The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, explores the theme of love through Amir’s relationships with Baba, Hassan, and Sohrab. The Kite Runner is narrated by Amir who recalls his life in Afghanistan between 1965-1994 where he grows up next door to Hassan, a Pashtun boy who becomes his servant/best friend and is later raped by Assef, a close friend of Amir’s. After this incident, Amir abandons his friendship with Hassan even though he feels guilty.
Later in the novel, Amir must reconcile these feelings and fight for love and goodness in the world through Sohrab, Hassan’s son whom he abandoned. Through his connections with Baba and Sohrab, Amir realizes that although there are evil people such as Assef in the world who do horrible acts like rape, we should never give up on love because it will happen again if we turn our backs on each other.
Kite Runner is one of the most well-known novels in recent years. Written by Khaled Hosseini, Kite Runner has sold more than seven million copies and become an international bestseller. The novel is about a boy named Amir living in Afghanistan during the time period before and after the Russian invasion. Kite Runner follows Amir as he struggles with his identity and how it fits into the world around him.
Kite Runner also focuses heavily on themes such as redemption and love to show how we cannot survive without either of these things–we need them both to live what we consider to be a “good” life. One of the first examples of love shown Kite Runner comes from Amir’s relationship with his father. Rahim Khan, Amir’s father’s best friend, is introduced into the story as a young boy. His closeness to Amir’s family helps him relate to them better than most Afghans since Rahim Khan grew up in America.
This example of love comes out dramatically through the event that gets Kite Runner started: Hassan’s rape. One day while playing with Hassan, Amir betrays Hassan by telling their servant, Assef, about Hassan secretly taking money from Amir. To teach Hassan a lesson for taking money without asking, Assef sexually assaults Hassan–assaulting him near where they keep their kites (hence the name Kite Runner).
Love is not always portrayed as a happy thing in this novel. There are many sacrifices made for the loved ones. Love is defined in two different ways in this novel. The first way love is shown, is unrequited love between Amir and Soraya. Although they loved each other, Soraya does not want to ruin her honor for someone else’s happiness so she lets him go even though it breaks her heart telling herself “… t will be better for him if he loved someone else” (Hosseini 52).
Love can be seen in another context when Amir turns his back on Hassan because of fear of what people would think about it instead of being honest with himself that he loves him like a brother. Even though there were consequences, Amir realized after living with the guilt for so many years that he loved Hassan more than a brother. In this novel love can be seen in a negative way and a positive way.
Negative love is the type of love where people’s lives are put at risk, such as when Baba stays to help Amir run away from Sardar because he does not want him to see them kill his father Kaka Siar, or when Amir risked his life trying to save Hassan from Assef. Positive love is shown when Amir risks his relationship with Soraya by helping Hassan be reunited with his son Sohrab even though its against her will. In both cases the person goes through extreme measures showing how much they care for their loved ones.
This novel shows that there are consequences for doing the right thing or wrong thing, and sometimes it is hard to tell which one is which. Amir felt obligated to save Hassan because he didn’t want Kaka Siar to be killed, but if he had not turned his back on him the first time they might have been able to escape from Sardar by running together as a group instead of just him. In this case, the consequence would have been Kaka Siar being killed and Baba being taken hostage by Assef.
Even though Amir was trying to do good in the end both Kaka Siar and Baba ended up dying anyway. Another example of this is when Soraya refused to let Amir get involved with Sohrab and Hassan. If Amir had not gotten involved, Sohrab would have been raised by his father. As a child Hassan was never shown how to read and write so he struggled all throughout life trying to find it on his own and eventually died because of it.
Even though Soraya did not want him to get mixed up in this situation she could see the good in Amir getting involved even though there were consequences for her family’s safety if Assef found out about what happened between them all those years ago. Hassan is shown as an example of unrequited love when he tells Amir that he will always be with him; even though Baba is writing letters back and forth from Rahim Khan, Hassan still waits for him to return home.
There are many tragic events in this novel but the one that stands out most is when the kite runner, Hassan, falls from a roof and dies. This event changed Amir forever because he was the only one who knew that it was Assef that pushed him off of the roof. When Amir realized he could not fight back everyone blamed him for being involved with what happened to Kaka Siar which made them hate him even more than they did before. Even though he told Baba about what happened between himself and Assef, they were both killed before anything could be done about it.
The guilt of everything took over his mind until he came across Hassan’s son, Sohrab, and recognized him as Hassan’s son. He was the only one who knew what the consequences were for helping Sohrab reunite with his father so he took it upon himself to do so even though Soraya did not want him involved. This shows that love has no boundaries because Amir does everything in his power to be with his loved ones even though there are consequences along the way. This novel does a wonderful job of showing how love can affect people whether it is good or bad.
Sometimes people sacrifice their own happiness out of obligation or guilt, but Amir wanted to make sure that everyone he loves was ok before anything happened to them which makes it clear that he truly loved Kaka Siar, Baba, Soraya, and Sohrab even though Kaka Siar died before he could get his revenge upon him. It was not a matter of if it should be done, but simply when because Kaka Siar’s life was taken from him for no reason other than being weak against Assef. This novel shows the consequences that come with love and sacrificing one’s self for someone they care about.
