1. There is a way to be good again
2. For you a thousand times over
3. I would eat dirt for you
4. It was the look of the lamb
5. Coward! Coward!
6. Rubble and beggars
7. You will not refer to him as ‘that Hazara boy’ in front of me again. He has a name and it is Sohrab
8. There is only one sin. And that is theft… when you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth.
9. It was only a smile, nothing more… but I’ll take it.
10. We won! We won!
11. Amir and Hassan – Sultans of Kabul
12. my body was broken–just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later–but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.
13. I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with.
14. Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.”
15. Children aren’t colouring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favourite colours.”
16. Hassan’s reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: Yes
17. Tell him I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let his indecency take place.”
18. “No,” I said. “I think he was ashamed of himself.”
19. “Father used to say it’s wrong to hurt even bad people. Because they don’t know any better, and because bad people sometimes become good.”
20. “There is a Talib official,” he muttered. “He visits once every month or two. He brings cash with him, not a lot, but better than nothing at all.”
21. “Life here is impossible for us now, Agha sahib. We’re leaving.”
22. “You bring me shame. And Hassan….Hassan’s not going anywhere, do you understand?”
23. “I hear he is a great kite runner.”….”Although I’ve always wondered how he manages. I mean, with those tight little eyes, how does he see anything?”
24. “Afghan is for Pashtuns, I say. That’s my vision.”
25. “A boy who can’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”
Tag Archives: The Kite Runner
Higher practice – prose questions
The following exam questions have been lifted from the old Higher papers. It would be worth your while to take a look at these and practice your critical writing. Remember you must have a clear introduction that sets out what you are going to be looking at, each main paragraph must have a point which is then back up with evidence from the text (preferably a quote). You then need to analyse this evidence, how is it supporting your point? And finally how does this link back to the main argument?
>Choose a novel in which the fate of the main character is important in conveying the writer’s theme. Explain what you consider the main theme to be and discuss how effectively the fate of the character conveys it.
>Choose a novel which has one of the following as its theme: sacrifice; unrequited love; isolation. Discuss the techniques by which the novelist establishes one of these themes and go on to show how, in the end, he or she achieves a satisfactory resolution.
>Choose a novel in which the writer’s method of narration (such as first person narrative, diary form, journal…) plays a significant part. Explain briefly the method of narration and discuss its importance to your appreciation of the text.
>Choose a novel where the method of narration makes an important contribution to the success of the text. Briefly explain the method of narration used by the author and then show in more detail the ways in which it contributes to the overall theme.
>Choose a novel which seems to be bleak and pessimistic. Show how the pessimism is established and go on to discuss the extent to which the pessimism contributes to the overall theme.
>Choose a novel with dark uncertain undertones. Explain the means by which the writer has created the undertones and, in more detail, discuss their contribution to the themes as a whole.
>Choose a novel in which the novelist makes use of more than one location. Discuss how the use of different locations allows the novelist to develop the central concern(s) of the text.
>Choose a novel where characters are affected by certain external forces over which they have little control. Discuss the writer’s use of such forces – social, political, supernatural – and show the extent to which the characters have difficulty in dealing with them.
>Choose a novel in which the novelist makes use of symbols. Describe briefly what they represent and discuss how the use of these symbols helps develop the central concern(s) of the text.
>Choose a novel in which the story’s emotional twists ensure that your interest is held until the end. Briefly explain how these twists involve you in the story and then discuss how they lead to a deeper appreciation of the text as a whole.
>Choose a novel which has a theme of friendship or family relationships. Show how the novelist explores your chosen theme and discuss how this treatment enhances your appreciation of the novel as a whole.
>Choose a novel in which a character experiences a moment of revelation. Describe briefly what is revealed and discuss its significance to your understanding of the theme/s.
>Choose a novel in which a minor character plays an important part. Show how the minor character’s role is established and go on to discuss how that character contributes to either the fate of the main character or to the overall theme of the novel.
>Choose a novel which slowly reveals the strengths of the main character. Show how the writer achieves the revelation and go on to demonstrate how it contributes to the overall theme of the text.
>Choose a novel with a central character you consider to be heroic. Show how the heroic qualities are revealed and discuss how this portrayal of the character enhances your understanding of the text as a whole.
>Choose a novel where the story, interesting for its own sake, nevertheless also comments more generally on human behaviour. Show how the story itself interests you but go on to discuss how the story also has a much more universal appeal.
>Choose a novel where the ending raises more questions than answers. Explain how the novelist prepares us for the ending and go on to discuss its contribution to the novel as a whole.
>Choose a novel in which one character’s loyalty or disloyalty to another proves to be decisive. Explain how this arises and go on to discuss why you think it is important to the text as a whole.
The Kite Runner – Chapter 24 & 25
Amir experiences a sensation of a weight being “lifted off his chest” at the beginning of the chapter. We get a feeling here that things are starting to work out. Amir feels that he has righted the wrongs of his past, that Sohrab can begin to heal and that Amir and Soraya will finally have a version of the family they have longed for.
Mr Andrews is the American Ambassador and to begin with we see him as largely unsympathetic to Amir’s plight. He does not seem to care about Sohrab’s unusual situation and seems jaded by all the paperwork. It is later revealed that his daughter committed suicide which softens Amir’s attitude towards him.
Omar Faisal, the adoption lawyer seems much more sympathetic to Amir and Sohrab’s plight. He seems overworked and underpaid but he offers what he feels is the best and soundest advice, suggesting that SOhrab be placed in a Pakistan orphanage till Amir and Soraya can fill out official adoption papers.
The thought of going back to an orphanage obviously traumatises Sohrab. He has already spent time in the Afghan orphanage where he would have spent most of the time hungry and cold. He would have received little comfort whilst grieving the murder and loss of his parents. He was then snatched from the orphanage and abused. This is all he knows about orphanages, it is understandable that he would not wish this to happen again.
The weather during Amir’s phone call is dramatic epithet. It has become dark and rainy, this is a premonition of what is to come – Sohrab’s attempted suicide.
When Amir finds Sohrab half-dead in the bath he tells us “suddenly I was on my knees, screaming. Screaming through my clenched teeth. Screaming until I thought my throat would rip and my chest explode.
Later they said I was still screaming when the ambulance arrived.” Amir feels torn apart by seeing Sohrab in this state. He has fought too hard for his nephew to end up dead. The repeated “screaming” tells us that this is almost a aprimal reaction to seeing Sohrab this way. He clearly doesn’t remember much either, probably going into shock as he claims others had to tell him about how long his screams lasted.
Amir feels compelled to visit the mosque when Sohrab is recovering in hospital as he is desperate and has no other options. Even though he is not religious he decides to give praying a shot.
The “timid guest” analogy for Sohrab’s hope is an apt one. Sohrab has lived in fear for so long that he has forgotten what hope is and so it occupies his body shyly, as if he has no right to feel this emotion.
At the end of the dinner scene with Amir, Soraya and her parents we see a complete change in Amir. In the past he would have bowed down to the General’s wishes and not wanted to start a fight. In this scene though, he sticks up for Sohrab when the General insults him and puts the General in his place by commanding him to refer to Sohrab by his name and not as “that Hazara boy”.
Kite flying and running is what connected Amir and Hassan and showed us how strong their relationship was to begin with. It is also something that Hassan used to do with Sohrab when they were back in Afghanistan. It is important that the book should end this way as this is how Amir will bond with Sohrab, and it is how Sohrab can begin to heal himself. It is also a way for Amir and Sohrab to remember Hassan.
The Kite Runner – Chapter 21 & 22
Two things at the start of Chapter 21 that suggest the chaos experienced in Kabul are the state of the restaurant building and the dead body. Amir describes for us the restaurant that he and his father used to visit. The building has been padlocked but people have smashed the windows and parts of the sign have fallen off. This suggests it has been left in a hurry by its owners and that people have tried to break in. The body is that of a hanged man that has been left to rot. The body has been torn at by other people and so is covered in blood but the people going about there business on the day Amir sees it pay it no heed as if this has become a normal part of their lives.
Wazir Akbar Khan remains largely unscathed by the civil disruptions because this was one of the nicer suburbs of Kabul. As the country went through war and now civil unrest many of the houses had been appropriated by various leaders. The houses in Wazir Akbar Khan are now lived in by the more prominent Taliban members and so they remain largely untouched by the fighting.
The italicised description of Amir’s old house shows us a colourful and vibrant home. The garden is overflowing with plants, there are painted sections and the whole place dances with colour. This creates a sharp contrast with the house Amir now stands in, which has become derelict and sapped of colour.
The fact that Amir goes back to check on the carving tells us that he still thinks Hassan is important. This tree stands for their friendship and the carving shows that it still endures. “The carving had dulled, almost faded altogether, but it was still there”. Despite Hassan’s death and Amir’s forced ignorance of the situation, their friendship is still strong enough that Amir will go back into this war-torn country to save his nephew.
When Amir attends the football match we are introduced to a man referred to as John Lennon for his round sunglasses. The crowd treat this man with fear and contempt. He is clearly a bit of a bully and has done things to hurt people in the past.
It is later revealed that this character is actually Assef and that it is he who has taken Sohrab. This is important as it was Assef who assaulted Hassan, and if Amir had intervened during the assault there is a big possibility that the later events of the novel wouldn’t have had to happen.
Assef is a bully and the Taliban does nothing but bully people, hence Assef’s strong enjoyment as a member.
Amir states “My body was broken – just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later – but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.” Amir feels healed because he has finally redeemed himself against Hassan. If he had stopped Assef from raping Hassan all those years ago then the result would have been Assef beating the two boys up. Amir laughs because he feels a huge sense of relief at realising this.
Sohrab stops the fight and saves Amir by firing a slingshot pellet into Assef’s face, blinding the man. This allows time for Amir and Sohrab to escape. This is significant as we remember Hassan using the same weapon to defend himself and Amir countless times as a child, and often against Assef and his gang of bullies.
The Kite Runner – Chapter 20
Hosseini chooses the phrase “rubble and beggars” sum up Kabul as this is what the city has been reduced to. It gives a perfect snapshot of what has happened to the buildings and the people. Everywhere has become derelict or has been bombed or is no longer looked after and so is a shell of its former self. The people have nothing to live off of – there are very few jobs, very little food and there homes have become simple shelters. They are reduced to poverty under the Taliban’s regime.
Jadeh Maywand was Amir’s home that Rahim Khan was asked to care-take for Baba. It is described a “giant sandcastle” as the building is no longer kept. There are no longer decorations in the garden and so it is a simple sandy colour, the comparison to a sandcastle also references its delicate state – it could collapse at any moment as there is no longer anyone living in it.
The simile about returning to Kabul is effective as he describes it as bumping into an old friend you no longer recognise. Clearly there are things he recognises about the city, like his home, certain streets and the cemetery where he used to play as a child. But the changes in the mood from a vibrant and lively place to a dead town make it feel unfamiliar to him.
The Taliban are made to sound threatening on several counts. They drive a red pickup truck. The colour red is associated with danger and so we are subconsciously made wary of them. They seem young compared to the other men begging in the streets, and they travel in a pack. Their youth and large grouping makes them intimidating. They also have large guns and a lot of them which shows us they are not to be messed with.
The conversation with the beggar in this chapter proves to us how far Afghanistan has fallen as a country. The beggar, a poor destitute man, was once a great professor of learning, he educated the masses and would have held a stable job and lived in a nice home. Now under the Taliban regime he lives in the streets and has no income. This is because the Taliban have no place for people who can think for themselves and would teach others to do the same.
The orphanage is in a horrific state. There is no longer government or local funding to help look after the children. The children have no formal education as there are no longer proper schools. The manager has elected to stay behind with the children despite having a family of his own to look after. The children live in poor conditions with little food or shelter and no toys. The Taliban provide sporadic aid for the children.
It turns out that Farid, the orphanage director, is in the difficult position of letting the Taliban select children to take with them when they visit the orphanage. It becomes very clear that the children the men remove probably end up sexually abused. Farid states that the children who are left behind are at least now provided with food and clothing. He lays the blame and judgement at Allah’s door, knowing that if he didn’t let the Taliban men take these few children in return for money and food then the Taliban would just take the children anyway.
The Kite Runner – setting
Amir’s Kabul that we see in 1975 is a vibrant and cheerful one. The streets are bustling and street vendors and shops spill across the roads. There are cars and horses and people milling around everywhere. Amir’s home is in a wealthier part of Kabul where the houses are surrounded by gated and walled gardens. Each one seems to be its own mini palace. There is a sense of luxury and safety here.
The Kabul we see here seems to have a bright culture. There are traditional kite tournaments held annually where the young and adults pull together to put on a massive festival. At the Eid festival the streets are again packed with people celebrating and sharing. There is music and art. The education system allows females and males to go to university. Western culture infiltrates the country, with John Wayne country films playing in the cinemas. The politics, although not without corruption, appears to be stable and democratic. The social system still seems to follow an archaic model. There are clear demarcations between the status of various ethnic groups. The Pashtuns are clearly at the top of the rankings, with Amir and Assef coming from wealthy backgrounds. Ali and Hassan, who are Hazara are servants. They get picked on by other people and are seen as having a low status in the world because of their ethnicity.
The Afghan community in America still retains much of the social stratification we saw in 70’s Kabul. When in typical American society the Afghan community mostly mirrors the behaviours of their new country. When in Afghan society they revert back to old customs. For example, at the Afghan market Amir and Soraya cannot be alone together and is frowned upon when Amir approaches Soraya himself instead of sending his father. We see a traditional Afghan wedding when Amir and Soraya get married and the greetings between the General and Baba follow traditional Afghan protocol.
When Amir goes back to Afghanistan it is very much a country torn apart by several decades of war and civil unrest. The buildings are close to crumbling down, the markets have all closed down and the streets are deserted apart from the orphans, beggars and stray dogs.
The Afghanistan Amir returns to is under the dictatorship of the Taliban. They have imposed a strict regime over the nation, which uses their interpretation of Islam to impose strict rules on the people. The Taliban uses fear to ensure that the people do as they say. Many of the arts have been banned and traditions such as kite flying have been stopped. The social system has become worse, women have little freedom, men who refuse to join the Taliban are executed and ethnic groups living in the cities are wiped out (this is how Hassan is killed).
For this book to work in another setting or time, the writer would have to pick somewhere that had both racial and religious tensions going on and where another state or country was seen as a ‘Holy Grail’ land. For example, this story might have also worked in Northern Ireland in the 80’s where a long history of British rule and tensions between Protestants and Catholics caused a great deal of unrest.
The Kite Runner – Symbols practice essay
1. Choose a novel in which the novelist makes use of symbols. Describe briefly what they represent and discuss how the use of these symbols helps develop the central concern(s) of the text.
‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini makes use of several symbols throughout the text such as the Eid sacrifice, kites, pomegranate trees, slingshots, the harelip and the story of Rostram and Sohrab. We can look at what these symbols represent and how they help develop the central concerns of guilt and redemption and the loyalty of friendship.
The most important symbol in the text is the Eid sacrifice which represents the character Hassan. In Islam a goat or sheep is sacrificed to show the loyalty between man and God, in the text Hassan is being raped by Assef because he refused to give up the kite for Amir. The text tells us that Amir shuts his eyes and that all he could see was “the look of the lamb”. This becomes a metaphor that connects Hassan with the sacrifice. The lamb accepts its fate, to be sacrificed for the love of God in much the same way that Hassan accepts the abuses of Assef for the love of Amir. This primarily highlights the central concern of friendship and loyalty as Hassan allows Assef to rape him so he can keep the kite for Amir. He has admitted previously that he would “eat dirt” for Amir, and here he is doing something similarly grim. It also highlights the theme of guilt and redemption though, as Amir should really have intervened at this point and stopped Assef. Instead, he shuts his eyes and ignores the event, a decision which will lead to him feeling guilty for the next twenty years.
The second symbol that is significant in this text in relation to the two themes is the kites. Traditionally kites were used as tools in war and now in Afghanistan there are annual kite tournaments where teams of boys fight to win. In the book the kite is used to show the strength of the bond between Amir and Hassan. At the kite tournament they must work as a seamless, synchronised team to defeat the other players. It is this symbiotic nature between the boys that allows them to win. When they do win, Amir is seen shouting “We won! We won!” Amir’s word choice of ‘we’ shows him publicly admitting that he and Hassan are together and united. He admits out loud that they are friends. The kite is later seen to separate the boys though and comes to represent Amir’s guilt. The kite is the reason Hassan gets raped. He sees the kite as his and Amir’s prize for winning the tournament and tells Assef this. When he returns with the kite Amir doesn’t see it as a symbol of their victory but rather a reminder of what Hassan has gone through and his own guilt at not intervening. At the end of the novel we see the kite once more. This time it is again used to reinforce the theme of loyalty and friendship. Amir and Sohrab are flying kites together in the park. Amir tells Sohrab he will run him a kite, and that he would do this “a thousand times over”. This is a phrase Hassan once used with Amir, to show Amir the level of his devotion. Amir has now learnt how strong the bond is between himself and his old friend. He repeats this phrase to his nephew but it is also a promise to Hassan that he will raise his son properly. The kite is the tool that will bond Amir and Sohrab and will keep alive the tie between Amir and Hassan.
A third symbol we see in the book is the pomegranate tree which is used to represent the friendship between Amir and Hassan at three points in the plot. Pomegranates are traditionally seen as symbols of friendship in Islamic tradition and we first see the pomegranate tree when the boys visit the cemetery and carve into the tree’s bark “Amir and Hassan, Sultans of Kabul”. Here we see the two boys as equals, they are both rulers of all they purvey. More importantly they are sharing that land too which shows them in a strong partnership together. The second visit to the pomegranate tree occurs after Hassan has been raped and this time Amir shouts the word ‘coward’ at Hassan and throws the fruit at him causing it to fall apart. Here Amir is really angry at himself for not intervening in the rape, he believes that if he makes Hassan hurt him it will make up for not stopping Assef. Amir can only deal with his guilt at this point by causing himself hurt. He is the real coward here, as he didn’t stop his best friend from getting hurt. The pomegranate’s physical disintegration becomes a metaphor for the break-up of the two boys as their friendship dissolves in that one moment. Finally we see the pomegranate tree when Amir returns to Kabul and is aware that Hassan is dead and he must rescue Sohrab. He returns to the tree to find it still labelled with the words he and Hassan carved into it twenty-six years before. This tells us that although the tree and Hassan are dead, the survival of the engraving shows their relationship is still alive as Amir has found a way to redeem himself. The pomegranate tree then represents these two themes. It first plots the journey of Amir and Hassan’s relationship from its strongest point to its weakest and then its remembrance. It acts as a witness to Amir’s guilt (when the boys fall out) and to the start of his redemption (when he returns to rescue Sohrab).
The Kite Runner – chapter 18 analysed
In Chapter 18 Hosseini describes how every mention of Hassan caused Amir to feel ‘like the scab was being removed’ on a fresh wound. This is very effective in demonstrating Amir’s emotions at this point. Hassan’s death is likened to a wound inflicted on Amir’s body. It hurts him that his friend is dead. Every time someone mentions Hassan it causes this ‘wound’ to hurt again.
There are a number of things that Amir sees as unmistakeable signs of Baba’s relation to Hassan. First of all Baba paid for Hassan’s lip surgery so his cleft pallet wasn’t as obvious. He bought him an expensive kite for his birthday. He always gave Amir and Hassan money to go to the cinema. He forgives Hassan for ‘stealing’ Amir’s watch. He completely over reacts when Ali says he is taking Hassan away from Kabul and at Amir’s graduation he states that he wishes Hassan could have been there.
The truth that Baba kept certain information hidden from Amir hurts so much because of two elements. Baba told Amir that the worst thing any person could do was to steal. He said that if you tell a lie or hide the facts then you are stealing the truth from the people involved. By not telling the truth about Hassan Baba has hidden the facts from both his children. It also suggests that Baba was embarrassed about Hassan on some level as he didn’t want to admit that his child was half-Hazara. Amir would have felt that his father didn’t trust him completely.
The cliché ‘like father, like son’ is true because both Baba and Amir hide the truth and this has devastating effects on the future. Baba has hidden Hassan’s true identity which leads to Hassan being left in Afghanistan and eventually leads to his death. Amir never admits to witnessing the assault on Hassan and therefore ruins his friendship with his best friend and brother.
When Amir speaks of his ‘oblivion’ he is speaking of the emptiness he feels now that he knows Hassan is dead and that his father lied to him.
This chapter is ended very effectively on several levels. Hosseini begins to close the chapter by making Amir have a dream in which Hassan is seen praying, muttering the mantra ‘a thousand times for you’, over his bloodied hands. Taliban men then come and shoot Hassan in the head. This tells us that Amir’s guilt still hangs heavy on him at this point in the book. He goes outside to get some air and accidently overhears Wahid, his host, and his wife arguing about food. There is none left because they gave it all to Amir. This reinforces just how poor and desperate many Afghan families have become under the Taliban regime.
The Kite Runner – narrative style
The book is told in first person from the perspective of Amir. It begins in the middle of the story, when Amir gets a phone call in San Francisco in 2001 from Rahim Khan calling him back to Afghanistan. It then throws the reader back to Kabul in 1975 where it begins to follow the story of Amir’s childhood. This continues along through the rest of Amir’s life up until the point where he rescues and adopts Sohrab.
This is important as it means we look at the events in Kabul through the eyes of a reflective adult rather than the eyes of child. We have an adult reaction to the things that happen, but it also allows us as the reader to understand why the children and young adults react to things the way they do. For example, we understand that Amir feels he cannot stop the rape from happening because he is too cowardly and is afraid of the outcome for himself. We understand that Assef bullies others because he has insecurity issues about his own mixed race heritage.
In Chapter 7 there are two unusual points to the tale. There is a strange inclusion of a dream sequence told through Hassan. He is given a huge chunk of text to say. In this dream sequence he predicts the outcome of the kite tournament and his impending abuse at the hands of Assef through the metaphor of the lake monster that he and Amir defeat.
At the end of the chapter there is also a descriptive flashback of an Eid sacrifice whilst Hassan is being assaulted. In this scene Amir does not want to watch his friend being assaulted and he does not want to acknowledge that he should really be preventing it from happening. Instead he shuts his eyes and conjures up an image of the Eid sacrifice. During the Eid festival a sheep or goat is sacrificed to represent the loyalty of men to God. Amir remembers this now as Hassan is sacrificing himself out of his loyalty for Amir.
In Chapter 16 the narrative shifts to Rahim Khan as he relates the story of Hassan’s life and eventual death at the hands of the Taliban. Rahim Khan was closer than Amir to Hassan at this point and so it gives the story more emotional weight. We expect, because the story of Hassan has a lot of happy points to it, that his tale will end well. It is a shock when Rahim Khan eventually reveals Hassan’s death with the simple statement that the Taliban were committing genocide by ‘ridding’ Afghanistan of Hazaras.
The Kite Runner – Chapter 16 analysed
At the beginning of Chapter 16 we hear Rahim Khan’s voice. Rather than relate the story of Hassan second-hand through Amir, Hosseini has chosen to tell it to us straight from Rahim Khan. This is a significant choice, as Rahim Khan would have been the closest person to Hassan in his later years and so when we are told about Hassan’s death it has a greater emotional impact.
Hassan had been living in Amir and Baba’s old house, helping Rahim Khan look after it for them. Hassan went to such pains to return the house to its former glory because he took a pride in his old home and he wanted to keep it ready for Baba and Amir’s return.
Hassan names his son Sohrab after the character in his favourite tale – Rostram and Sohrab. There is a certain irony in his name choice for his son as the Sohrab in the Persian tale never knows who his true father is, much like Hassan is completely unaware that Baba is his biological parent.
There is a short paragraph about Hassan’s village which create an impression of it as a wasteland. First there is the rutted and dried track one musht drive along to reach it. The village is so hidden and unreachable that it either doesn’t have a name or people have forgotten it. The people who live there take no pride in their home as they have left a donkey carcass to rot at the side of the road. The plants and trees that have taken root there are all dying from a lack of water. The people live in what are described as mud huts creating a sense that life out there is primitive. Lastly, the mountains that shelter the village are compared with sharp teeth creating a sense that this area will eat you alive and that death in some form is always imminent.
For a very long time Amir has not bothered to think about Hassan or Afghanistan finding the topic of his childhood to painful and guilt-ridden. In contrast to this Hassan has thought constantly about his lost friend and has even gone to the trouble of learning to write so he can contact him. In his letter, Hassan asks a number of questions in between telling Amir all about himself and what life is like for him now with a son and wife. Hassan appears interested whereas Amir doesn’t want to go near the subject of their childhood or friendship and Amir has to be forced to do so by Rahim Khan.
Hassan had cleaned the house ‘like he was preparing for someone’s return’. This statement is odd because we know he was actually preparing it for someone’s return, specifically Amir’s. He wanted to see his old friend again to remind himself of a time before invasions and war had torn his homeland apart.
Sanaubar is Hassan’s mother, and she makes reappearance when Hassan is an adult. She takes great care of Sohrab. Firstly, this is because it is her only grandson, and so she naturally dotes on him. There is also an element here of making up for things that were lost. This is Sanaubar’s redemption. If she takes good care of Sohrab it might make up for her not being around to raise Hassan.
