The Kite Runner Collection

Essay reflecting on events from chapter 1-12

At the end of the first chapter, Rahim Khan tells Amir, “There is a way to be good again.” this is significant by the end of chapter 7 because we find out that Amir betrays Hassan so that he could have his father’s approval. We see how this becomes one of the demons inside him. The guilt that eats at him for a good chunk of the book. In his mind, he thinks that what he did is unforgivable and that he deserves to live the rest of his life as a guilty person with very little self-worth. 

At the end of chapter 12, about 10 years later, his soon to be wife now lets him in on her dark secret from her past. He envies her for her courage and her willingness to tell the truth no matter what. This is significant because it made him reflect on himself, and made him think about if it is too late for him to right the wrongs he has done. When you let go of a secret that has been eating away inside you, you feel this sense of relief and release, and Amir was still unable to let it go. So maybe he was thinking about trying to change that. 

I remember when I was younger, and I did some bad things. The guilt ate away at me and I finally told my parents and got it off of my chest. The funny thing is that the reactions of my parents were nothing of what I thought, and so it made me realise that all this time, I have been hiding a secret for what? So then I learned that it’s just better to be honest with everyone, and know that people make mistakes, and we can always learn from our mistakes, and we don’t have to live our lives in guilt. 

Essay reflecting content from Ch 12-17

At the end of chapter 17, Rahim khan drops the big bombshell to Amir that Hassan is actually his half brother. This is a really eye-opening moment and it also helps us understand a lot of the things that happened in the earlier chapters. 

The fact that Amir and Hassan are brothers is very significant because it explains why baba was so kind to Hassan. It explains why Baba was absolutely devastated to find out that Ali and Hassan were going to leave. We now understand why Baba is so hard on Amir all the time, while he is nice to Hassan. Baba took out all his guilt on Amir and tried his best to give Hassan the best life possible. There is a ton of irony because Amir realises that his father has lied to him all his life. This means that his father has stolen the truth from Amir. This means that baba is the biggest hypocrite in the book.

If this sort of thing ever happened to me i.e. parents tell me I’m adopted. I would have just told them that I wished they never told me. But because they told me I would be very curious about who my real parents were and of course, I would be sad if they died. I would not really go out to find my parents if they were druggies or in jail for some type of crime. I honestly don’t really know how I will feel. If it ever happens I will update this essay. But to be honest, I love my family, and even if they aren’t my true blood they have been here all my life so I will probably accept that I’m adopted and keep living life as I have before. 

Essay about Sohrab saving Amir and the parallels:

At the end of Chapter 22, Sohrab saved Amir’s life with his slingshot. There are a ton of parallels, and some irony and the climax of the book, where a lot of the loose ends are tied. 

The biggest parallel would be the part where Sohrab shoots Assef in the eye with his slingshot and some sort of ammunition. We can go back to the beginning of the book where Hassan saved Amir with his slingshot, Hassan threatens Assef that he was going to shoot a rock or something into Assef’s eye so that people will call him one-eyed Assef. Hassan manages to deescalate the situation before Amir gets hurt. In chapter 22, Assef was able to beat up Amir with his brass knuckles, and Sohrab uses the slingshot to blind Assef in one eye. Hence Assef is truly one-eyed Assef. Which is pretty eyeronic. 

There is a lot of significance in this fight because Amir is able to redeem himself by rescuing Sohrab, who is Hassan’s offspring. I feel like the author wanted to make a point when they had the chance to kill Assef, but decided to run away because Assef was yelling for the guards to get them. It shows that the evil in this world is not so easily destroyed, and Assef will continue to bring misery to the people, and there is really nothing that we can do about it. 

Essay reflecting the title of the book:

The Kite Runner. The profound 3-word title that hits us hard. Khaled Hosseini is both an artist and a genius who is able to come up with a title that is both catchy and fitting and gives us a proper sense of what drives the story of the book.

The Kite Runner is all in all a catchy title. I don’t know if there was some influence from the Maze Runner Series, but it still works well. The Kite Runner is a title that we realise is so genius right when we get to the end of the book. The ending being Amir taking the place of Hassan as the kite runner. The whole story is based on the mishap that happened to Hassan, who was the greatest kite runner that the author knew, and it was the author’s journey to redeem himself and then take Hassan’s place as the kite runner. As the story developed, we can understand why the author chose such a remarkable title for the book, because “The Kite Runner” is Amir(at the end). And the story is all about Amir’s little adventure. “The Kite Runner”’s main idea is really to put others before yourself. And that is the job of the Kite Runner, which is really deep. 

The depth that Khaled is able to go to when he is writing is insane. This was definitely a very well thought out title, and it deserves a lot of recognition.

Reflection:

These 4 mini essays were given to me as an assignment that would help me reflect on what was going on in the significant parts of the book “The Kite Runner”. These prompts really let me empathise with the main character, and they made me think about how I would react if I was in the situation that Amir was in. These assignments have made me realise that I live an extremely privileged life, and there are many people with lives that are much harder than the life I am living. So yeah… this book has some really great ideas and you should read it if you haven’t.