The Kite Runner
Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara and the son of Amir's father's servant, Ali, spend
their days in a peaceful Kabul, kite fighting, roaming the streets and being boys. Amir’s father (who is
generally referred to as Baba, "daddy", throughout the book) loves both the boys, but seems critical of
Amir for not being manly enough. Amir also fears his father blames him for his mother’s death during
childbirth. However, he has a kind father figure in the form of Rahim Khan, Baba’s friend, who
understands Amir better, and is supportive of his interest in writing stories.
Assef, a notoriously mean and violent older boy with sadistic tendencies, blames Amir for socializing
with a Hazara, according to Assef an inferior race that should only live in Hazarajat. He prepares to
attack Amir with his steel knuckles, but Hassan bravely stands up to him, threatening to shoot Assef in
the eye with his slingshot. Assef and his henchmen back off, but Assef says he will take revenge.
Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir, knowing where the kite will land without even watching it.
One triumphant day, Amir wins the local tournament, and finally Baba's praise. Hassan goes to run the
last cut kite, a great trophy, for Amir saying "For you, a thousand times over." Unfortunately, Hassan
runs into Assef and his two henchmen. Hassan refuses to give up Amir's kite, so Assef exacts his revenge,
assaulting and raping him. Wondering why Hassan is taking so long, Amir searches for Hassan and hides
when he hears Assef's voice. He witnesses the rape but is too scared to help him. Afterwards, for some
time Hassan and Amir keep a distance from each other. Amir reacts indifferently because he feels
ashamed, and is frustrated by Hassan's saint-like behavior. Already jealous of Baba's love for Hassan, he
worries if Baba knew how bravely Hassan defended Amir's kite, and how cowardly Amir acted, that
Baba's love for Hassan would grow even more.
To force Hassan to leave, Amir frames him as a thief, and Hassan falsely confesses. Baba forgives him,
despite the fact that, as he explained earlier, he believes that "there is no act more wretched than
stealing." Hassan and his father Ali, to Baba's extreme sorrow, leave anyway. Hassan's departure frees
Amir of the daily reminder of his cowardice and betrayal, but he still lives in their shadow and his guilt.
Five years later, the Russians invade Afghanistan; Amir and Baba escape to Peshawar, Pakistan and then
to Fremont, California, where Amir and Baba, who lived in luxury in an expansive mansion in
Afghanistan, settle in a run-down apartment and Baba begins work at a gas station. Amir eventually
takes classes at a local community college to develop his writing skills. Every Sunday, Baba and Amir
make extra money selling used goods at a flea market in San Jose. There, Amir meets fellow refugee
Soraya Taheri and her family; Soraya's father, who was a high-ranking officer in Afghanistan, has
contempt of Amir's literary aspiration. Baba is diagnosed with terminal oat cell carcinoma but is still
capable of granting Amir one last favor: he asks Soraya's father's permission for Amir to marry her. He
agrees and the two marry. Shortly thereafter Baba dies. Amir and Soraya learn that they cannot have
children.
Amir embarks on a successful career as a novelist. Fifteen years after his wedding, Amir receives a call
from Rahim Khan, who is dying from an illness. Rahim Khan asks Amir to come to Pakistan. He
enigmatically tells Amir "there is a way to be good again." Amir goes.
From Rahim Khan, Amir learns the fates of Ali and Hassan. Ali was killed by a land mine. Hassan had a
wife and a son, named Sohrab, and had returned to Baba’s house as a caretaker at Rahim Khan’s
request. One day the Taliban ordered him to give it up and leave, but he refused, and was murdered,
along with his wife. Rahim Khan reveals that Ali was not really Hassan's father. Hassan was actually the
son of Baba, therefore Amir's half-brother. Finally, Rahim Khan tells Amir that the true reason he has
called Amir to Pakistan is to go to Kabul to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an orphanage.
Amir returns to Taliban-controlled Kabul with a guide, Farid, and searches for Sohrab at the orphanage.
In order to enter Taliban territory, Amir, who is normally clean shaven, dons a fake beard and mustache,
because otherwise the Taliban would exact Shariah punishment against him. However, he does not find
Sohrab where he was supposed to be: the director of the orphanage tells them that a Taliban official
comes often, brings cash and usually takes a girl back with him. Once in a while however, he takes a boy,
recently Sohrab. The director tells Amir to go to a soccer match and the man "who does the speeches" is
the man who took Sohrab. Farid manages to secure an appointment with the speaker at his home, by
saying that he and Amir have "personal business" with him.
At the house, Amir has his meeting with the man in sunglasses,who says the man who does the
speeches is not available,. The man in sunglasses is eventually revealed to be his childhood nemesis,
Assef. Assef is aware of Amir's identity from the very beginning, but Amir doesn't realize who he's sitting
across from until Assef starts asking about Ali, Baba and Hassan. Sohrab is being kept at the home where
he is made to dance dressed in women's clothes, and it seems Assef might have been sexually assaulting
him. (Sohrab later says, "I'm so dirty and full of sin. The bad man and the other two did things to me.")
Assef agrees to relinquish him, but only for a price - cruelly beating Amir. However, Amir is saved when
Sohrab uses his slingshot to shoot out Assef's left eye, fulfilling the threat his father had made many
years before.
Amir tells Sohrab of his plans to take him back to America and possibly adopt him, and promises that he
will never be sent to an orphanage again. After almost having to break that promise (after decades of
war, paperwork documenting Sohrab's orphan status, as demanded by the US authorities, is impossible
to get) and Sohrab attempting suicide, Amir manages to take him back to the United States and
introduces him to his wife. However, Sohrab is emotionally damaged and refuses to speak or even
glance at Soraya. This continues until his frozen emotions are thawed when Amir reminisces about his
father, Hassan, while kite flying. Amir shows off some of Hassan’s tricks, and Sohrab begins to interact
with Amir again. In the end Sohrab only shows a lopsided smile, but Amir takes to it with all his heart as
he runs the kite for Sohrab, saying, "For you, a thousand times over.".
THE KITE RUNNER THEMES
Major themes explored in the novel are
 War
 Loyalty
 forgiveness f
 friendship
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redemption
Sacrifice
Race
Class
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Fear
Father/son
relationships
racial Inhumanity
Major Characters
Amir- main character and narrator
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Best friend of Hassan, son of Baba, husband of Soraya
Childhood decision haunts him in adulthood
Half brother of Hassan (both Baba's progeny)
Adoptive father of Sohrab
Hassan - Best friend and servant of Amir
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Thought to be the son of Ali, but it is revealed in chapter 17 he is actually Baba's son
Loyal to Amir despite any impact it may have on himself
Sohrab's father
Was raped as a teen, Amir witnessed, This is one of the most important parts of the novel
Dies because of a Taliban search. Killed in a back ally along with his wife
Baba - Father of Amir (and Hassan)
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Wealthy citizen of Kabul who is known for his public works
Has a strained relationship with his son, Amir
Respected by citizens of Kabul
Dies of lung cancer
Ali - Servant of Baba, supposed father of Hassan
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Like a brother to Baba
Leg crippled from Polio
Poor
Dies from a landmine explosion
Hazara
He can not have kids because of the Polio (Which Amir Learns Later)
Rahim Khan - Business associate and close friend of Baba
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Has a close relationship with Amir
Also the main reason Amir returns back to the middle east
Assef - Antagonist
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Neighborhood bully who hates Hassan because he is of Hazara descent.
Firm believer in the ways of Adolf Hitler.
Future leader of Taliban
Takes Sohrab from orphanage in Kabul
Soraya - Wife of Amir
Sohrab - Orphan son of Hassan
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Enslaved and abused by Assef
Rescued and adopted by Amir
Amir's half-nephew
Suffers from depression, and attempts suicide by cutting his wrist
THE KITE RUNNER QUOTES
 *“There is a way to be good again.” (Pg. 2) This is said by Rahim Khan to Amir to encourage him
to help Hassan’s son escape Afghanistan and finally redeem himself.
 *“I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”, Said by Amir, story
opener that talks about the time he betrayed his best friend Hassan in an alley in Kabul.
 “There was brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that
even time could not break.”
 "For you, a thousand times over." (Pg. 2) This is said by Hassan to Amir as Hassan runs his last
kite, the prized blue one that would earn Amir his Baba's praises. Years later, Amir still
remembers these words when he thinks of Hassan.
 "I brought Hassan’s son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil
and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty."
 "Because when spring comes it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed
the first flake melting" (Pg. 372) Refering to the smile on Sohrab's face, the first one seen in
America.
 *"I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment
of Baba's guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on
his face. Baba's other half. The unentitled, under-priveleged half. The half who had inherited
what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his
heart, Baba had thought of as his true son." p.359
 "I looked down at Sohrab. One corner of his mouth had curled up just so. A smile. Lopsided.
Hardly there. But there." (p.370)
Study Questions and Essay Topics – You will submit two of these to a drop box at or before each
deadline. Choose topics that can be addressed by what you have read. No topics may be chosen more
than once.
Deadlines are – Friday, April 26; Wednesday, May 1; Thursday, May 9; Monday, May 14.
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The novel begins ‘I became what I am today at the age of twelve’. To what is Amir referring? Is
his assertion entirely true? What other factors have helped form his character? How would you
describe Amir?
After reading Amir's story Rahim Khan writes to him: 'the most impressive thing about your
story is that it has irony.' (page 28). It is surely an irony that Hassan, whose ignorance Amir
pillories, points out that there was no need for the man to kill his wife to weep tears, he could
simply have smelled an onion. How important is irony in the book? Were their other instances
that particularly struck you?
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Amir had never thought of Hassan as his friend, despite the evident bond between them, just as
Baba did not think of Ali as his friend (page 35). What parallels can be drawn between Amir and
Hassan’s relationship, and Baba and Ali’s? How would you describe the relationship between
the two boys? What makes them so different in the way they behave with each other? What is it
that makes Amir inflict small cruelties on Hassan? Had you already guessed at the true
relationship between them? If so, at what point and why?
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It is Amir’s dearest wish to please his father. To what extent does he succeed in doing so and at
what cost? What kind of man is Baba? How would you describe his relationship with Amir, and
with Hassan? How does that relationship change and what prompts those changes?
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Khaled Hosseini vividly describes Afghanistan, both the privileged world of Amir’s childhood and
the stricken country under the Taliban. How did his descriptions differ from ideas that you may
already have had about Afghanistan? What cultural differences become evident in the American
passages of the novel? How easy do the Afghans find it to settle in the US?
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How does Hosseini succeed in bringing the horror of the Taliban to life? Why did he choose the
role for Assef that he did?
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After Soraya tells Amir about her past, she says ‘I’m so lucky to have found you. You’re so
different from every Afghan guy I’ve met’ (page 157). What do you think of the reasons that
Amir puts forward for this? Could there be others? How do Afghan women fare in America? Are
they any better off than they were in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized power?
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On the drive to Kabul Farid says to Amir ‘You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know
it.’ (page 204) What is Farid implying? What do you think of his implication? Amir feels that he is
'home again' (page 210) but how well does he know or understand his country?
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'There is a way to be good again' (page 2) promises Rahim Khan, a phrase which resonates
throughout the novel. Does this prove to be the case for Amir? How important is Rahim Khan to
him?
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How significant is the tale of Rostam and Sohrab? What does it mean to Hassan, and to Amir?
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How important is religion in the book? What attitudes do the main characters have to it? How
do they compare to the popular Western idea of Islam?
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What is the significance of kites in the book? What do you think they symbolise? Who is the
eponymous kite runner? What is the significance of the kite scenes appearing at both the
beginning and end of the novel?
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"The past is always there"- Give three examples of how this shown in the Kite Runner.