Chapter 1 quotes analysis 

“…it’s wrong, what they say about the past, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realise I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the past twenty-six years.”

 Bury    – Done something bad in the past and tried to move on without fixing it

 claws   – Aggression- the resurfacing of this past will be painful

peeking  – Hesitation to the looking. He is curious/afraid

deserted   – No one there. Everyone has moved on except him.

Chapter 3 thoughts

Amir is a young boy who wants his father’s approval despite being vastly different from him; Amir likes books and learning about things and is quite sensitive whereas Baba is more of a 

• Feel sorry for him because his dad isn’t very loving and he wants to please him and his mum dies giving birth to him, probably feels responsible, his father may blame him.
• He tries very hard to please his dad but too hard, he’s jealous (doesn’t invite Hassan to the lake because he thinks that he’ll outshine him, says that he wishes orphaned kids were also dead because they took his fathers time and attention away)
• Kind of a dick

Chapters 1-5 Summary Notes

1. We have been introduced to the main character Amir, as well as Hassan, Baba, Ali and Rahim Kahn. Amir is a young boy in Afghanistan who goes to school, writes stories, reads and plays with his friend Hassan. Baba is Amir’s father, a wealthy Pashtun businessman in Kabul? Baba and Amir live in a nice house together. Ali is their servant who Baba has known since he was a boy, Ali lives in a mud shack outside the house of Baba and Amir with his son, Hassan. Hassan is Amir’s friend who he grew up alongside. Both Hassan and Amir don’t have mothers, Amir’s died in childbirth and Hassan’s ran away when he was a few days old. Rahim Kahn is a business associate and close friend of Baba’s, Amir has known his whole life and he is like an uncle to him.
2. Hosseini opens the novel in the present with Amir narrating his regret about past events without giving us any indication of what it is that he is regretful about, then the novel goes 20 years into the past, well before the event. I think that Hosseini did this to build suspense about the event as he introduced it before any of the characters so the readers are left with no idea what the event could be or any assumptions about the characters so that they have to pay attention to all of the details in the lead up to the event.

• Setting up sympathy to him because he’s regretful so must not be that bad of a person.

3. Amir and Hassan are two boys who have been brought up together and play like friends. The boys think of each other as friends and because of than both being brought up by their fathers together and living at the same house the boys are more like brothers. However, Hassan is the son of Amir and Baba’s servant, Ali and they live in a mud shack outside Baba’s mansion. While Amir sleeps and goes to school Hassan helps his father clean the house and do tasks for Amir like making his breakfast and polishing his shoes. This puts a tinge on the friendship as the boys cant ever be true friends as they aren’t equals, Amir is above Hassan, a lower-class servant. There is also jealousy in the relationship, Amir is sometimes jealous of Hassan as Ali is a much kinder loving father than Baba is to Amir and Hassan is more like the son that Baba wanted which causes Amir to resent Hassan at times. 

• Class difference/hierarchy
• A different race that they dislike (like African Americans)
• Different religion
• Grow up together and supposed to be like a brother but aren’t equal.
• Takes the blame for amir
• Hassan probably feels the need to do what amir says and cover for him
• It’s not far
• “there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.”

4. Hassan has a cleft lip, a condition where the cleft palate doesn’t properly form leaving the roof of the mouth and the upper lip with a split up to the nose. Cleft palates can be fixed with plastic surgery, as Hassan’s is for his birthday, leaving a small scar.
5. Amir really wants his father’s love and approval, making him bitterly jealous and competitive.  

• Carves his father attention
• Sees him as harsh
• Overhears his father’s conversation calling him weak
• Makes us feel sympathetic because it’s such a hard relationship
• He’s different o his father, prefers literature over sports so they don’t understand each other
• Father blames him for mother’s death?

6. Assef is a boy from Amir’s school, he lives around their neighbourhood and is a bully. He is half German and half Afghani, making him larger and stronger than the other boys so he gets what he wants. Assef talks about Hitler has a hero and says he wants Afghanistan to go through the same thing all of the Hazara people, including Ali and Hassan, to be wiped out leaving Afghanistan for the Pashtun people, the true Afghani’s. Pashtun’s treat the Hazaras badly because Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims while the Hazara’s are Shiites and of a different ancestry/race. He is racist and believes that Pashtun’s are superior, despite only being half Pashtun half European.

• Has a reputation he needs to keep
• temper/ aggressive and violent
• Sociopath?

Chapters 6-10:

1. When Amir is reflecting at the beginning of the novel there is a pair of kites flying in the sky outside his window. These kites symbolise Amir and Hassan’s friendship, kite running was their hobby together where they were equals as Hassan was the best kite runner and Amir was a very good kite flyer. The last time that Amir and Hassan fought kites together their kite that Amir was flying was red and the last kite of the tournament was a blue kite. This is symbolic because the red kite won them the tournament and the blue kite ended their friendship.

2.Amir knows that what he did that day, stumbling across Hassan and Assef in the alley and then walking away, changed his life forever. If he had said something, Hassan may not have been raped by Assef and whether or not he managed to stop Assef, Amir wouldn’t have felt so guilty and he might have been able to stay friends with Hassan and Hassan and Ali wouldn’t have had to move out. On the other hand, Amir would have also been beaten up by Assef and may have been raped as well.

3. Amir is the monster in the lake

4. Amir picks a fight with Hassan in front of the pomegranate tree as this particular tree represents the nurturing and beautiful friendship these two young boys had at the time. When Amir starts throwing Pomegranates at Hassan its symbolizing literally the destruction of these two boys friendship and brotherhood.

5.

Chapters 11-14:

1. Amir and Baba fled Afghanistan via Pakistan because of the invasion of the Soviets. Because of communism. 

2. “America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river,let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.If for nothing else, for that, I embraced America.”

The river symbolizes Amirs past and wanting to erase his memory of it. By moving to America he finally has a fresh start, where he can leave all his “sins” behind him without having his past coming back to haunt him. Him and Baba will finally be alone together where he doesn’t have to compete with Hassan any longer. 

River-symbolizes Amir’s guilty “unmindful past”

ghosts-symbolizes Hassan, “…Kabul had become a city of ghosts for me. A city of harelipped ghosts.”

sins-everything Amir had done to Hassan, Ali, and Baba

3. Baba gifted a car to Amir for this graduation present to show him how proud he is of him, that he has achieved something for himself and started making his way in the world. Amir explains “ I took his hand in mine. Squeezed it. My eyes were tearing over and I was glad for the shadows that hid our faces”. This shows us that Amir is very touched, he feels that he has finally impressed his father.

4. In this quote Baba and Amir are talking about what Amir learned in school and what constitutes sin. Baba’s words foreshadow the theft that Amir will falsely accuse Hassan of, but in a deeper sense, Amir is the thief, since he robs Hassan of his friendship and loyalty.

5. Amir should have told Soraya about his betrayal of Hassan before the marriage as Soraya deserved the truth about everything. Soraya told Amir about her regretful past so Amir owed it to her to tell her his. 

6. Rahim Khan calls Amir from Pakistan to tell him that he is very sick and he wants Amir to come see him before he dies. 

1.Amir says that cliches are usually dead on. The elephant is the truth about Rahim Khan, about him dying and he doesn’t have a lot of time left.

2. Hassan moved to a village outside of Bamiyan where Rahim found him. Hassan told Rahim that Ali was killed by a landmine. Hassan has a wife named Farzana. Rahim suggests that they should live with him. They then had a stillborn little girl. Hassan’s mother came back very ill and they nursed her back to health. Hassan’s mother then delivers their second baby, Sohrab. Hassan’s mother died when Sohrab was 4.

3. You can tell Hassan is still the same loyal friend as when he was back in Kabul who is concerned for Amir. He wishes for Amir to see his son, Sohrab and his wife Farzana. Hassan’s tone of the leather is soft, there’s no anger showing us that Hassan has forgotten what Amir did in the past and he only wants the best from Amir. 

4. Amir’s is first shocked and upset by this news, he believes it unfair that he has to put himself and his perfect life back in America at risk to go find Hassan’s son. He doesn’t believe it worth it so he leaves Rahem Khan’s apartment, after the news had set in he goes back to the apartment to tell Rahem that he will go pick up the son he thinks of Baba and how disappointed he would be if he didn’t go, he believes he owes that to Hassan cause at the end of the day they are family now.