Charlotte Cougle Mr. Klatt ENG 3U1-20 19 December 2017 “The Kite Runner” Literary Analysis “The Kite Runner”, a short story written by Khaled Hosseini, examines the multiple causes of betrayal by the protagonist that create a constant cycle of struggle, hoping for a possibility for redemption.  Through the use of various themes and figurative language techniques, the novel portrays the incidents and struggles leading up to the increasing political and ethnic tensions, that have left emotional scars. Ultimately, the protagonist, Amir experiences excessive grief impacting the lives and engagements around him. Thus, betrayal is the start point of redemption, in which only leads to a brutal awakening to fill the bad with good. Firstly, the introduction of the main character, Amir, a son of a wealthy merchant and Hassan, a servant of Amir’s father concedes the friendship of the two young boys, leading them to be inseparable companions. Despite the two cultures of majority and minority, the peaceful city of Kabul, Afghanistan, concedes an uncommon bond that give the boys an enjoyment of kite-fighting. After a win by Amir, Hassan ran to retrieve the kite where Amir later finds a brutal awakening, an monstrosity of violence and rape. Rather than facing the problem upfront, Amir took a route easier to depart him from the matter, by isolating himself from it, giving him the outlook of being a coward, and insecure: Thus, drastically changing the lives of both the characters, later influencing the country: “In the end, I ran.I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me… I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (37) Being a very dramatic remark on a young witness, it made Amir very uncomfortable with the situation, but only regards the removal of the problem by framing Hassan, and removing him out of his life. As a result, Amir frames Hassan, his servant, for stealing from his father. Amir is blinded by the guilt and memory that he does not see he is losing his best friend- his only friend in Afghanistan. He feels it is necessary to remove Hassan from his life immediately, sacrificing the two boy’s friendship:  “I flinched, like I’d been slapped. Then I understood: This was Hassan’s final sacrifice for me… And that led to another understanding: Hassan knew. He knew I’d seen everything in that alley, that I’d stood there and done nothing. He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time.” With permanent scars on the protagonist, not only from the rape incident, but as well being told by Baba he ‘killed’ his mother, it causes ignorance of his emotions to lock up and only secure himself, in an unknown selfish way. This indulges the theme of betrayal, violence and rape which connects to the political and ethnic tension of the Afghanistan monarchy later dying upon the years.  As the boys grow up, their so called peaceful town turns into a place filled with gunshots, impacting the barren terrain which is also a reflection of Amir of his inner solitude. For the safety of Baba and Amir, the choice of relocating occurs when the Taliban make an appearance in the novel. This leads to leaving Ali and Hassan to face their own fate in Afghanistan, causing more guilt and pressure of speaking upon the emotions, but none is said, “thunder heads rolled in, painted the sky iron grey” (94) The use of literary devices on imagery and metaphor allow visible evidence of how the characters feel depart their separate ways. The notice of thunder clouds coming in, is significant for the very reason that it is stated it rarely rains where the novel is located. Reminiscing on the incidents that occurred over the years, finally leaving and going separate ways cause emotional scars that do not heal quickly, by the guilt and insecurity Amir faces: “I only knew the memory lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of color on the grey, barren canvas that our lives had become” (123) When Baba and Amir leave for California and are forced to leave Hassan and Ali in Afghanistan, it causes Baba to cry which is unexpected from his character has already presented to be. This is later reflected in another moment of pathetic fallacy in the storm which happens when all the characters depart. Later, Amir tells the readers that summer rain is very uncommon, just as much as his father’s tears are. Amir does not cry, but the rain in Afghanistan helps provide the symbolic tears that are viewed in this act As the novel moves settings to California, the novel expands through many different areas and ideas, impacting the characters in different ways. But, as the years go on, a call outlining the death of his childhood friend, Hassan, and the discovery of Sohrab, Hassan’s son is living with the man who raped Hassan as a young boy serves Amir the subjective perception of turning the wrongs to the right, so he takes the opportunity to travel back to his home town in Afghanistan: “Because – ” he Sohrab said, gasping and hitching between sobs, “because I don’t want them to see me…I’m so dirty.” He sucked in his breath and let it out in a long, wheezy cry. “I’m so dirty and full of sin.” (87-88) Finally, by sacrificing his life back in California, the influence to make things right completes his grief and leads him more so on a path to make him feel better. After Amir’s discovery of having a half-brother, and the loss of baba, the influence to finally gain remorse for his actions causes a deliverance to help Sohrab. The loss of Hassan and moving to the United states helped influence the finding of his own faults and values of family ties and friends.  This ties to the connection of our everyday lives, as we depend on loved ones to help us gather our insecurities and help find a better path to influence ourselves better in the future. Doing a good deed in society helps cancel a bad one, in this case, being the witness of Hassan’s rape. All in all, by exploring the grief and innocence of a young boy, going into a more devoted and reliable person. Despite all his faults in the past, the look for redemption was concurred and had the result of excessive loyalty to his new family. Overall, to find redemption and to make up for past insecurities, the theme of struggles and grief are necessary to grow, to the degree to which is determines the good potential in a person