Discussion Questions
Chapter One
1. The novel begins “I became what I am today at the age of twelve” (p.1). Which event do you think Amir
believes makes him the man he is? Do you think the assertion is entirely true? What other events,
experiences and factors may have helped to form his character?
2. Amir says “Standing in the kitchen with the reciever to my ear, I knew it wasn’t just Rahim Khan on the
line. It was my past of unatoned sins” (p.1). What does Amir mean?
3. What does Rahim Khan mean when he says “there is a way to be good again?” (p. 2).
Chapter Two
4. We learn at least two important things about Amir and Hassan’s relationship in the first two paragraphs
of p. 4. What are they?
5. What happened to Amir’s mother? (p. 6)
6. What happened to Hassan’s mother, Sanaubar? (p. 6)
7. Amir says, “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.” (pp. 10-11). How do Hassan and Amir’s first words
foreshadow what is to come?
Chapter Three
8. Read the conversation between Rahim Khan and Baba on pp. 21-22. What does Baba mean when he
says, “there is something missing in that boy?” (p.21).
9. To what extent do you agree with Baba’s claim that “a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a
man who can’t stand up to anything”? (p.22).
Chapter Four
10. Amir says, “I never thought of Hassan and me as friends…not in the usual sense, anyhow. Never mind
that we taught each other to ride a bicycle with no hands, or to build a fully functional homemade
camera out of a cardboard box. Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites.
Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head,
and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of
those things. Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun,
and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that.
Nothing.” (p. 24).
(a) In your own words, describe why Amir does not think of Hassan as his friend.
(b)Do you think Hassan sees Amir as a friend? Try to support your answer with examples or evidence
from the text.
(c) What do you think of Amir’s assertion that “history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In
the end, I was a Pashtun, and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever
going to change that. Nothing.” (p. 24)
(d)Compare this assertion with Amir’s statement to General Sahib in Chapter 25: “You see, General
Sahib, my father slept with his servant’s wife. She bore him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead
now. The boy sleeping on the couch is Hassan’s son. He’s my nephew. … You will never again
refer to him as ‘Hazara boy’ in my presence. He has a name and it’s Sohrab.” (p. 331). What
changes to Amir’s views and character are demonstrated by this statement?
11. Amir writes, “[Hassan’s] favorite story, and mine, was “Rostam and Sohrab”, the tale of the great
warrior Rostam and his fleet footed horse, Rakhsh. Rostam mortally wounds his valiant nemesis,
Sohrab, in battle, only to discover that Sohrab is his long lost son. Stricken with grief, Rostam hears his
son’s dying words: ‘If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood of
thy son. And thou didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee into love, and I implored of thee
thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy
heart in vain, and now is the time gone for meeting…” (pp. 27-28)How is this story reflected in the
novel?
Chapter Five
12. What happens on July 17, 1973? (p. 34)
13. Why is Amir, “for a brief insane moment”, glad about whatever happened that night? (p. 34)
14. What does the reader learn or imply about the characters, and the relationships between them, from the
line: “later, I would tell myself I hadn’t felt envious of Hassan. Not at all” (p. 33).
15. What does the reader learn about Amir and Hassan’s relationship from pp. 38-40?
16. Amir says, “Why Baba waited until I was ten to have me circumcised was beyond me and one of the
things I will never forgive him for.” (p.43) What does this foreshadow?
Chapter Six
17. What is the key point of the following paragraph: “I loved wintertime in Kabul. I loved it for the soft
pattering of snow against my window at night, for the way the snow crunched under my black rubber
boots, for the warmth of the cast-iron stove as the wind screeched through the yards, the streets. But
mostly because, as the trees froze and the ice sheathed the roads, the chill between Baba and me thawed
a little. And the reason for that was the kites. Baba and I lived in the same house, but in different spheres
of existence. Kites were the one paper-thin slice of intersection between those spheres.” (p.46).
18. Amir writes, “every winter, districts in Kabul held a kite fighting tournament. And if you were a boy
living in Kabul, the day of the tournament was undeniably the highlight of the cold season. I never slept
the night before the tournament. I’d roll from side to side, make shadow animals on the wall, even sit on
the balcony in the dark, a blanket wrapped around me. I felt like a soldier trying to sleep in the trenches
the night before a major battle. And that wasn’t so far off. In Kabul, fighting kites was a little like going
to war. As with any war, you had to ready yourself for battle... If the kite was the gun, then tar, the glass
coated cutting line, was the bullet in the chamber. We’d go out in the yard and feed up to five hundred
feet of string through a mixture of ground glass and glue… By the time the snow melted and the rains of
spring swept in, every boy in Kabul bore tell tale horizontal gashes on his fingers from a whole winter
of fighting kites. I remember how my classmates and I used to huddle, compare our battle scars on the
first day of school. The cuts stung and didn’t heal for a couple of weeks, but I didn’t mind. They were
reminders of a beloved season that had once again passed too quickly” (pp. 46 - 47).
(a) Why do you think the author compares kite fighting to war?
(b) Is there an equivalent to kite fighting in Australia?
(c) What do you think is the symbolic meaning of the kites in The Kite Runner?
(d) What is the meaning of the title The Kite Runner?
19. Amir writes, “The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what
the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980s: that the Afghans are an independent people.
Afghans cherish custom but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No
rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck… And when a kite runner had his hands on a kite, no
one could take it from him. That wasn’t a rule. That was custom.” (pp. 48-49) What do you think is the
difference between rules and customs?
20. What do we learn about the characters of Hassan and Amir, and the relationship between them, in the
scene where Amir asks Hassan if he would “eat dirt if I told you to” (pp. 50-51)?
21. Read the section in which Baba says “I think you’ll win the tournament this year.” (pp. 52-53). What
does Amir think will happen if he wins the tournament? Why is this so important to him?
22. Baba says “better to get hurt by the truth than comforted by a lie” (p.54). Do you agree with this
statement? How does this conflict with how Baba acts?
Chapter Seven
23. What do you think is the significance of Hassan’s dream at the beginning of Chapter Seven? (pp. 56-57)
(further detail is given on pp. 80-81).
24. After winning the kite tournament, Amir writes, “I saw Baba on our roof. He was standing on the edge,
pumping both of his fists. Hollering and clapping. And that right there was the single greatest moment
of my twelve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last” (p. 63). What does this tell us
about Baba and Amir’s relationship?
25. How does Amir describe the kite on p. 67?
26. Why do you think Hassan does not give up the kite to Assef? (pp. 68-69)
27. What do you find out about the relationship between Amir and Hassan on p. 68?
28. Why do you think the author jumps to flashbacks during Assef’s attack on Hassan? (pp. 69-72)
29. What happens in the first flashback when Amir and Hassan pay a rupia each to a fortuneteller for ‘the
truth’? (pp. 69-70). What do you think this means?
30. Why do you think the author chooses to compare Hassan to a lamb during Assef’s attack? (p.71)
31. During the attack, Amir says, “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide
who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he’d stood up for me
all those times in the past – and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran. I
ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting
hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan. That’s what I made myself
believe. I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that
Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I
had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could
thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (p. 73).
(a) Why do you think Amir says he ‘aspired to cowardice’?
(b) What is the alternative reason for his decision to run?
32. Why does Amir say that most of all he could not bear to see “guileless devotion” in Hassan’s eyes? (pp.
73-74)
Chapter Eight
33. Why does Amir avoid Hassan after the attack?
34. Why does Amir say “I finally had what I’d wanted all these years. Except now that I had it, I felt as
empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into”? (p. 80).
35. Surrounded by sleeping relatives, Amir says aloud “I watched Hassan get raped” and writes “a part of
me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore”.
Why does Amir describe the fact that he was going to get away with his actions as a new curse? (p. 80).
36. Why did Amir throw pomegranates at Hassan? (p. 86)
37. What is the meaning of Hassan’s response? (p.87)
38. Why do you think Rahim Khan tells Amir the story of Homaira and tells him, “you don’t order someone
to clean your shoes one day and call them ‘sister’ the next”? (p. 92)
Chapter Nine
39. Why does Amir hide his watch and money under Hassan’s mattress? (p. 97)
40. Why does Hassan say he stole Amir’s watch? (pp. 97-98)
41. Why is Amir glad that Ali knows the truth? (p. 99)
42. Imagine Amir were to ask Baba “how could he just forgive Hassan? And if Baba could forgive that,
why couldn’t he forgive me for not being the son he always wanted?” (p. 98). How might Baba
respond?
43. Why do Ali and Hassan leave?
Chapter Ten
44. Why do Baba and Amir need to flee Afghanistan?
45. Why can’t you trust anyone in Kabul anymore? (p.104)
46. What is the significance of the scene in which Baba confronts the Russian soldier? (pp. 106-108)
47. What is the significance of the story of Kamal and his father? Why do you think the author includes this
story in the novel? (pp. 111, 114-115). NB: Kamal is one of the two boys who held Hassan down during
Assef’s attack.
Chapter Eleven
48. Why does Baba refuse food stamps? (p.121)
49. After Amir’s graduation, Baba says “I wish Hassan had been with us today.” Amir writes, “a pair of
steel hands closed around my windpipe at the sound of Hassan’s name” (p. 124). He later writes that, “I
didn’t want to sacrifice for Baba anymore. The last time I had done that, I had damned myself.” (p.125).
What does the reader learn from these statements?
50. “America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins
drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me somplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and
no sins.” (p. 126). To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Chapter Twelve
51. What is yelda? Why does Amir say that every night of the week becomes yelda for him after he meets
Soraya? (p. 132).
52. What does Baba mean when he says of General Sahib, “The man is pashtun to the root. He has nang and
namoos.” (p. 134)
53. Why are Amir’s conversations with Soraya so contraversial?
54. How is the relationship between Amir and his father changed because of his father’s illness?
55. Do you think Amir is being selfish when he says, “what about me, Baba? What am I supposed to do?”
(p. 144) Why is the loss of his father so important to Amir?
56. What do you think Baba means when he says, “What’s going to happen to you, you say? All those
years, that’s what I was trying to teach you, how to never have to ask that question.” (p. 144)
57. Why does Amir feel that Soraya is a better person than him? (p.152). Do you think Amir is a ‘bad’
person?
Chapter Thirteen
58. What is the significance of Amir’s statement: “I realised how much of who I was , what I was, had been
defined by Baba and the marks he had left on people’s lives. My whole life, I had been “Baba’s son”.
Now he was gone. Baba couldn’t show me the way any more; I’d have to find it on my own. The
thought of it terrified me.” (p. 161)
59. What does Amir think is the real reason he doesn’t care about Soraya’s past? (p. 166).
60. What does Amir mean when he says: “What kind of father would I make, I wondered. I wanted to be
just like Baba and I wanted to be nothing like him.” (p. 169).
Chapter 14
1. Why does Amir go to Pakistan?
2. How does Amir know that Rahim Khan knew about “Assef, the kite, the money, the watch with the
lightening bolt hands?” (p. 177)
Chapter 15
3. How does Rahim Khan describe Afghanistan in the years that Amir has been in America? Include at
least three details, facts or events described by Rahim Khan.
4. Why did people celebrate the Taliban’s victory in the beginning?
Chapter 16
5. What do we learn about Amir and Hassan’s relationship from the questions Hassan asks Rahim Khan on
pp. 191 -192 and the letter Hassan sends Amir in Chapter 17 (pp. 199-202)?
6. Why do you think Hassan insists on living in the hut behind Baba’s house, and refuses to move into the
house? (p. 193)
7. Why do you think Sanaubar returns? How can her story be related to the broader theme of sin and
redemption?
Chapter 17
8. How are Hassan and Farzana killed? What is the reason given for their deaths? (p. 202)
9. Rahim Khan asks Amir to go to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab. Amir asks, “Why me?
Why can’t you pay someone here to go? I’ll pay for it if it’s a matter of money.” (p. 204). Rahim Khan
roars, “It isn’t about money, Amir! …Why you? I think we both know why it has to be you, don’t we?”
(p. 204). Why does Rahim Khan believe Amir must go to Afghanistan and rescue Sohrab himself?
10. Rahim Khan tells Amir that Baba once said “a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who
can’t stand up to anything” (p. 204). Does Rahim Khan believe Amir has become this kind of man?
Does Amir believe he has?
11. Why does Amir say, “I’m 38 years old and I’ve just found out my whole life is one big lie?” (p. 206).
Chapter 18
1. Amir asks, “How could he have lied to me all those years? To Hassan? He had sat me on his lap when I
was little, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, There is only one sin. And that is theft… When you
tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. Hadn’t he said those words to me? And now, fifteen
years after I’d buried him, I was learning that Baba had been a thief. And a thief of the worst kind,
because the things he’d stolen had been sacred: from me the right to know I had a brother, from Hassan
his identity, and from Ali his honor. His nang. His namoos… How was I going to reconcile this new
image of Baba with the one that had been imprinted on my mind for so long, that of him in his old
brown suit, hobbling up the Taheri’s driveway to ask for Soraya’s hand?” (pp. 208-209). Do you think
that Amir manages to reconcile the two images of Baba by the end of the novel?
2. What does Amir believe might have happened if he hadn’t “driven Hassan and Ali out of the house”?
(p. 209)
3. Amir writes: “As it turned out, Baba and I were more alike than I had ever known: We had both
betrayed the ones who would have given their lives for us. And with that came this realisation: that
Rahim Khan had summoned me here to atone not just for my sins but for Baba’s too.” (p. 209).
(a) Who does Amir believe Baba betrayed when he writes “We had both betrayed the ones who would
have given their lives for us”?
(b) How might Amir’s actions atone for Amir’s sins?
(c) How might Amir’s actions atone for Baba’s sins?
Chapter 19
4. Why does Amir want to leave for Afghanistan as soon as possible? (pp. 213-214)
5. What does the reader learn about Amir in his dream on p. 221?
Chapter 20
6. How does the author use the stories of characters such as Farid and his family (Chapter 19, especially
pp. 213 and 223), the beggar on the streets of Kabul (pp. 229-231), and Zaman, the orphanage director
(pp. 231-237), to tell the reader about life in Afghanistan?
7. Do you believe Zaman’s actions can be justified? Why/ why not?
Chapter 21
8. Before the stoning in the stadium, a cleric declares: “God says that every sinner must be punished in a
manner befitting his sin! … And what manner of punishment, brothers and sisters, befits the adulterer?
How shall we punish those who dishonor the sanctity of marriage? How shall we punish those who spit
in the face of God? How shall we answer those who throw stones at the windows of God’s house? WE
SHALL THROW THE STONES BACK!” (pp. 248-249).
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
What does the cleric view as a sin?
How does the cleric believe such sins should be punished?
Is this view of sin and punishment supported by the novel?
How would you define ‘sin’?
Chapter 22
9. What does the reader learn about the Taliban’s attitude towards Hazaras in the scene in which Assef
describes Mazar-i-Sharif? (pp. 254 – 255).
10. Why do you think Amir describes himself as at peace for the first time since 1975 during Assef’s
attack? (pp. 265-6).
Chapter 23
11. Rahim Khan writes, “what you did was wrong, Amir jan, but do not forget that you were a boy when it
happened. A troubled little boy. You were too hard on yourself then, and you still are.” Do you agree or
disagree? Why?
12. Why does Rahim Khan believe Baba was hard on Amir? (p. 277).
13. Rahim Khan writes, “Good, real good, was born out of your father’s remorse. Sometimes I think
everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in
need, it was all his way of reedeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan,
when guilt leads to good.” (p. 277). Do you agree with Rahim’s definition of ‘true redemption’? How
would you define redemption?
14. When Rahim Khan asks Amir to go to Afghanistan, he promises that John and Betty Caldwell will look
after Sohrab. When Amir returns, he learns that no such couple exists. Why do you think Rahim Khan
lied? Was he right to do so?
15. Amir has two dreams in Chapter 23. What do you think is the meaning of the two dreams?
“We are in the Sulaiman Mountains of Baluchistan and Baba is wrestling the black bear. He is the Baba
of my childhood, Toopan agha, the towering specimen of Pashtun might, not the withered man under
the blankets, the man with the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. They roll over a patch of green grass,
man and beast, Baba’s curly brown hair flying. The bear roars, or maybe it’s Baba. Spittle and blood fly,
claw and hand swipe. They fall to the ground with a loud thud and Baba is sitting on the bear’s chest,
his fingers digging in its snout. He looks up at me and I see. He’s me. I am wrestling the bear.” (p. 271)
“I dreamed Assef was standing in the doorway of my hospital room, brass ball still in his eye socket.
“We’re the same, you and I,” he was saying. “You nursed with him, but you’re my twin.”” (p. 282)
Chapter 24
16. Why do you think Sohrab runs to the Mosque?
17. Why does Sohrab think god will put him in hell for what he did to Assef? Why does he think he is “so
dirty and full of sin”? (pp. 292-293).
18. Amir says, “there are bad people in this world, and sometimes bad people stay bad. Sometimes you have
to stand up to them. What you did to that man is what I should have done to him all those years ago.
You gave him what he deserved, and he deserved even more.” (p. 292). Do you agree?
19. Why is it so difficult for Amir to adopt Sohrab? (pp. 302-303, 309-310).
20. Why is Sohrab so frightened of going back to an orphanage? (p. 313).
Chapter 25
21. What does the reader learn from Amir’s desperate prayers while Sohrab is in intensive care? (pp. 316317)
22. Why is Sohrab silent, withdrawn, and “so tired” after emerging from intensive care? How long does
Sohrab remain this way?
23. What is the meaning of the final scene and Amir’s declaration to Sohrab: “for you a thousand times
over” (p. 340).
24. What does Amir mean when he writes, “when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and
maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting”? (p. 340).