Themes? Life Lessons? Or Both?

My post on February 15th was about the writing style that Hosseini used in his book, The Kite Runner. I ended up missing out on some key in depth analysis of the symbols that were presented in the book. So, there will be a mixture of both symbols and themes in my latest blog post which explains The Kite Runner as a whole. Luckily these two literary devices are connected throughout this book.

It didn’t take long to see the developing ideas of the few themes that presented themselves in The Kite Runner. But what I was waiting for, was that final turn around at the end of the book where everything comes together and the themes are fully exposed. AND I GOT IT! The themes and symbols (I didn’t describe last post) found themselves to be related in the end.

There are such strong meanings in this book and as I will discuss they are all developed through the characters development and their choices throughout the novel. It is important to know that Hosseini is very key on making every decision that a character makes, count for something later in the book. This is where the most important symbols and themes come into play.

I want to begin by talking about the most important symbol in the book, because I left it out of my last post and it relates to one theme in particular. As you can imagine the kite in the book was very symbolic, not only was it used in the title but it was used in the beginning of the book and the end of the book to show the true meaning Amir and Hassan’s relationship. These two mentions of the kite, show the circle of life in a way. When Hosseini first mentions the kite it happens to be in a more negative scenario, this being the scenario I discussed in one of my early blog posts, where Hassan is raped. He was following Hassan who was his kite runner and he watched him as he was sexually assaulted by a group of kids. The problem ended up being that he was in fact a bystander. But in the end of the book, Hosseini uses the kite to bring a more justified and sound ending to the novel as Amir states, “Do you want me to run that kite for you?... For you, a thousand times over.” (pg 323). The saying “For you, a thousand times over.” was a thought that Amir had in his head and it was an immediate thought. In my mind, Hosseini did this because the symbolism that was represented with the kite the first time was negative, and now that it is in a better situation and he is kite running for Hassan’s son, Sohrab, there is a positive spin on what once terribly depicted and now he is atoning for his sins.

I relate this to my theme because in between the kite symbolism was a lot of betrayment, which was one of the major themes in The Kite Runner. Betrayment is a huge part of the character relationship between Amir and Hassan. When Hassan was younger his mom left him, but this was only his first case of abandonment. As Amir and Hassan's relationship developed throughout the book, it was easy to see that it was headed in the wrong direction which ultimately led to Amir leaving Hassan and moving to America. This gradual decline in their relationship was shown as Amir’s father continuously put thoughts and ideas in Amir's’ mind that changed who Amir really was and it showed in his friendship with Hassan. This becomes a different theme of father and son relationship which I will discuss later. For me, betrayment is a subcategory of what the true theme in this specific part of the book. Amir never claimed that he was running away because of what his dad said, he was running away because of his past. Not being near Hassan and Afghanistan would enable Amir to forget about what happened and start fresh. But what we have learned from most of our AP reading this year, you can't outrun your past it will always be with you but what you can do is change the way it affects you. We can see that this specific theme of letting the past affect you is similar to the ways of people in society today, as it is easier to run away from problems rather than confronting them.

The other theme that I touched on earlier was that of a father and son relationship, but what is most important about it is the love piece and the hatred piece. Amir throughout the whole book has great affection for his dad whom he looks up to and is clearly his biggest role model. But I can’t say the feeling is mutual, it seems to me that there is a slight disappointment in Baba’s eyes. Baba wants has high expectations and is a very classy gentlemen who is well respected, but it is hard for him to see how tough he is on his son. He tries to control who Amir becomes because he wants him to grow up and become successful. Baba is not good at showing his affection for Amir, he simply shows it through his actions towards other things which Baba hopes Amir will see and be proud of.

When people read this book there are a lot of things that are able to be taken away from it. The most important thing follows the lead of running away from your past. After reading this book, the themes told me that I must confront situations head on whenever something occurs because you never know if you’ll have the opportunity again. For instance when Amir left for America but then returned to Afghanistan and found our Hasan had died, He was unable to express his feelings because he had waited to long to do so. These takeaways are more than relatable to my life and I’m sure others as well. Not only did I enjoy the book, but the lessons that I learned from the book are some I will hold on to forever.