’s death, Amir receives a letter from a family friend. From this letter, he learns that Hassan was his brother and that he knew about Amir’s betrayal but still loved him until the end of his life. Unfortunately, Hassan died with his wife during demonstrations in their country, but their little son, Sohrab, managed to survive. He was sent to an orphanage, and the author of the letter asks Amir to save the child and take him to the USA. Amir decides to go to Afghanistan and finds his nephew there. Even though it turns out to be difficult for Amir to adopt him, he promises Sohrab never to send him to an orphanage again. One day, when Sohrab notices that Amir is about to break his promise, he tries to commit suicide. Even though the boy survives, he starts to keep to himself being silent most of the time. One day, Amir buys a kite for Sohrab, and, for the first time, he sees a smile on his face. Thus, it is not entirely clear if the story has a happy ending or not. Even the protagonist of the story mentions that he does not know for sure if the story of Hassan and his nephew, Sohrab, ends happily (Hosseini 2013). However, the author gives readers the hope that the characters of the story will eventually find peace and harmony.

The protagonist of the story is Amir, a young boy who was born in a wealthy Afghan family. It is not possible to tell if the personage of Amir is positive or negative. On the one hand, his sneaky nature allows him to betray his best friend. On the other hand, he is capable of feeling guilty and admitting his mistakes. Trying to make amends, Amir uses “a chance to put to rest his tortured past” ( Summary and Analysis of The Kite Runner 2016, 8). He puts much effort into taking Sohrab to the USA and giving him a better life.

Baba, the father of Amir and Hassan, also feels guilty for his affair with a servant’s wife. He considers it the worst sin he ever committed, and, in his desire to redeem himself, helps other people until the last days of his life. In contrast to his son Amir, Baba is a very independent and decisive person. However, it turned out that he was not brave enough to tell Amir and Hassan that they were brothers.

It is evident that Hassan and Amir have many differences. Even being unaware of the fact that Amir was his brother, he loved him and considered his best friend. He forgave Amir for his betrayals and was always ready to spend time with him. Amir, on the contrary, “never displayed his feelings toward Hassan” (Hosseini and Zohdi 2016, 37). It remains unclear if it is caused by the lack of Amir’s love for Hassan or by peculiarities of his personality. Being a very kind person, Hassan also forgave his mother, who left him when he was a child and sheltered her at his house during the war in the 1970s.

The main themes of the book are forgiveness and friendship. The author shows that for friendship, it does not matter if people have or do not have much in common. Hassan and Amir are two boys from two different worlds. Amir belongs to the aristocratic part of the society, while Hassan is from a low-income family of servants. Baba is a handsome man, and Hassan’s father is miserable and limp. Hassan has an ugly harelip, while the deformity of Amir is not noticeable from the outside. Despite all these differences, the two boys become soul mates and real friends. Unfortunately, Amir’s weakness and villainy trigger the end of their friendship. However, nothing can make Hassan stop communicating with his friend, even Amir’s betrayal. Being aware of every harmful deed done by Amir, Hassan is still looking up to Amir, ready to forgive him for everything. Thus, the author shows that forgiveness is the main element of people’s lives that helps individuals to build happiness.

The Kite Runner is one of the rare novels that invite readers to feel all the mental experience of the protagonist. This novel evokes a strong emotional response of readers and teaches them to be braver in some situations to avoid regrets in the future. It also shows that sometimes people neglect those who are sincere with them, and when they realize that they made a mistake, it is sometimes too late. This book shows the weaknesses and vices of human nature and makes readers think about their behavior.

It can be concluded that the novel The Kite Runner contains many significant ideas about people’s relationships. It teaches how important it is to forgive betrayals, love despite all, and bring goodness to this world. It also makes readers think about protagonists’ emotions and feelings and involves them in the process of reflections on their life. The author created an engaging narrative that should be read by both youth and adults because it raises questions that are always topical for all generations.

Hosseini, Akram, and Esmaeil Zohdi. 2016. “ The Kite Runner and the Problem of Racism and Ethnicity.” International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, vol. 74, 33-40.

Hosseini, Khaled. 2013. The Kite Runner. 10th ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.

Khadawardi, Hesham. 2017. “Superego Guilt, Redemption and Atonement in Khaled Hosseini’s the Kite Runner .” International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education 4 (2): 88-99.

Summary and Analysis of the Kite Runner: Based on the Book by Khaled Hosseini. 2016. New York: Worth Books.

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IvyPanda. (2019, December 3). The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-kite-runner-by-khaled-hosseini/

"The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini." IvyPanda , 3 Dec. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/the-kite-runner-by-khaled-hosseini/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini'. 3 December.

IvyPanda . 2019. "The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini." December 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-kite-runner-by-khaled-hosseini/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini." December 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-kite-runner-by-khaled-hosseini/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini." December 3, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-kite-runner-by-khaled-hosseini/.

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The Kite Runner Quote Analysis

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The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

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The Kite Runner

Khaled hosseini.

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The narrator, Amir , grows up in a luxurious home in Kabul, Afghanistan, with his father Baba . They have two Hazara (an ethnic minority) servants, Ali and his son Hassan , who is Amir’s closest playmate. Amir feels he is a disappointing son to Baba, but he is close to Baba’s friend Rahim Khan . Amir and Hassan fly kites and read stories together, though Hassan does chores while Amir goes to school. One day three boys named Assef , Wali , and Kamal threaten Amir, but Hassan scares them away with his slingshot.

In the winter there is a big kite-fighting tournament where boys try to cut each other’s kites with glass-covered strings, and then “kite runners” chase after the fallen kites. Amir wins the tournament, and then Hassan goes to retrieve the losing kite. When Amir goes after Hassan he finds him in an alley, trapped by Assef, Wali, and Kamal. Amir watches as Kamal and Wali hold Hassan down and Assef rapes him. Amir runs away, and later both he and Hassan pretend nothing has happened.

Amir and Hassan soon drift apart. Amir is tormented by guilt, and he decides to make Hassan leave the house. He hides some money under Hassan’s mattress and tells Baba that he stole it, and Hassan doesn’t deny it. Baba forgives Hassan, but Ali and Hassan leave the household.

In 1981, Baba and Amir flee Kabul, which has been invaded by the Soviets. They eventually make it to Pakistan, and months later move to Fremont, California. Baba works at a gas station and Amir finishes high school and then studies writing at college. Baba and Amir sell things at a flea market, where Amir starts noticing Soraya , the daughter of Baba’s friend General Taheri . After much delaying, Amir starts courting her. Soon afterward Baba is diagnosed with lung cancer. Amir asks Baba if he will ask General Taheri to let him marry Soraya. General Taheri accepts, and Amir and Soraya get married soon after. Baba is pleased with Amir’s marriage, and he dies a month later. Amir gets his first book published and he and Soraya start trying, unsuccessfully, to conceive. Meanwhile, the Soviets are driven out of Afghanistan.

One day Amir gets a call from Rahim Khan, who is dying and asks Amir to come to Pakistan. Once Amir arrives, Rahim Khan tells him about the horrors of the Taliban regime and war-torn Kabul. Rahim Khan says he had been watching Baba’s house for a while, but then found Hassan and convinced him and his wife Farzana to come back to Kabul. Later Farzana had a boy, Sohrab . After Rahim Khan went to Pakistan he learned that Hassan and Farzana were executed by the Taliban, and Sohrab was sent to an orphanage.

Rahim Khan asks Amir to go to Kabul and find Sohrab, saying this is Amir’s chance to “be good again.” He also reveals that Baba was Hassan’s true father. Amir agrees to go, and he finds the orphanage where Sohrab was supposed to be, but learns that a Taliban official took him away a month earlier. Amir (and his companion Farid ) go to a soccer game, where at halftime the official they are looking for executes a man and woman.

Amir meets the official and the man calls in Sohrab, who has clearly been sexually abused. The official then reveals himself as Assef, and he beats Amir with his brass knuckles until Sohrab shoots him in the eye with his slingshot. Amir and Sohrab escape and Amir recovers in Pakistan. Amir then asks Sohrab to come back to the U.S. with him, and Sohrab hesitantly accepts.

Amir discovers it will be almost impossible for him to adopt Sohrab, and he tells him he might have to go back to an orphanage. Soraya figures out how to get Sohrab an American visa, but then Amir finds Sohrab has tried to kill himself. Sohrab survives, but stops speaking altogether. Amir brings Sohrab to California, but he remains silent and withdrawn. One day they are at a park and some Afghans are flying kites. Amir buys one, and he and Sohrab fight another kite and cut it. Sohrab smiles, and Amir goes to run the kite for him.

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