Final Response

The Kite Runner presented a lot of interesting ideas to me. Ones that I never really put any thought into. I think Hosseini does an excellent job at tying the plots from the beginning and end together, especially with a few specific quotes that relate to one another. I've always been interested in human improvement and human transitioning, and Hosseini captures Amir's transitioning into a new human being almost perfectly. At first you have this shy and terribly troublesome young Afghan, and through the experiences he lived through, we ended up with a philanthropic, relaxed older man.

The parts in the novel when Amir puts the money under Wahid's pillow and when Amir flies the kite with Sohrab at the end capture almost every element of human transitioning in The Kite Runner. We get a complete 180 degree turn out of Amir. His experiences with Hassan teach many valuable life lessons. Often times, people don't take their mistakes and turn them into positives. Amir was headed down that road, the road where normal people go down and live their lives based on the mistakes they made, and what they could have done to change things. Amir took the moment into his own hands, and made things right.

Another idea that I think Hosseini conceives well is the idea of making things right. He adds Rahim Khan and his ideologies together to form a sort of all-knowing character. Khan is the catalyst to Amir's adventure back to Afghanistan. Khan presents the idea that anything can be made right, at anytime. And that making things right takes action, and determination. Amir goes to Afghanistan, faces his past, and makes things right within himself and more importantly with Hassan and his legacy.

One symbol I picked up on (and I'm not sure if Hosseini meant to put this in or not) was the symbol that Amir represented America and Hassan represented Afghanistan. Amir does all of these terrible things to Hassan, and moves to America, a new prosperous land of "the free." Hassan, on the other hand, stays in Afghanistan and his life turns to dust, much like Afghanistan itself. It's odd. Amir does bad deeds and moves to a new, cleaner world. Hassan only does good, and ends up being eaten up by the greedy taliban.

Amir's internal battle with himself at the beginning of his life was also something I enjoyed. I'm not sure if many people gave Amir as much benefit to the doubt as I did for his actions. Amir always felt pressured by Baba, and felt as if Baba always held Amir accountable for his mother's death. He felt as if he always had to prove something to Baba to gain his respect and love. This lead Amir to basically be grown up under no true parents. He had to figure out a lot of stuff on his own. And although Baba made it clear that he wanted Amir to be this strong, independent young man, Amir couldn't. It was just not who he was. So instead of fighting for what he loved, and fighting in times where he absolutely needed to fight, he decided to attack the situation much like as if it were a virus or sickness. He would basically try and destroy his problem and eradicate it, rather than facing the problem as if it were a real, life changing scenario. That's why I personally believe why Amir did what he did to Hassan. He ran from his problems, and did not fight for Hassan or for himself.

The young Amir is characterized above. The new Amir at the end of the novel fights for what he believes in, and makes things right, mentally within himself, and physically with Sohrab. Amir learned through his experiences with Amir that being a coward is not the way to handle problems. Amir accepts the fact that he's a coward, and it's at that moment when Amir finally comes to terms within himself as an individual, and it's at that moment when Amir is finally ready to make things right, like Khan says.

My favorite part of the novel had to be when Amir got absolutely shit on. I think Amir's injuries were his payment. His payment to peace within himself. Everyone has to put something in or give something up to gain peace within. In Amir's case, he dealt with an immense amount of guilt for decades, and paid for his mental equilibrium by taking a visit to the hospital after fighting with Assef.