Overcoming Problems

What are some of the conflicts Amir faces, and what does he do to over come it? Do you see a trend in his actions? How does it effect him?

The historical fiction novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini portrays a young Amir, who Throughout the story, faces many internal problems. He goes through a "tough love" relationship with his father, he faces problematic relationship with his best friend, Hassan,(and his guilt), he faces his fathers death, and he, in the end, faces all the problems that he ran away from in the past.



Amir, first of all, faces his father, who seems to show more fatherly love to Hassan than to Amir. He does not show much affection to Amir who yearns for his love and works hard to it. For example, he tries and wins the kite running tournament because his father shows a hint of encouragement that he might twin this year's contest. While competing, he sees his father standing on top of a roof, pumping his fists, rooting for him. He had finally saw proof of his father's love and he is happy. He avoided ever facing his father.  He went on through life, taking his advice and sometimes neglect.  California changed things.  His father, with the absence of Hassan, began to bond with Amir and treat him more as a close son.  Amir likes this, and never really had to confront his problem, America fixed it.  This is so because in America, Baba didn't really have the pressure of being the great man everyone saw him as; he could go through life being like a normal citizen because in California, all the Afghans started out the same: In america, Amir suggested going back to Afghanistan to his father,

 "'You were happier there, Baba.   It was more like home,' I said

'Peshawar was good for me. Not good for you.'" (page 129)

He shows that he will sacrifice for his son, and suffer in order to give Amir what is best for him.

His relationship with Hassan started as any normal friendship would be. Amir struggles through a complicated friendship with his servant’s son, Hassan.  Their relationship starts off like normal one; they play and make mischief together all the time, but, strangely, Hassan always takes the blame for all the troubles they cause together.  It seems like Hassan knows his place as Amir’s servant, but doesn’t let it come in their friendship’s way.  On the other hand, as Amir grows older, he begins to realize the differences between him and his best friend.  They come from two different races, they come from different ends of the social ladder, and have different traits (Hassan is athletic and Amir is educated).  After Hassan's rape, Amir begins to feel guilty that he hadn't done anything to help his best friend out. He has an internal conflict overtime he hangs out with his best friend because he is constantly reminded of what he did not do. He tries to get Hassan to pelt him with pomegranates, as if he was getting his revenge, but that does not work. After Hassan proves himself unable to inflict any physical harm to him, Amir feels as though it is hopeless to get Hassan to take revenge on him, and he won’t let go, so He finally figures that being away from Hassan, running away from his problems, would solve it. And so Amir sends him off by framing him for stealing his watch. His whole life is lived in the shadow of the mistakes of not helping Hassan, throwing pomegranates at him, and expelling him from his life.

He then faces his father's death.  His father, although he didn't show it often, loved him very much.  He said that Amir lets others fight for him, and even Amir, himself, admits this.  He leans on Baba throughout his whole life, and is not ready to let go.  He recalls that in the ambulance, he felt powerless, unable to do anything to help his father.  He had no idea what to do.  His father survived that visit to the hospital but he was diagnosed with cancer.  Baba went on living, getting weaker little by little, continuing to treat Amir well, and soon past. After his father dies, he is unsure of how he would survive on his own.  Luckily, he married Soraya before his father died.  She was always there to help Amir through life, taking the place of Baba.


Throughout his whole life, Amir avoids actually facing his problems.  He expels Hassan from his life, running away from his troubles.  He flees Afghanistan, leaving his home country in it's time of need (according to the people who stayed), when the wars became worsened. And later, when his father dies, he doesn't face living alone, or overcoming his loneliness, Baba is replaced by his wife, Soraya, who, like Baba, gives him advice and love.

Finally, once he finally returns to Afghanistan, he is flooded with the many problems he has left behind.  The most obvious was the problem with Hassan's son.  Since he feels as though he is in debt to Hassan, he has an urge to do what his heart tells him to do, but his heart tells him not to.  He finally faces his problem after many, many years, and goes to save Hassan's son, Sorhab, and feels better.  Once he faces his conflict within himself, he instantly feels better, after all the years of guilt that he bubbles up inside of him.  He also do this by admitting his whole story to Soraya, a story he never admitted to anyone. He is also faced with his childhood towns and life turned to rubble.  He grew up living in these towns, playing in these towns, and eating in these towns, but when he returns, his once beautiful, great childhood environment completely destroyed and all the culture left crushed.  The incident of overcoming his internal conflict made him stronger, and he was able to endure this, the destruction of his childhood country, as well as the beating he received from Assef:

"I don't at what point I started laughing, but i did.  It hurt to laugh... But i was laughing and laughing."(page 289)

Amir laughed because he was finally free from his burden on guilt.  He freed himself through standing up for himself, and fighting his battles, not running away, or having someone else fight them for him.  Facing his own problems welcomed Amir into manly-hood.

Kite Runner Final Post

Finally, after reading the book, everything seems to connect, and make sense; everything ties together, and is wrapped up into a perfect, bitter sweet conclusion.  The relationship between Baba and Hassan finally makes sense, Amir is finally lifted of his guilt, and Amir finally gains a son.  But in betweens those events, Sohrab is hospitalized, after he attempts to commit suicide with a razor blade.  While in the hospital, Amir, for the first time in twenty years, prays.  He prays and prays and prays, relentlessly, making promises to Allah.  In the end, Sohrab's physical health is reborn, but his mental health is unstable.

This is Hosseini's way of expressing that Prayer can lead to some savior, but cannot fix everything.  He is saying that prayer is never a perfect thing to rely on in a time of distress or need, but if it is the only thing left to do, and it doesn't harm oneself, it can help.  It saved only half of Sohrab., but half is better than nothing.  Allah seemed to save Sohrab's physical form, but he couldnt manage to save his mental form.  Sorhab came back into the world, "given up" and pretty much without a soul, emotionless.  This shows that the true time for prayer is when one can not do anything physical to save people.  It should not be used during a earthquake or something of that sort, where physical actions can be taken to save oneself.  It should be used when one is isolated, and has no actual power over what happens.  Amir felt this helplessness when Baba was in the ambulance as well, but he didn't pray because Baba always frowned upon it.  Now, once he was released from Baba's wishes, he could do what he wanted.

Another thing i noticed was when he was trying to find out what his mother was like, Amir seemed so desperate to find out what his mother was actually like.  I think that on top of just wanting to find out what a parent he has never met was like, he had another reason for wanting to learn about her.  He had just found out that his all great, honorable father, Baba was actually sort of a fraud.  He has already followed in Baba's footsteps of betraying his best friend, and he wishes to find his "better half" in his mother.  Maybe he has a parent who was actually kind, and loving, and a real honorable person.  He wants to know he has good in himself as well.

The Kite Runner

Throughout this story, I have noticed many internal problems Amir faces. He goes through a "tough love" relatinship with his father, he faces problematic relationship with his best friend, Hassan, he faces his fathers death, and he, in the end, faces all the problems that he ran away from in the past. The novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hossieni cirlces an overall theme of character versus self.

Amir, first of all, faces his father, who seems to show more fatherly love to hassan than to amir. He does not show much affection to Amir who yearns for his love and works hard to it. For example, he tries and wins the kite running tournament because his father shows a hint of encouragement that he might twin this year's contest. While competing, he sees his father standing on top of a roof, pumping his fists, rooting for him. He had finally saw proof of his father's love and he is happy.

His relationship with Hassan started as any normal friendship would be. After hassan's rape, Amir begins to feel guilty that he hadn't done anything to help his best friend out. He has an internal conflict overtime he hangs out with his best friend because he is constantly reminded of what he did not do. He tries to get Hassan to pelt him with pomegranates, as if he was getting his revenge,but that does not work. He finally figures that being away from Hassan, running away from his problems, would solve them. And so Amir sends him off. His whole life is lived in the shadow of the mistakes of not helping Hassan, throwing pomegranates at him, and expelling him from his life.

He then faces his father's death.  His father, although he didn't show it often, loved him very much.  He said that Amir lets others fight for him, and even Amir, himself, admits this.  He leans on Baba throughout his whole life, and is not ready to let go.  After his father dies, he is unsure of how he would survive on his own.  Luckily, he married Soraya before his father died.  She was always there to help Amir through life, taking the place of Baba.

Once he finally returns to Afghanistan, he is flooded with the many problems he has left behind.  The most obvious was the problem with Hassan's son.  Since he feels as though he is in debt to Hassan, he has an urge to do what his heart tells him to do, but his heart tells him not to.  He is also faced with his childhood towns and life turned to ruble.  He grew up living in these towns, playing in these towns, and eating in these towns, but when he returns, his once beautiful, great childhood environment completely destroyed and all the culture left crushed.

My First Impressions of The Kite Runner

The historical fiction novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini portrays a young Amir, who struggles through complicated friendship with his servant’s son, Hassan.  Their relationship starts off like normal one; they play and make mischief together all the time, but, strangely, Hassan always takes the blame for all the troubles they cause together.  It seems like Hassan knows his place as Amir’s servant, but doesn’t let it come in their friendship’s way.  On the other hand, as Amir grows older, he begins to realize the differences between him and his best friend.  They come from two different races, they come from different ends of the social ladder, and have different traits (Hassan is athletic and Amir is educated).  He begins to isolate himself from Hassan, using this as an excuse, but the real reason is that he feels guilt. 

After Amir witnesses Hassan’s rape and doesn’t do anything to protect him, he feels regret.  He therefore separates himself from Hassan in order to separate himself from the constant reminder of what he didn’t do.  He then follows this up with asking Hassan to come up the hill for him to read a story to him.  It seems as though things were going well between hem, like old days, but then all of the sudden, the guild took over Amir, and he pelted Hassan with pomegranates, waiting for him to hit him back.  He wanted to feel as though Hassan had taken revenge on him, in order to take away some of the guilt.  After Hassan proves himself unable to inflict any physical harm to him, Amir feels as though it is hopeless to get Hassan to take revenge on him, and he won’t let go, so he thinks that he will get rid of his problems if he got rid of Hassan.  Amir frames Hassan of stealing his birthday money and watch.  All of Amir’s actions are an attempt to rid his extreme regret and guilt for not helping a friend in need.  Instead of admitting it, or letting go, he tries all of these things that result in a lost friend that could have been kept.  

Overall, I really, really enjoyed reading this book.  There were many surprises throughout the first third of the book, and it turned out much more interesting than I first thought it would be.