An Analysis of Plot Development in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner is a story told in first person by a character named Amir. He begins by telling about an unknown experience that happened in the winter of 1975 which changed forever who he was a person. This sets up foreshadowing and anticipation of what this even possibly could be. Amir begins telling about his family life, about his rich father who shelters him and a servant boy named Hassan. Amir tells about how he made fun of Hassan and how Hassan would do anything for him. He also tells us that Hassan's first word was his name and that they breast fed from the same breasts at a young age.

This continues setting up plot because it is evident that whatever the event was in the winter of 1975 included both Amir and Hassan. Amir tells us that he doesn't have a strong connection with his father and that his father almost favors the servant boy over his son. As the book progresses, a character named Assef is introduced. Assef's introduction is significant because he tells Amir and Hassan that he will get them back. When the annual kite flying competition happens, Hassan chases the kite for Amir. Amir wins for his father and Hassan gets raped by Assef for once again standing up for Amir. I believe that this is the central conflict in The Kite Runner. This sets up an internal conflict within Amir, one where he strives to be punished for not helping his best friend and where he sends Hassan away. Once Hassan is sent away, bad things happen to him and his family, which Amir blames himself for again.

There is a minor conflict when Amir moves to America with his father. He meets a girl named Soraya and they get married only to find out they can't have children. I believe this is also a very important part the way it is revealed in the novel because Amir's wife makes a big deal about how adoption isn't for Afghans and blood means everything. Amir needs to go back to Afghanistan for a family friend named Rahim Khan who is dying. Rahim reveals what happened to Hassan, and that Hassan has a son who needs to be saved. This creates more tension between Amir and his internal struggles.

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This tension might mean that in order for Amir to feel good about himself and not guilt whenever he thinks of Hassan he might need to stand up for what he believes is right. Amir goes on a mission to find Hassan's son and finds out that Assef, the same boy who raped Hassan in the winter of 1975, is the one who has Hassan's son. Amir stands up to Assef, gets beat up and feels satisfaction for the pain he is receiving.

I believe the conflict of the story is significant because without Amir witnessing Hassan's rape, he never would have felt guilty for not stopping it or for sending Hassan away as a child. It is significant the way Assef is introduced, Amir and Hassan being brothers is introduced and the satisfaction that Amir receives from being beat up by Assef because it shows the major conflicts within the novel. Also, the outcome of the novel (Assef having one eye, Sohrab being free and Amir being free of his internal struggles) is important because it shows how Amir has changed as a person, one who is selfish and only thinks about himself, to a person who would do anything for his best friend's son.

For my blog on characterization/character development I will focus on Hassan. Since The Kite Runner is told in first person by Amir, the analysis of Hassan is limited to what Amir says/feels about him. Hassan is a Hazara, one of the disadvantaged minorities in Afghanistan who are of the religion Shi'a. He and his father Ali are servants to Baba and Amir in Baba's household. Hassan is characterized as a loyal, forgiving, brave and innocent character. The most complex relationship that we know of Hassan having is with Amir. We know that Hassan is loyal to Amir because even when Hassan didn't want to throw rocks at the neighbor's dog but he did anyway because Amir told him to and when Hassan got raped so Amir could keep his kite, a symbol of happiness.

We also know that Hassan is loyal to Amir because even when he is older and can read and write on his own and writes a letter for Amir, he still says that he hopes they can be friends one day. Hassan also wouldn't throw the pomegranates at Amir, but instead, crushed one on his own forehead. He is a good-natured person with good values and ethics. Hassan can also be characterized as a protagonist within the story. He, as well as Rahim Khan, encourage Amir to be writer and he also encourages his son Sohrab to learn how to read and write. I believe that Hassan is a static character since he does not change throughout the novel. Many details of his adult life are excluded, however going off the letter he left for Amir through Rahim we can assume he would have been similar to what he was as a child and that he did not change much throughout the series of his life.

Hassan's values and ethics can be seen through his fate: when he stands up to the Taliban for attempting to throw him and his family out of Rahim Khan's/Baba's house. Even then, knowing he was a Hazara limited to his social class, he should have walked away for his family's safety but instead he stood up for what he believed in, again showing his bravery. Finally, Hassan is not an envious person. Even when he is a child knowing that Amir has more than him, he is not jealous and is happy he has his little shack house, his father and his best friend Amir. I believe that a central theme in this novel is the need for redemption.

It is developed throughout the novel. In the beginning of the Kite Runner when Amir reveals that his mother died during childbirth and how proud his father was of his wife, Amir blames himself for her death. He knows he is not the son his father always has wanted and wants to prove to his father that he is good enough. Amir even says that his first word was his father's name, showing he looked to his father. Amir tries to play sports for his father and involve himself in things which are stereotypical of males in his society. When Amir fails and he over hears his father talking to Rahim Khan, saying es his son were stronger and meaner.

Then Amir says that his father was wrong about the mean streak, by purposely being mean to Hassan. When Amir sees Hassan being raped he doesn't help him, and instead makes sure the kite isn't ripped because that is something that his father would value, over his friendship. I believe that part of the reason Amir sends Hassan away is also because then his father would only pay attention to him and he wouldn't need to compete for his father's attention or be compared to the idol child Hassan was. In Afghanistan, Amir feels guilty for what happened to Hassan and requests that Hassan take violence out on him or be mean to him so that Amir would feel better. He believes if this were to happen he would be redeemed and would no longer be an insomniac. a. Amir feels guilty whenever he thinks about Hassan because of how well his life turned out and not knowing how Hassan was.

When Rahim Khan tells Amir about Hassan he feels guiltier, blaming himself and wondering if he never would have sent them away if Baba would have brought them along to America. He then goes to find Hassan's son, because he believes this will finally redeem him and justify what happened as a child. When Amir finds Assef and they get into a fight, finally he receives the redemption he has been wanting and finally feels like he got what he deserved for not standing up for Hassan. Paper II Question: How valid is the assertion that literature is a voice for the oppressed? I believe that the Kite Runner is a good example of how literature is a voice for the oppressed. The definition of oppression is a feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety, etc. Amir's oppression can be seen throughout his story.

Amir feels oppressed by his father's control. He blames himself for his mother's death, which was out of his control, and this is something that always has been troubling to him. In attempts to relieve the oppression from his father his best-friend ends up getting raped. This creates a whole new level of oppression. His internal struggles make him anxious and an insomniac. If these events wouldn't have been present in Amir's childhood, there would be no use for the novel. The Kite Runner would be boring and based off of his father's power and control and his wife's infertility. His internal oppression makes him feel guilty and want to redeem himself, which is also a major theme of the Kite Runner. Throughout the story, it can be seen that Amir is trying to relieve the guilt and the problems he ran away from as a child. When Amir is getting beat up by Assef, he says "...for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace.

I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I'd even been looking forward to this." (pgs. 254-255) This shows that he is no longer oppressed and is able to relax again. Also, we know that Amir was oppressed because when he has Hassan's son he calls his wife and is able to speak for the first time about everything that happened. This is near the end of the book. Amir finally feels alright with who he is as a person. This book if told from first person narrative after everything happened. Because of this we are able to assume that Amir is no longer oppressed because he is no longer silent about everything he is feeling.

If those events did now happen when Amir was a child, he would not feel guilty and the piece of literature would be incomplete. The novel reflects his feelings and regrets and if this same book were to be written without the feelings and without the major conflict, there would only be Amir talking about his bad relationship with his father and his infertile wife. Amir says "..for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I'd even been looking forward to this." (pgs. 254-255) This shows that he is no longer opressed and is able to relax again.

Also, we know that Amir is opressed because when he has Hassan's son he calls his wife and is able to speak for the first time about everything that happened. From reading the Kite Runner it is obvious that there are various motifs which are recurring throughout the novel; two motifs which I chose to follow were eyes/happiness and winter. Winter can be seen as a motif because it is a season that Amir and Hassan would look forward to until Hassan got raped when it became a time to dread. We know it is a reoccurring motif because within the first few chapters it is mentioned a lot, especially how the winter of 1975 forever changed Amir and who he is today. Amir says "I loved wintertime in Kabul..." and then after Hassan got raped Amir talks about winter and says “my memory of the rest of the winter in 1975 is pretty hazy."

We know that winter is a season that is looked forward to because even though it may bring pain, such as the cuts on the fingers of the young boys from kite flying, the children would look forward to the break. We also know that in the winter time before Hassan's rape, Amir and Hassan would play in the snow and camp out outside under blanket with a space heater that Ali would set up for them. An interesting part about tracing winter as a motif, was that even though after Amir dreaded winter, when he met his wife Soroya, he compared her to Yelda, the longest night in winter. We can assume that Yelda is something good about winter, and we know he loved his wife so it's usual he would compare this dreaded season to his lovely wife. Finally, once Amir rescues his nephew winter is something to be looked forward to.

Not only does he say that the sound of the kite flying reminds him of winter mornings in Kabul, but he also mentions the season of spring. "When spring comes it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.” This quote is not only a cliché saying that things can be fixed "one step at a time" erring to the happiness that will come from winter once again for Sorahab and Amir This brings me into my second motif. The next motif I traced was the relationship between happiness and eyes. Eyes are mentioned a lot through the Kite Runner, and are talked about when a new character is being introduced or when Amir wants to reveal the true personality of a character. Amir says "people say that eyes are windows to the soul." Whenever Amir is in an uncomfortable situation, he will describe what he sees through his eyes or how he sees the truth through somebody else's eyes. "...but to me his eyes betrayed him..." (pg. 85)

This is a quote where Amir is referring to Hassan's eyes after the rape, and saying how even though Hassan didn't know that Amir knew, Amir still would have been able to tell through his eyes, through the window to his soul. An interesting metaphor/recurring idea which I came across while tracing eyes was when Hassan was being raped and again when Sohorab was looking to Amir for help. Amir referred their eyes to the eyes that he saw when his family would slaughter a sheep, or slaughtering of the innocent. I thought this was interesting because this is something which is seen in many religions, the idea of sacrificing the innocent for personal gain. These motifs have a strong effect on the reader because they are both something the reader is familiar with. The reader most likely has a symbol in their life that they associate negativity with and eyes always have been something which has been interesting to me.

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