Chapters 9-17

Ever since the rape incident, Amir has felt guilty. In chapter 9, he decides that he can't live near Hassan anymore and he takes some money and the watch that Baba gave him for his birthday and put it under Hassan's mattress to make it seem like Hassan stole it, even though we know that he would be incapable of an act like that. When I read this, I had a feeling that there would be more guilt for Amir for doing this. Baba asks Hassan if he stole those things, and he said he did. Here, we see the recurring theme of loyalty. Hassan is a "loyal hazara" and will always be that even when Amir betrays him. Ali decides that it is time to go, and Baba tries to stop him by pleading him to stay and even crying, but Ali doesn't change his mind even though Baba forgave Hassan. 

Not long after they left, Amir and Baba left Afghanistan for America. They were in a truck going to Pakistan first, and supposedly the truck driver had an arrangement with the soldiers in the border to let them pass through, but when they got there a Russian soldier said that he wouldn't let them pass unless he got "half and hour with a lady in the back of the truck" (page 115), that lady that he wanted had a husband and a son, but of course that Baba wasn't going to let the Russian have her. We see his braveness again here when he stands up to the soldier and asks him where his shame is. The soldier says there is no shame in war, and that he would enjoy to put a bullet through Baba's head, to which he responds, "I'll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place."(page 116) Once again, we see that Amir is a coward because he asks Baba to sit down and let it be, but that is not who Baba is. 

A shocking thing that happens is that once they arrive to Pakistan, Kamal's father begins screamig that Kamal isn't breathing and he takes a gun, and before anyone could say or do anything, he shot himself in his own mouth. This left me truly shocked. 

The story jumps two years later, when they are already living in Fremont, California. Amir graduates, and Baba takes him out to dinner and then to a bar where he bought drinks all night. Baba was the happiest man in the world that night. Amir tells Baba that he decided to study writing and Baba isn't very pleased with this decision, but Amir's mind is set. Amir and Baba go every Sunday to the flea market and sell things, here one day, Amir meets Soraya who is General Taheri's (a respected Afghan man) daughter. He spent a year liking her before he got the nerve to finally speak to her. Baba had cancer and it got pretty bad that he had to go to the hospital. Millions of Afghans went to visit him, including the Taheri's. Soraya and Amir are in love and can't hide it anymore, this is when Amir asks Baba to ask General Taheri for her hand, and Baba is ecstatic! 

Three months after the wedding, Baba dies in his sleep and this leaves Amir devastated, but Soraya helped him through it. One day, he recieves a call from Afghanistan and it is Rahim Khan asking him to please go to Afghanistan because he is sick. Amir did as Rahim Khan asked, and when he got there he learned that another reason that Rahim Khan asked him to go was to talk about Hassan. Hassan had been living with Rahim Khan for a while taking care of the house because he couldn't anymore because of his sickness. Also, the Taliban had taken over Afghanistan in that time, and they thought it was good at first, but then they learned they were mistaken. Rahim Khan tells Amir Hassan's whole life story, including that he got married to Farzana and had a baby girl, who was born dead and they burried her in the backyard of Baba's (Rahim Khan's) house. Later, she got pregnant again and had a son named Sohrab. Sohrab's name symbolizes Amir and Hassan's childhood when they used to read the story about Sohrab which was Hassan's favorite of all times.  When Farzana is pregnant for the second time, Sanaubar appears at the house asking for Hassan with her face all cut up. Hassan had a hard time accepting that she was really there and even went to the tree that Amir and him used to play at and spent the night there thinking about what was happening. He came back, and forgave Sanaubar. She became in love with Hassan's baby boy and cared for him until he was four, when she died suddenly. 

Rahim Khan gave Amir some letters that Hassan had written for him and one of them contained a picture of him and Sohrab. After reading the letters, Amir learned that Hassan and Farzana were killed by the Taliban because Rahim Khan

had left the house to go to Pakistan, and the Taliban came to his house and found the Hazara's in there and thought they had stole the house. They ordered Hassan to leave, but he refused and then they made them kneel in the street and shot them both in the head. The taliban took Sohranb, and what Rahim Khan wants Amir to do is to rescue him in Kabul and take him to Pakistan to live with a couple who care for Afghan orfans. Amir like we know, is a coward and says he can't do that. That bothered me a lot because he should be trying to make things up to Hassan for the rape incident. This is when Rahim Khan tells Amir that Ali couldn't have children, and that Hassan was really Baba's son. This left me speechless, and I thought back to when Ali and Hassan left Baba's house and how Baba felt knowing that it was his son leaving. It must've been horrible. Amir's reaction was to insult Rahim Khan, "You goddamn bastards!" (page 222)

Chapter 1-8

      The Kite Runner starts off by telling us that there was a moment in the protagonists life, when he was a boy, that defined who he is now. "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975." (page 1). He tells us this even before we know his name, so this foreshadows that that event will be a big part of the story. He leaves us with the doubt about what this event might be until chapter 7.

                                                                                    His name is Amir. We learn this when

he tells us the story about how Hassan's (his servant's son) first word was Amir. Amir and Hassan were really close and you would think that they were friends, but their religions didn't allow them to call themselves that. Amir was a Sunni Pashtun, and Hassan was a Shi'a Muslim Hazara. Despite these ethnic and social differences, we could tell that Amir was fighting hard to not call him a friend or even a brother given that they had grown together. "There was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break."(page 11) That is one of the biggest themes in the novel so far. Ethnic and social differences.

            Another theme in the novel is guilt. Guilt is shown in chapter 7 when Hassan gets raped by Assef (a bully) and Amir watches everything but doesn't do anything about it. He had an internal conflict on whether or not to defend Hassan but he chose to stand back and watch. "In the end I ran because i'm a coward" (page 77). This changed the way Hassan and Amir acted. It was the event that Amir told us in chapter 1 would change his whole life. He began growing apart from Hassan simply because he couldn't look at him in the eyes. They reminded him of the look the lamb does when it is going to be killed. In my opinion, I'm glad that Amir feels guilty about no helping poor Hassan when all Hassan has done in his life is serve Amir and protect him from everything, but it is sad that two lifetime buddies are separated because of this inconsiderate act on account of Amir.