Final Kite Runner Post

As an overall conclusion of my feeling towards The Kite Runner, I enjoyed it. It was in some ways completely unsatisfying and I suffered emotionally through its entirety, but perhaps that’s what makes a good book, a strong emotionally connection to the characters and their well being. There were three sweeping themes through the novel that I noticed. The first theme was how a single event can change the course of someone’s entire life. The second theme was how each character went through cycles. The final theme comes from a quote in the book , “seamless seems love, then trouble comes.”

The novel, Kite Runner, focuses around a single event in Amir’s life. This event ultimately shaped his personality and the course of his life. The rape of Hassan changed Amir in a lot of ways. Amir’s initial reaction to Hassan’s rape makes it difficult for the reader to judge whether Amir is a bad person. He was a troubled child, with a serious and desperate need for love and affection. He needed to feel that he was better to Hassan in some way. The rape was his only chance. It is his actions afterward that Amir proves his character flaws. Instead of confronting Hassan, Ali, Baba, or even Rahim Khan and discussing the situation, he decides to avoid it. The information eats him up inside, he cannot sleep, he has trouble eating, and he is unable to look at Hassan with cringing. Instead of solving these problems of his, he decides to get rid of Ali and Hassan by accusing Hassan of theft. This accusation changes the whole path of Hassan’s life. If they had not left, then both Ali and Hassan might have traveled with Baba and Amir to America. Hassan would have been educated and lived a normal and semi comfortable life instead. It might have prevented Ali and Hassan’s early deaths, both terrible and gruesome. Amir proved as a child that he was selfish and cowardly and continued it throughout the beginning of his early adult life. By the same token, the guilt made Amir ultimately change into a good person. His rescue of Hassan’s son, Sohrob, was a testimony to his ability to put someone else’s wellbeing before his own.  Sohrob’s silence and anger towards Amir caused him to start working with charity to help Afghanistan. It gave him the opportunity to spend more time helping others.  His guilt ultimately made him into a decent human being. In a similar way, Baba lies and consequently his guilt, which shaped the course of his life, caused him to be a better person. Although originally it caused him to alienate his legitimate son, and mourn over his illegitimate one.  In the end though he tried his best to atone for his sins by helping all those he had wronged. He was always generous and kind. And his relationship with Hassan mended, whilst the two of them spent time together in America.

The third theme comes from a quote from the book.  An old beggar that Amir meets in Kabul says it while explaining the reign of the Taliban. The quote is “Seamless seems love, then trouble comes.” Amir’s Mother explains it like this, when you are feeling the most profound happiness, it usually means that the world is preparing you for something quite awful. I have noticed that the events in the novel seem to follow this pattern. I shall start when the pattern first occurs. Baba and his wife are glowing over their beautiful house, flourishing career, and most importantly the upcoming arrival of their first child. They are perfectly happy. Then on the day, which was meant to be the greatest day of their lives, Baba’s wife dies in labor. Baba is left to raise his son alone. The second event is when Amir wins the kite tournament. He knows that he and his father will now share something. His father and he will gave a connection that he has never had before. The few moments of happiness that Amir feels is shattered by Hassan’s rape. How can he possibly bask in his success when Hassan has been defiled? He watched Hassan’s innocence ripped from him.  The happiness of Amir’s wedding is ruined by the death of his father. Then the happiness of his first published novel is ruined by Soraya’s infertility. Finally Amir happiness of finding Sohrob and taking him to America is completely destroyed by Sohrob attempted suicide, followed by his year of angry silence. In the Kite Runner the author seems to hint that happiness is just a sign that something very bad is coming. Just as Amir is able to overcome his cycle of cowardliness and self-absorption, perhaps he can beat this cycle that plagued his father and himself for years.