Growth Amidst Adversity: A Study of 'The Kite Runner'

This world is one made up of danger and violence, a world of fear and caution. What people must learn to remember is that we can still find happiness through all these things, and that though our hard experiences change us, they also make us stronger. The novel The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, follows the lifetime of a young boy, Amir, as he grows up in Afghanistan in the 1970’s, portraying many physical, emotional and intellectual changes he undergoes.

To commence, Amir changed physically over time from a young boy into a young man, growing up during a difficult time. He is originally introduced as a narrator, without a name, left for us to interpret him by his thoughts and feelings. When he is twelve years old, he is a “thin boy, a little sallow, and a tad short [...] a hint of dark circles around his pale hazel eyes. As the story progresses, his experience of difficult times begin to make an impact on him. Though in his younger days, he only had a shadow of

One example of this is shown in the book by how he sometimes wished he could be more like his father, and feet guilt for his mother dying at his birth. “The least I could have done was to [...] have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t [...]. Not at all.” Amir’s relation with his father had always been difficult, but as the story progresses, he succeeds in gaining his father’s respect and love, but only at the cost of losing something else. His relationship with Hassan slowly dissipates, as Amir turned away from his friend in danger, during their kite competition. He began to understand more about the war as he grew older as well, from not knowing what a republic was, to being a part of fleeing the country due to understanding the dangers of his once mostly peaceful home. Reading plenty as well, Amir continued to develop his own intellect and