The Kite Runner Argumentative Essay

Time is a fixed concept; one cannot relive a moment to change a regrettable action, or escape into the future to avoid one’s problems. Many see life as a path or a road, stretching on indefinitely with countless branches to choose from as time moves forward. However, life is often better represented by a circle, beginning with life and ending with death, the path of one intersecting with those of others along the way. In The Kite Runner, Hosseini uses kite running as an extended metaphor to represent the journey of life, ultimately connecting the past and the future.

For the majority of his life, Amir, the son of a wealthy Pashtun Afghani, runs to escape from his past. Distant from Baba, his father, despite his best efforts, Amir “…always felt

like Baba hated [him] a little. And why not? [Amir] had killed his beloved wife (in childbirth) …” (Hosseini 19). Weak and spineless, Amir avoids intervening in the rape of his closest friend, Hassan. Amir removes himself from the situations in which he feels helpless and at risk through memories and dreams, weighing his options selfishly. As the guilt builds he runs faster, straining to outpace the consequences of his inaction; “I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I’d always feared they would” (346).
However, he is also running towards a more hopeful future, relying on a single undetermined event to absolve him of guilt regardless of the event’s nature to make things right.

Amir’s guilt stems from his timidity with Hassan’s rape, when Hassan had chosen to run a kite for Amir and was ambushed. Instead of focusing immediately on aiding his friend’s plight, Amir’s eyes saw “…sitting on piles of scrap and rubble…the blue kite. [The] key to Baba’s heart” (71). Amir spends the next decades wishing to be punished for his actions: “I wished [Hassan] would give [my cruelty] right back to me, break the door and tell me offit would’ve made things easier, better,” but only succeeds in pushing Hassan away (88). “I (Amir) ended up tossing the book (from Hassan) on the heap of gifts in the corner of my room. But my eyes kept going to it, so I buried it at the bottom,” unable to keep a reminder of his own inaction and Hassan’s forgiveness (103). Amir finds the pain he searches for decades later, fighting for the life of Sohrab, Hassan’s son; “[m]y body was broken…but I felt healed. Healed at last”

(289).
Spanning both time and maturity, kite running represents Amir’s transition from childhood cowardice to manhood.

In his youth, Amir stands by as Hassan is raped by a common enemy, and drives Hassan out of his home from guilt. He has no backbone, waiting for others to take on his troubles. He covers his eyes during confrontations and runs from challenges, becoming the man Baba feared he would: one who could not stand up to anything. However, Amir’s path turns upwards along the circle when he hears a promise of redemption: “Come. There is a way to be good again” (192). Travelling through Afghanistan under Taliban rule, Amir searches for Sohrab. He takes on the role of guardian with Sohrab, accepting religion as he “bow[s] to the west,” adopting beliefs different from his father’s and choosing to stand with something larger than himself. (345). The final remnant of Amir’s childhood cowardice disappears as he replicates his own early memories of kite running with Sohrab. Just as Hassan ran the blue kite for Amir, Amir “ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the Valley of Panjsher on my lips,” as he runs a kite for Sohrab

(371).
In The Kite Runner, Hosseini is molds Amir to the aspects of kite flying. Amir’s cowardice cuts through his other characteristics as he runs from the past, not necessarily towards anything, as many runners do to escape the mob of others following them. After witnessing Hassan’s rape and doing nothing to prevent it, Amir runs towards a kite, although his desire for punishment is misguided; he chases a kite that is not there, and in the wrong direction. His true moment of clarity comes when he fights for Sohrab’s life, receiving the pain he thought would absolve his sins. The novel makes a complete circle at the end, when Amir runs a kite for Sohrab and parallels Hassan’s run for Amir. Hosseini uses the circular path of Amir’s life to show the transition from a boy that runs from everything to a man who runs towards the kite.