What Are Amir's Emotions In The Kite Runner

1111 Words3 Pages

Courtney Ventura
Willson
AP Literature
4 September 2014
Analysis of Kite Runner
Throughout Khaled Hosseini’s, The Kite Runner, readers create personal emotions with the characters using first person narration. The novel starts out with a friendship between a wealthy boy and a father’s servant’s son. Unfortunately, the story is set in a place that is being destroyed. Characters throughout the novel are placed into situations where they must learn to redeem themselves. Each have to learn how to sacrifice their love of one another and fight for their country. The story takes place in Kabul, Afghanistan during 1975 where Amir and his father Baba are living. Amir and his father have two Hazara servants by the names of Ali and Hassan. Things start …show more content…

Amir and his one servant, Hassan, are playing outside one day when they find these three boys by the names of Assef, Wali, and Kamal. Unfortunately, Assef threatens Amir for hanging out with another minority, but Hassan comes to the rescue with his slingshot.
Redemption becomes a huge factor throughout The Kite Runner. Amir feels as if he holds the responsibility of his mother’s death from his birth. His main goal is to redeem himself and make his father proud. During the winter in Kabul, children all over strive to win the tournament in kite-running. In kite-running, the kites are covered in glass and children run with the kites. When a kite has gone loose, someone chases it and tries to retrieve it by winning the kite-running tournament. Fortunately, Amir participates in the kite-running tournament and wins! After he wins the tournament, he brings back his losing/winning kite to his father; Amir feels the accomplishment of making his father proud of him. As Amir is traveling back to where he lives, he finds Hassan trapped in an alley. He, Hassan, is being held down as Assef tries to rape him. In complete shock, Amir runs away from the scene …show more content…

Khaled Hosseini really draws deep into the major usage of symbolism and metaphors in this novel. He uses these to emphasize a reader’s mind as they are reading the novel and also to create a visual mindset throughout the story. The most specific symbols in this novel are, the kites and the slingshot, put in to specific places in the novel; as key moments between relationships. Let’s talk about the most important symbol first, the kites. The kites are depicted among Amir and Hassan to represent freedom and relationships between the two young boys. Afghanistan holds these kite races for the young children, but as the Taliban takes over Afghanistan, kite races are banned. Due to this unfortunate event, the boys cannot show their brotherhood for each other; rather their clarity of minority groups and how they can still come together whether one is Pashtun or a Hazara. When reminded of the relationship between the two, “Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break” (11). Khaled Hosseini uses diversity in The Kite Runner to let readers understand that no matter what race or minority someone is, let them be your friend; something amazing could become of it. As well as the kites, the slingshot symbolizes innocence and courage among some of the major characters. The slingshot presented throughout the novel,

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