Chapters 1-8 - Analysis

The book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is written in first person, from the point of view of Amir, the main character of the novel.

In the first chapter, the reader does not get to know much about the story, not even the narrator’s name. Despite this, in its page and a half the chapter introduces the main characters and conflicts, in such a way that one gets to know that something happened and also some names, but it mostly serves as a mere introduction for the rest of the story. This first chapter is set in 2001, in San Francisco, and in it the narrator begins to remember his childhood in Afghanistan and that everything changed in 1975.

After this brief introduction presented in the first chapter, the second one goes back in time to Amir’s childhood in his home country, Afghanistan. In order to begin describing his experiences, the narrator presents some characters in more detail: his childhood friend Hassan and his father Ali, his own father Baba, and Baba’s friend Rahim Khan. These characters’ personal backgrounds are set, as well as their relationships with each other, in order to provide information about Amir’s life and for it to be understood by the reader, as this is all narrated as a set of past memories and events, looking back from 2001 into his personal history. This description of the characters continues into the third chapter; while the second one focuses on describing Amir, Hassan and their relationship, the third one focuses on Baba, for whom Amir feels admiration but also for whom he doesn’t feel good enough. This way, we learn that Ali and Hassan work for Baba and Amir, and they live in a small hut in Baba’s grounds, that both Amir and Hassan lost their mothers while being newborns, and that they were nursed by the same woman, so, in a way, they are like brothers, but they don’t call themselves friends because Hassan is a Hazara (and Amir is a Pashtun), and he is a shi’a while Amir is a sunni. We also know that Baba has done many things that everyone thought he’d never do, such as wrestling a bear, and he has firm set morals, as he thinks that the only sin that exists is stealing.

In the first chapters the narration is mostly focused on the characterization of the different people that influenced Amir’s childhood, but the focus point changes as the narration advances. Towards chapter four, the story becomes more active and less descriptive, even though there are still many descriptive elements through the text.

In the fourth chapter Ali and Baba’s childhood relationship is explained, similar to their sons’, and it’s found out that Amir likes to read to Hassan because he loves stories, but is illiterate. Because of this, Amir writes his first story and wants Baba to be proud, but he’s indifferent. Real action starts taking place in the 5^th chapter; it begins with the government being overthrown by Daoud Khan, but Hassan and Amir don’t understand that and decide to climb a tree. On their way there, they meet Assef, who was known for being a bully, and he tries to beat them with his brass knuckles, but they get to run away thanks to Hassan’s slingshot. In chapter 6, action tends to calm down again.  Baba takes the boys to buy a kite for the kite running competition. In 7, the kite fighting takes place and Amir manages to win, with Hassan’s help, making Baba proud too. Hassan runs the last kite, but Assef finds him and rapes him.

Finally, chapter 8 is a sad chapter that reflects the effects of Amir having seen the rape without doing anything to defend Hassan. He becomes insomniac and starts avoiding his friend more and more, to a point in which he even asks Baba to replace Ali and him. But Baba won’t, so Amir takes Hassan to the pomegranate tree and starts throwing fruit at him, asking him to throw back, but Hassan crushes one against his own face. Later, Amir’s 13^th birthday takes place and Baba organizes a huge party, to which Assef and his friends happen to be invited. This makes Hassan have to serve his own rapists, and Amir gets ashamed.

From a personal point of view, I'm finding the book too sad and tragic, and belief that Amir could be an stronger person and make everything easier in the story. It is not a book that I’m loving, so far, but it really shows the perspective  of living in another culture, which is interesting.