The Kite
Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
Mrs. Keane
English II, Periods 5 and 7
Chapters 1 & 2
“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a
frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the
precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud
wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That
was along time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about
the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it.
Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I
realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for
the last twenty-six years” (Hosseini 1).
• What image in the author immediately creating in the
opening scene of the novel? What do they say about
retrospect?
• What can we infer/information that we can glean
from what the author has provided in his diction and
tone?
Chapter 1: Effect on the Reader???
• “There is a way to be good again. I looked up at those
twin kites. I thought about Hassan. Thought
about Baba” (Hosseini 2).
– Why is it italicized?
– What questions do we have?
– Implies that he is going to outline his journey to his
redemption throughout the last twenty-six years.
• We can question ourselves: What do you
remember in your own past that has the same
effect on you or makes you the individual that you
are today?
Chapter 2: When do we stop being
children???
• Why does Hosseini use the symbol of trees to
open Chapter 2? What do they represent?
• “Hassan never denied me anything” (Hosseini 4).
- how is this a reflection on their relationship?
• How does Hosseini portray Amir’s relationship
with his father (5)?
– When do we get invited to join “grown-ups’” time?
Father-Figures: Baba vs. Rahim Khan
• Who is Rahim Khan? (Hosseini 5)
– Who is presented as Amir’s father-figure? Why?
• Baba is constantly entertaining everyone he can
other than his own son: “the dining room . . . that
could easily sit thirty guests—and, given my
father’s taste for extravagant parties, it did just that
almost every week” (Hosseini 5).
– He gives demands but is not there to enforce them
(Hosseini 7): voluntarily chooses to be absent
Other Absent Figures: Mothers
• What could be the effects of not having a
female/mother figure?
• Why is Amir’s mother not in his life? (Hosseini 6)
– Voluntary/Involuntary? Effect?
• Why is Hassan’s mother absent? (Hosseini 6)
– Voluntary/Involuntary? Effect? – an absent mother
places the father in the spotlight . . . the good and the
bad. How is Ali in the spotlight in positive and
negative ways?
Persecution
• Why have individuals/groups throughout history been
isolated and discriminated against?
• What was a time that you are singled-out, stereotyped,
isolated, etc.? Or you did this to someone else?
Motivations?
• Where do we get our information from?
– “The book said a lot of things I didn’t know, things my
teacher hadn’t mentioned. Things Baba hadn’t
mentioned either. It also said some things I did know,
like that people called Hazaras mice-eating, flat-nosed, loadcarrying donkeys. I had heard some of the kids in the
neighborhood yell those names to Hassan” (Hosseini 9).
– Media, teachers, parents, peers, etc.: Why do we accept
what we are taught?
What is Ali’s reaction to being taunted?
• Quiet indifference: He “never retaliated against any of his
tormentors” (Hosseini 10). Why?
• Because unlike where the image of a baby kills Macbeth, it
is a baby that saves Ali:
Ali was immune to the insults of his assailants; he had found
his joy, his antidote, the moment Sanaubar had given birth
to Hassan . . . She hadn’t needed much help at all, because,
even in birth, Hassan was true to his nature: He was
incapable of hurting anyone . . . Out he came smiling
(Hosseini 10).
The Symbol of the Kite
• The pair of kites in Chapter 1 is compared to a pair
of eyes (Hosseini 2) and in Chapter Two we find
“that eyes are windows to the soul” (Hosseini 8).
• This concept of vision is a re-occurring theme
throughout our texts: How/Why???
–
–
–
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Lord of the Flies: Piggy = glasses
Separate Peace: Gene = guilt, truth
“The Secret Sharer”: captain = hides Leggatt
“Macbeth”: Macbeth = to see and not to see; to see not
what the hand is doing
Symbol of Blood AGAIN
• Do you have to been connected by blood to be connected
as brothers???
“Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood
between people who had fed from the same breast, a
kinship that not even time could break.
Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first
steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the
same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was Baba.
His was Amir. My name.
Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what
happened in the winter of 1975—and all that followed—
was already laid in those first words” (Hosseini 11).