The Kite Runner Cliff Notes Summary and Analysis of Chapters 17-19

Chapter Seventeen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

After Rahim Khan finished telling the story about him and Hassan, he handed Amir a letter and a photograph. The photograph was of Hassan and Sohrab. In the letter, Hassan described the violence and injustice in Afghanistan. One day, Farzana spoke slightly loudly in the market and a Talib beat her so hard that she fell down and was bruised for days. Despite the terror, Hassan said, Sohrab was a healthy and smart boy; Hassan had made sure he was literate and knew how to shoot a slingshot as well as his father. Hassan ended his letter by expressing his wish to see Amir in Afghanistan again. Rahim Khan explained that the letter was written six months before. A month after he had arrived in Peshawar, he received news of Hassan’s death from a friend. After he left Kabul, word spread that a Hazara family was living alone in Baba’s house. One day, the Taliban came to the house and demanded that they leave. When Hassan protested, they took him out to the street, forced him to kneel, and shot him in the back of his head. Farzana ran out screaming and they shot her dead as well. The news devastated Amir, who could only whisper, “No. No. No.”

Rahim Khan explained that the Taliban now occupied Baba’s house and they were not held accountable for Hassan and Farzana’s murders. Then he told Amir that he real reason he made Amir come to Peshawar was to bring Sohrab there. An American couple named Thomas and Betty Caldwell ran a goodwill organization there and would take care of him. When Amir protested and suggested Rahim Khan hire someone to find Sohrab, Rahim Khan was insulted. He told Amir, “I think we both know why it has to be you, don’t we?” Then he asked Amir if he had become what Baba feared so many years before, a person who “can’t stand up to anything.” He said it was his dying wish for Amir personally to bring Sohrab to Peshawar. When Amir continued to refuse, Rahim Khan revealed a monumental secret. Amir and Hassan were half-brothers. Ali was infertile, as evidenced by the fact that his first wife bore him no children, but bore her second husband three daughters. It was Baba who had gotten Sanaubar pregnant, making Hassan his son. Rahim Khan explained that no one but himself, Baba, Ali, and Sanaubar had known about the matter in order to preserve their honor. Hassan never found out. Amir was furious at all of them for keeping the secret. He screamed at Rahim Khan and left the apartment.

Chapter Eighteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

After storming out of Rahim Khan’s apartment, Amir had tea at a local café. He felt like a foreigner in his own life. Now that he knew Hassan was his half-brother, it seemed absurd that he had not realized it before. Baba had always treated Hassan like a son not just because he cared for him, but because Hassan was really his son. Amir wondered how Baba could have broken his own cardinal rule about not lying, how he could have lived with himself after shaming Ali.

Suddenly, Baba did not seem like such a shining example of righteousness. Amir now understood that Rahim Khan had called him to Peshawar to pay not only for his betrayal of Hassan, but for Baba’s betrayal of Ali. Amir wondered if he was to blame for Hassan and Ali’s deaths because he was the one who drove them out of the house and split up the family. Finally, at thirty-eight years old, Amir was ready to take responsibility for his actions. He returned to Rahim Khan’s apartment to find him praying and told him he would bring Sohrab to Peshawar.

Chapter Nineteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

A driver named Farid was driving Amir from Peshawar to Kabul. He was a Tajik man of twenty-nine, who looked much older because of all he had experienced, fighting against the Soviet forces. Farid had two wives and seven children, two of whom had been killed by a landmine. Farid himself was missing toes and fingers from his years of combat. Farid was suspicious of Amir because he saw him as a defector; whereas Farid had stayed and fought for his homeland, Amir had fled to the privileges of America. He had abandoned his watan, his homeland.

Amir felt awkward in his traditional Afghan clothing and long fake beard, both necessary for him to blend in to Taliban-controlled Kabul. He told Farid, “I feel like a tourist in my own country,” who replied, “You still think of this as your country?” Amir said he did because he had grown up there, but Farid explained to Amir that he had never been a true Afghani because he grew up with so many privileges. Amir did not try to argue with Farid. At last, they arrived in Jalalabad, where they would spend the night with Farid’s brother, Wahid.

Unlike Farid, Wahid received Amir warmly. When he found out Amir was a writer, he suggested Amir use his writing to “tell the rest of the world what the Taliban are doing to [Afghanistan.]” Amir explained that he was “not quite that kind of writer.” When Wahid asked Amir why he had returned to Afghanistan, Farid interrupted. He ranted about how people returned their only to be greedy and milk money out of their old properties. Wahid scolded Farid for his rudeness. Then Amir explained why he was really in Afghanistan. At this, Wahid called him, “An honorable man … A true Afghan.” Farid was ashamed at his own presumptuousness. Later he apologized to Amir, who told him, “You were more right than you know.”

One of Wahid’s wives brought dinner to Amir and Farid, saying the family had eaten earlier. As he ate, Amir noticed that Wahid’s three boys were staring at his watch. After asking for Wahid’s permission, he gave it to them. To his surprise, it did not impress them very much. Amir slept restlessly, dreaming about Hassan’s death. He imagined that he himself was the Talib executing Hassan. When Amir woke up, he paced outside and pondered the fact that Afghanistan really was his homeland. His loyalty to the country surprised him, since he had built a new and full life in America. From inside, Amir heard one of Wahid’s wives scolding him for not leaving any food for the children; Amir realized that the boys had been staring not at his watch, but at his food. Before he and Farid left the next morning, Amir tucked a wad of money under a mattress for them to find.

Analysis The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Chapter Seventeen  The Kite Runner Cliff Notes brings the subject of literacy into clearer focus. The ability to read and write divided Amir and Hassan when they were boys. Being literate when Hassan was not gave Amir a feeling of superiority over him, causing him to abuse his privilege by playing tricks and being secretly cruel. Hassan’s illiteracy does not mask his intelligence; for example, he points out the major plot hole in Amir’s story. But as an adult, Hassan realizes that not being literate puts him at a disadvantage and makes him depend on others. For this reason, he makes sure that Sohrab can read and write even though it breaks his family tradition. Even though Hassan feels entitled to very little all his life, he does feel that he has a right to knowledge; as usual, what matters to Hassan is intangible and enduring. The letter is of course significant because of its content, but it is perhaps more noteworthy because of the simple fact that it is written. Hassan is communicating with Amir on an equal level, something he could never have done when they were boys. Hosseini gives a nod here to the power of the written word, which endures and has an effect that transcends even death-after all, Hassan is long dead by the time Amir reads his correspondence. This also gives legitimacy to Amir because, coward though he may be, he is a writer, an ambassador of the written word.

The topics of secrets and family ties converge and come to a climax in Chapter Seventeen, when Rahim Khan finally reveals to Amir that Hassan was his half-brother. Amir is furious because suddenly the way he treated Hassan and Ali seems all the more wrong. The concept of “brother” is much stronger to him than the concept of “servant-best-friend” whereas Hassan had treated him like a brother no matter what. As Amir says, “Hassan had loved me once, loved me in a way that no one ever had or ever would again.” Amir’s reaction to the news reveals how important family ties are anywhere, but in Afghanistan particularly. As General Taheri says in Chapter Thirteen, “People [in America] marry for love, family name and ancestry never even come into the equation. But we are Afghans.” Among Afghans, one’s family line determines much about how one’s life will proceed, from whether one will be literate to whom one will marry. For instance, the reason the Taheris give Soraya to Amir so easily is because of Baba’s good standing and ancestry. Hassan’s not knowing his identity meant he missed many of the things to which he was entitled. Amir now feels as though his entire life has been “a cycle of lies, betrayals, and secrets,” and not just his own. He finally understands that Baba was as much of a betrayer, liar, and secret-keeper as he is. He also understands that this makes the importance of his redemption twofold, saying, “Rahim Khan had summoned be here to atone not just for my sins but for Baba’s too.”

Amir’s interactions with Farid and Wahid call into question the idea of homeland and national identity. Once he reached America, Amir clung to Afghan customs but insisted on forgetting his memories of Kabul. He welcomed America not for its idealism, as Baba had, but for the simple fact that it was not Kabul. To him, everything in Afghanistan was tainted with memories of Hassan, his “harelipped ghost.” Amir’s youth when he arrives plays a large role in his feelings about homeland and nationality. Because he is still growing up when he arrives, he is not as mired in Afghan traditions and attitudes as his father’s generation. Over the course of fifteen years Amir has come to consider America his homeland, whereas General Taheri is still awaiting the moment when he will be called back to his beloved watan. Amir’s opinion of Hassan has changed now that he knows they were brothers, but his connection to America is stronger than his feeling of obligation to anyone in Afghanistan. As he tells Rahim Khan, “I can’t go to Kabul … I have a wife in America, a home, a career, and a family.” When he finally consents to find Sohrab, Amir acknowledges his lack of loyalty to his fatherland. He admits, “I knew I had to leave as soon as possible. I was afraid I’d change my mind. I was afraid I’d deliberate, ruminate, agonize, rationalize, and talk myself into not going. I was afraid the appeal of my life in America would draw me back, that I would wade back into that great, big river and let myself forget.”

Amir’s disconnect from Afghanistan becomes even clearer when he is driving with Farid. Firstly, Amir is in disguise; in addition to his fake beard, he is wearing traditional Afghan clothing for maybe the first time in his life. Amir struggles with his separation from Afghanistan, because he still feels some entitlement to it; he says, “My mother had died on this soil. And on this soil, I had fought for my father’s love.” Farid quickly dispels any illusions of Afghan nationality that that Amir has when he says, “You’ve always been a tourist here, you just didn’t know it.” He points out that because he grew up with so many privileges, he never experienced the life of a typical Afghan. Farid sneers, “You probably lived in a big two- or three-story house with a nice backyard that your gardener filled with flowers and fruit trees. All gated, of course. Your father drove an American car. You had servants, probably Hazaras.” Amir has to admit, albeit privately, that all of this is true. He grew up in one of the nicest houses in Kabul. Baba had driven a Mustang and proudly so. He did have a gated backyard, and it was Hassan and Ali who did their chores and tended the garden. It is only when Amir truly begins to reclaim his and Baba’s honor that he also reclaims some of his Afghan identity. Wahid proclaims him, “an honorable man … A true Afghan” only when he discovers that Amir is going to Kabul to honor his family ties.

 The Kite Runner Cliff Notes Summary and Analysis of Chapters 13-16

Chapter Thirteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Chapter Thirteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes begins at the Taheris’ house with “lafz, the ceremony of “giving word.” Even though Baba is very ill, he proclaims it “the happiest day of [his] life.” Baba made a speech and General Taheri welcomed Amir into his family. Then Soraya joined the celebration and kissed Baba’s hands. Traditionally, lafz is followed by an engagement party called Shirini-kori and an engagement period, but everyone agreed that they should skip it because Baba was so close to death. Baba spent almost all the money he had left on the traditional Afghan wedding ceremony, called awroussi. According to the ceremony, Amir and Soraya were left alone together under a veil to gaze at each other’s reflections in a mirror. There, Amir told her he loved her for the first time. Amir could not help wondering whether Hassan had gotten married and what his wife was like. The party continued until the early morning, after which Amir and Soraya made love for the first time.

Soraya moved in with Amir and Baba after the wedding so that Amir could spend his father’s last days with him. Soraya cared for Baba as though he were her own father, bathing him, reading to him, cooking for him, and giving him anything else he needed. One day, Amir came home to find Soraya hiding Rahim Khan’s notebook under Baba’s mattress. Baba admitted that he had coaxed Soraya to read him Amir’s stories. Amir left the room to cry tears of joy, since he knew Baba disliked seeing him cry. A month after the wedding, Soraya’s family came over to Baba’s for dinner. Amir could see how happy Baba was to see him happily married. At the end of the night, Soraya and Amir helped Baba into bed. He refused his morphine, saying, “There is no pain tonight.” He died in his sleep.

Baba’s funeral took place at a nearby mosque. The men’s and women’s sections of the mosque were separate, so Amir sat next to General Taheri while Soraya and her mother were in another room. Amir acknowledged that Baba was his obstinate self until the end; he even died “on his own terms.” Countless people whom Amir had never seen shook his hand and told him how Baba had helped them in one way or another. As he listened to their remarks, Amir realized that he no longer had Baba to define him or guide him; he felt terribly alone. After the burial, Amir and Soraya walked through the cemetery together and Amir cried at last.

After Baba’s death, Amir got to know the Taheris much more closely. General Taheri was a complicated man. He did not work and collected welfare because he considered this more dignified than taking on a blue collar job as Baba had. He suffered from terrible headaches lasting days, and spent the rest of his time waiting for the liberation of Afghanistan. He felt sure that he would be called back to serve in the government at any time, so he always wore his grey suit and watch in preparation to leave. Khanum Taheri was a talented singer, but the general forbid her to sing. Instead, she focused her energies on homemaking. Now that Soraya was married, Khanum Taheri focused much of her attention on Amir. She adored him especially because he listened to her long list of imagined ailments; ever since her stroke, she became convinced that every small disturbance in her body was a serious ailment. Amir knew that Khanum Taheri was grateful to him not only for this, but for relieving her of her greatest fear-of Soraya becoming a spinster.

One night, Soraya told Amir the story of how the general forced her to end her affair. He came to her lover’s house and told him he would kill him and himself if Soraya did not come home. Soraya told her father she wished he was dead, but she came home with him. At home, he made her cut off all her hair. Ever after, Soraya heard derogatory whispers everywhere she went. After Soraya told Amir the story, he asked her never to mention it again. He understood too well the torment of guilt and betrayal, but he also pitied Soraya for being a woman in Afghan society; even in America, she was subject to a double standard regarding sexual behavior.

Amir and Soraya moved into their own apartment. The Taheris helped them furnish it, and the general gave Amir a typewriter. They both enrolled at San Jose University, where Amir worked toward a degree in English and Soraya, in teaching. In 1988, Amir finished his first novel, “a father-son story set in Kabul.” Soon after, he got a lierary agent and became a published writer. Amir’s feelings of success were tempered with his guilt; he felt himself to be undeserving. That same year, international politics were particularly fraught. The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, but a new conflict erupted between the Mujahedin and the remaining communist government. The Berlin wall was destroyed and the Tiananmen Square riots occurred. In their safe American abode, Amir and Soraya began trying to conceive a child.

After months of trying to conceive, Amir and Soraya consulted fertility doctors. Neither of them had any detectable fertility problems, but they were still unable to have a child. When they told Soraya’s parents, General Taheri and Khanum Taheri were disappointed. The general urged them not to adopt, most of all because Afghan society depends on the line of succession, which the act of adoption obliterates. Amir thought privately that his and Soraya’s infertility was punishment for his betraying Hassan so many years before. Soon after they discovered they could not have a family, Amir and Soraya bought a house. Despite their newfound material comforts, the absence of a child tormented them both.

Chapter Fourteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Chapter Fourteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes opens in June of 2001, when Amir received a call from Rahim Khan. He told Amir he was very sick and asked him to come visit him in Pakistan. Amir considered what Rahim Khan had said before hanging up, “Come. There is a way to be good again.” Suddenly, he understood that Rahim Khan knew, and had always known, what he did to Hassan. Amir was comfortable leaving Soraya with her parents; her relationship with them had improved in the years since the wedding. The General no longer insisted that Soraya change her career path away from teaching; sometimes he sat in on the classes Soraya taught and even took notes. That night, Amir dreamt of Hassan as he had seen him right before the rape, shouting, “For you, a thousand times over!” A week later, he left for Peshawar, Pakistan.

Chapter Fifteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

As Amir rode through the streets of Peshawar in a cab, he remembered being there in 1981 as a refugee. The city was bustling with vendors, families, and children. Rahim Khan was staying in the Afghan section. Amir had last seen him the night before he and Baba fled Kabul, and has barely spoken with him since. When Rahim Khan answered the door, Amir saw how emaciated his illness had made him. Still, Rahim Khan’s face brightened in Amir’s presence and at the news of his marriage fifteen years earlier. He did not remember the notebook he gave Amir.

Rahim Khan described how the Taliban was terrorizing Afghanistan, though they had been received initially as heroes. Once, at a soccer game, a man next to him cheered too loudly. A Talib pistol whipped Rahim Khan, thinking he had made the noise. People in Kabul were afraid to leave their houses because of frequent shootings and bombings. Even Baba’s orphanage had been destroyed, with many children inside it. Then Rahim Khan told Amir that he did not have long to live. He laughed at Amir’s offer to take him to America, saying he accepted his fate. Then he revealed to Amir that for all the years he lived in Baba’s house after 1981, Hassan lived there with him. He told Amir that he needed a favor of him, but first wanted to tell him about Hassan.

Chapter Sixteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Chapter Sixteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes is in Rahim Khan’s voice; he is telling Amir the story of what happened to Hassan. He went searching for Hassan in 1986 because he was dreadfully lonely, so many of his relatives and friends having been killed or fled since 1981. He was managing to take care of the house and himself despite his age and arthritis, but when the news of Baba’s death reached him, he felt the weight of it all was too much. He drove to Hazarajat, where Ali and Hassan had been living, and was directed to a village outside Bamiyan. He found Hassan, now in his early twenties, and his pregnant wife, Farzana, living in a small hut. Hassan was overcome with joy when he saw Rahim Khan. He told him that Ali had been killed by a land mine two years before. He asked many questions about Amir. Initially, Hassan and Farzana refused to move to Baba’s house, but then Rahim told him of Baba’s death. Hassan cried all through the night and in the morning he agreed to move in with Rahim Khan.

Despite Rahim Khan’s protestations, Hassan and Farzana stayed in the servants’ hut and did all the chores. Hassan also wore black for forty days in mourning for Baba. In the fall, their daughter was stillborn; they buried her and Hassan placed a flower on her grave every day. Then in 1990, Farzana became pregnant again and Hassan’s mother, Sanaubar, came to find him. She collapsed at the gate of the house; when they carried her inside and removed her burqa, they discovered that the former beauty was malnourished, had no teeth, and had grotesque scars all over her face from being cut. Hassan ran out of the house and was gone for hours, but when he returned he accepted Sanaubar as his mother. She became healthy and a part of the family; she even delivered Farzana and Hassan’s son. Hassan named him Sohrab, after the hero in his favorite story from the book Amir used to read him. Sohrab became inseparable from Sanaubar, whom he called Sasa. Four years later, Sanaubar died peacefully. Hassan tried to give Sohrab a good childhood despite the constant fighting and danger in Kabul. He even took him kite running in the winter. When the Taliban took over, most people celebrated, but Hassan knew Hazaras’ lives were in peril. He was right; in 1998 the Taliban “massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif.”

Analysis The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Just as the courtship had made Baba feel important again, so did the wedding. Knowing he is dying, he spends almost all his money on the ceremony, rings, and traditional clothing. Yet even had Baba not been dying, he would have wanted the wedding to be extravagant; it is his last chance to throw a grand party and feel as he once did in Kabul. The wedding also brings Amir back to Kabul momentarily, when he wonders about Hassan. Though Baba is reduced to having Amir and Soraya care for him in the last days of his life, his death restores his dignity once again. At the funeral, the Afghan community recognizes Baba for the man he was in Afghanistan. It is a small consolation for Amir, who feels more alone than ever before. Now he is alone not only with his sin and guilt but with all his decisions and his future. He says, “Listening to them, I realized how much of who I was, what I was had been defined by Baba and the marks he had left on people’s lies. My whole life, I had been “Baba’s son.” Now he was gone. Baba couldn’t show me the way anymore; I’d have to find it on my own.” Despite the fact that he and Baba were estranged for much of his life, it is only now that Amir realizes he must form his own identity, independent of Baba.

When Amir and Soraya try to have a child, the idea of retribution makes a grand re-entrance. Because no medical explanation exists for their infertility, Amir decides that it is a result of his betraying Hassan. The silence that grows between him and Soraya over their inability to conceive is filled with Amir’s feeling of responsibility for it. When General Taheri discourages the couple from adopting, he makes the case that adoption disconnects the family line and threatens the family’s security. He says, “Blood is a powerful thing … And when you adopt, you don’t know whose blood you’re bringing into your house.” What neither he nor Amir knows is that adopting will allow Amir to continue his family line and also redeem himself from having wronged family so many years before. When Rahim Khan calls from Pakistan, he sets Amir’s redemption into motion. Like Amir, Rahim Khan believes that life has certain inevitabilities; as he puts it, “There is such a thing as God’s will.” Just as certainly as he knows he is going to die, he knows that Amir must be the one to save Sohrab.

In Chapter Fourteen The Kite Runner Cliff Notes, we finally revisit the phrase that Amir mentions in Chapter One: “there is a way to be good again.” Now we understand its magnitude; for the first time, Amir discovers that someone, Rahim Khan, knows his secret and has kept it for all these years. What he does not realize is that Rahim Khan does not want to be saved; he wants to save Amir. From the moment Amir sees Rahim Khan, it becomes clear to us how irrevocably Afghanistan has changed. Amir says, “A thing made of skin and bones pretending to be Rahim Khan opened the door.” Their meeting is out of place-in Peshawar instead of Kabul-and so is Rahim Khan’s appearance. The old man does not even remember the notebook that has meant so much to Amir for the last fifteen years. Yet once they begin to talk, it becomes clear how close they still are and how much influence Rahim Khan has over Amir.

Because guilt has plagued Amir all these years, it is surprising that he does not seize the opportunity to redeem himself. Rather, he is evasive and keeps forcing Rahim Khan to raise the stakes for him. When Rahim Khan plays his best card and tells Amir that Hassan was his brother, and that he needs to redeem Baba as well as himself, Amir storms out like an angry child. Suddenly, he understands what it is like to be betrayed. Later we find out that Rahim Khan knows Amir better than the latter ever thought. He realized that Amir would resist bringing Sohrab to America, so he made up the story about the Caldwells. Amir does save Sohrab by bringing to America, but only after he is effectively tricked into doing so. This is why it is the act of running the kite at the end that truly redeems Amir; unlike all the other heroic things he does, it is of his own volition and out of the spirit of true selflessness and loyalty.

Through Rahim Khan’s words in Chapter Sixteen, we learn that Hassan remained a loyal and humble person until death. Even though he never found out Baba was his father, he still mourned for him the way a son does. He insisted on living in the servant’s hut and keeping house for Rahim Khan, presumably out of respect to Baba and also to Ali, who never asked for anything more. Hassan was as forgiving as an adult as he was as a child. When Sanaubar returned decades after abandoning him, he merely took time to collect himself and then returned to welcome her with open arms. And as Sohrab tells Amir later, Hassan even forgave Amir and considered him “the best friend he ever had.” In the end, Hassan died defending Baba’s house and honor.

Rahim Khan and Hassan bring the war stories from Afghanistan alive for us before we see them through Amir’s eyes. Both men describe public beatings at the slightest provocation. Sanaubar is forced to wear a burqa, as we know, on pain of death. The men’s firsthand knowledge of these things highlights their difference from Amir. Whereas they are Afghans to the very end, Amir seems to have lost his connection to his identity. As he stated before, he was ‘carried away’ by America’s promise of a fresh beginning without memories of Hassan or what he did to him. Amir had been exempt from violence the moment he boarded the plane to California, but Rahim Khan and Hassan remained surrounded by danger. They had come to know a new, though terrible, Afghanistan, while Amir had tried as hard as he could to forget all about it. Even before Farid points out the fact point-blank, we can see that Amir has become a foreigner in his own homeland. At the same time, he is very much the person he was. It is true that in America, Amir experienced suffering and hardship, from having to learn English to not having money to seeing Baba degraded to watching him get sick and die. But Amir returns to Afghanistan in many ways just as he left it: he is a person of privilege, a person who is afraid to stand up for others, and a person who does not want to take responsibility for his actions. Back on Afghan soil, he must finally learn to be what Baba wanted him to be, and what Wahid calls him later on - “a true Afghan.”

The Kite Runner Cliff Notes Summary and Analysis of Chapters 10-12

Chapter Ten The Kite Runner Cliff Notes
When Chapter Ten opens Amir and Baba are being smuggled out of Soviet- or Shorawi-occupied Kabul along with other Afghanis. Their goal was to reach the safer territory of Pakistan. Amir still has carsickness at age eighteen, which embarrasses Baba. The truck stops so that Amir can vomit on the roadside. Amir thinks of how secretly they had to leave Kabul, telling no one, not even their servant. The rafiqs, or Communist comrades, had taught everyone in Kabul how to spy on their neighbors and even their family.

The truck was supposed to have no trouble crossing through the Russian-Afghani checkpoints because of the driver, Karim’s connections. At a checkpoint, the Afghani soldiers would have let the truck pass without issue, but one Russian soldier demanded a half hour with one of the refugees, a married woman. To Amir’s dismay, Baba defended the woman, telling the Russian soldier that he had no shame and that he would “take a thousand bullets before [he] let this indecency take place.” Amir felt ashamed that while Baba would give his life to save someone, he did nothing to save Hassan. The Russian soldier aimed the barrel of his gun at Baba’s chest, but the shot that rang out did not kill him. It came from the gun of a more senior Russian soldier, who apologized for the first one, explaining that he was on drugs. The truck passed the checkpoint safely and in the darkness, the woman’s husband kissed Baba’s hand.

When the refugees finally reached Karim’s brother’s house in Jalalabad, he told them that his brother, Toor’s, truck had broken the week before and could not take them to Peshawar, Pakistan. Baba smashed Karim against the wall and began to strangle him, furious that Karim had lied to them in order to take their money. Only the married woman’s pleas stopped Baba from killing Karim. It turned out that there were many other refugees in the house, who had been waiting there for two weeks. Amir, Baba, and the others went into the basement to wait with them. Waiting there with them in the damp, rat-infested basement were Amir’s schoolmate, Kamal, and his father. Kamal had a sunken look in his eyes, and his father explained to Baba that his wife had been shot and Kamal had been raped.

Because it turned out that Toor’s truck was irreparable, the refugees departed in the tank of fuel truck. Before they left, Baba kissed the Afghani dirt and put some in his snuff box to keep next to his heart. Later, Amir awoke in the fuel tank feeling as though he was suffocating. He comforted himself with the memory of a spring afternoon he spent kite-fighting with Hassan. When they finally got out in Pakistan, they were thankful to be alive. Yet Kamal had suffocated on the fumes and died. In a rage, Kamal’s father put the barrel of Karim’s gun in his mouh and shot himself.

Chapter Eleven The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Chapter Eleven opens in the 1980s in Fremont, California, a year and a half after Amir and Baba arrived in America. Amir explains that Baba loved “the idea of America” so much that it gave him an ulcer. He believed that the only worthwhile countries were America, Israel and Britain, even though his support of Israel drew accusations from other Afghanis of his being anti-Islam. He was the only Republican among their blue-collar neighbors and even hung a framed picture of Ronald Reagan in their apartment. One day, Baba got into a fight with Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen, the owners of the small grocery store across the street. Mr. Nguyen had asked for Baba’s ID when he wanted to pay with a check and Baba was so insulted that he damaged their property. It was clear to Amir that Baba missed their old life in Kabul and was having trouble adjusting to America. Whereas in Kabul he had been wealthy and influential, in Fremont he worked long hours at a gas station and missed almost everything about home. He saw life in America as a gift he had given to Amir and something he would have to suffer. For Amir, America was an escape from his memories of Hassan.

Amir graduated from high school at the age of twenty, when Baba was fifty. After the ceremony, Baba took Amir to a bar, where he bought drinks for other patrons and became the life of his own impromptu party. When they drove home, Amir was shocked to find that Baba had bought him a Ford Torino to drive himself to junior college. When they went inside, Baba said he wished Hassan was there. Amir’s throat closed up with guilt. Amir also had to grapple with Baba’s disappointment that he wanted to be a creative writer instead of a doctor or lawyer. Amir found release from his guilt by driving his Ford for hours at a time and sitting by the ocean. He was grateful to be starting anew in America.

The next summer, when Amir turned 21, Baba bought an old Volkswagen bus. On Saturdays, he and Amir drove to yard sales in neighboring towns and then sold their wares at the San Jose flea market. The flea market was a cultural epicenter for Afghan families, who dominated the Used Goods section. One one such day, Baba introduced Amir to General Taheri, an old acquaintance of his from Kabul. The “casually arrogant” Taheri did not impress Amir, but his daughter, Soraya, entranced him. Baba told Amir that Soraya had had a relationship with a man that did not work out well and had not been courted since. This did not matter to Amir, who already thought of her as his “Swap Meet Princess.”

Chapter Twelve The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Amir’s desire for Soraya tormented him. At the flea market, he made excuses to walk by the Taheris’ stand just to get a glimpse of her, but he could not muster the courage to talk to her. Finally one Sunday, he asked Soraya what she was reading. This was not a casual question in the Afghani community, because two single young people chatting invited gossip. Soraya knew that Amir was a writer and said she would like to read one of his stories. Just then, Soraya’s mother, Kamila (or Khanum Taheri), showed up and greeted Amir warmly. She was a nice woman with one peculiarity; one side of her mouth drooped. Khanum Taheri sent Amir off with fruit and asked him to visit again. Amir understood that Khanum Taheri, and perhaps the General, saw Amir as a suitor for Soraya.

Every week, Amir visited the Taheris’ booth when the General was away. He chatted with Khanum Taheri and Soraya. He found out that like him, Soraya was attending junior college. She wanted to be a teacher. She told Amir how, as a child in Kabul, she taught her illiterate housekeeper, Ziba, how to read. Amir was ashamed, remembering how he had lorded his literary over the oblivious Hassan. Just as Amir handed her a story to read, General Taheri arrived at the booth and Soraya was forced to hand him the story out of propriety. He dropped it into the garbage can. Then General Taheri took Amir aside and scolded him for having such an open conversation with Soraya in the marketplace.

Later that week, Baba caught a terrible cold but did not wan to go to the doctor. Amir convinced him to see a doctor when he saw that Baba was coughing up blood. The doctor told Amir that there was a suspicious spot on Baba’s lung that he needed to have checked out. That night, Amir prayed for the first time in a very long time. They finally got to see a specialist, Dr. Schneider, but Baba lost his temper when he found out the doctor was Russian-American. They found a new Iranian doctor, Dr. Amani, who discovered that Baba had terminal cancer. Baba refused to prolong his life with chemotherapy and made Amir promise not to tell anyone about his disease. After the diagnosis, Amir and Baba still went to the flea market on Sundays. As the weeks progressed, Baba lost weight and got sicker until one day, he fell on the ground and started having seizures.

At the doctor’s office, the doctor showed Amir Baba’s CAT scans. The cancer had spread to Baba’s brain and he would have to take medications and receive radiation. Once news spread that Baba was dying, many local Afghans came to pay their respects, including the Taheris. Baba refused radiation, so Amir took him home to die. Then Amir asked him to ask General Taheri to go khastegari, to ask for Soraya’s hand in marriage. Baba called and made arrangements to visit the Taheris the next morning. Amir helped Baba dress and drove him to the Taheris’ house, then went home to wait. Finally, Baba called and said that the general had accepted and then put Soraya on the phone. She was delighted but said she wanted to tell him a secret. When the Taheris lived in Virginia, she ran off with an Afghan man. When her father found her and dragged her home, she found out that her mother had suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of her face. Amir was slightly upset to find out that Soraya was not a virgin because he was. At the same time, he knew that he of all people could not hold someone accountable for her past mistakes, so he told Soraya that nothing could change his desire to marry her. Envy tempered Amir’s joy because Soraya was now free of her shameful secret whereas his still plagued him.

Analysis The Kite Runner Cliff Notes

Beginning in Chapter Ten, Amir is yanked out of his predictable, privileged life and thrust into one of uncertainty and hardship. Knowing Amir and Baba as we have come to, it is difficult to think of them as refugees, leaving everything they have and know behind in order to save their own lives. Because we know Afghan history, we know that Baba might have lost everything anyway, had he stayed to see the Taliban rule and the United States bomb the land. In newspapers and on the news in recent years, we have seen pictures of refugees and of starving, injured Afghan refugees. It seems as though Hosseini chose to focus on the a wealthy family’s experience to show us what a good, prosperous life was like in Afghanistan. He makes the point that it was not always a wrecked country, even though it has been for as long as many Americans have known about it.

Amir is eighteen when he and Baba flee to Pakistan, meaning that it has been years since Ali and Hassan left. Indeed, he mentions that they have had several different servants in the intervening years. Still, Amir is not at all free from his guilt. Hosseini even introduces Kamal as a foil for Hassan. Like Hassan, Kamal has been raped and no longer smiles. His death and his father’s subsequent suicide suggest one horrifying possibility of what might have happened to Hassan and Ali without Baba’s protection. It is also a warning of what could easily happen to Baba and Amir. So much has changed since Amir was a boy, yet Baba still has the same unflappable courage. When Baba stands up for the married woman, it is the last time we ever see him in his element, in a position of power and defending those who are helpless. Once Baba and Amir come to America, Baba can never be the same because he is no longer in a position to help others.

The The Kite Runner Cliff Notes theme of sacrifice returns in Chapter Eleven, where we see how much Baba has given up in order to ensure Amir a better future. Once a party-giver and benefactor, Baba is now a gas-station worker in a country where he does not even speak the language fluently. He has gone from living in a large, luxurious house to living in a small apartment. Once the person everyone else could depend on, Baba now depends on Amir to help him navigate American life. The incident with the Nguyens makes it clear how out of place Baba is in California. As Amir explains, in Afghanistan the only ‘credit card’ they had was a branch into which a vendor carved a notch for each item bought. When Baba loses his temper after Mr. Nguyen asks him for ID, he is not being irrational; he comes from a place where such a request would have signified extreme distrust. While living in America is hard for Baba, it is a dream come true for Amir. Fremont, California is free of all the places and things that remind him of Hassan, his “harelipped ghost.” As he says, “America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins. Amir can set his mind on new goals and let the optimistic American spirit carry him as far away from Kabul emotionally as he is physically.

To Baba’s disappointment, Amir is the same person in Fremont as he was in Kabul. He still wants to be a writer. However, their relationship grows closer out of necessity; having lost almost everything familiar, they cling to one another. When Amir graduates from high school and Baba wishes Hassan was there, Amir feels a now-seldom pang of guilt. He does not realize that Baba is feeling worse guilt, because Hassan is his son and deserves the same opportunities as Amir. As Amir will surmise later, Baba may feel closer to Amir in America because Amir is more like Hassan there, struggling, no longer protected by privilege. As much as Amir wants to be swept up in the “river” of America, he is still rooted to Afghan tradition there because of the large community of refugees. From the moment he lays eyes on Soraya, he commits to preserving his roots because she comes from a traditional family.

Amir and Soraya’s traditional courtship creates a little Afghan oasis in the confusion of America, which Baba and the Taheris greatly appreciate. As immigrants, even “former ambassadors, out-of-work surgeons, and university professors” are reduced to selling used goods at the flea market. Baba is a gas station worker and General Taheri a welfare recipient, in the matter of their children’s courtship they feel like important Afghan men again. They are able to live in this reverie until Baba’s diagnosis. From that point on, Amir must watch his father go from a strong, almost legendary figure to a shrunken, weak ghost of his former self. As though to add insult to injury, the cancer spreads to Baba’s brain, the source of his intelligence and his trademark unapologetic opinions. In getting married, Amir restores Baba’s dignity by showing him how much he is needed. Amir needs Baba to go khastegari, to give word at lafz, and to sit with him at the awroussi. Even in his pain and weakness, Baba feels good again because he has an important role to play. Seeing Amir and Soraya’s traditional courtship and wedding also reassures Baba that Amir will not forget where he is from after Baba dies.

At the end of Chapter Twelve The Kite Runner Cliff Notes, Amir’s guilt reappears. As he listens to Soraya’s story, he pities her because he knows she is subject to a sexual double standard. But once Soraya is betrothed to Amir, her parents can stop worrying that no one will ever want to marry her. Amir envies Soraya for freeing herself from her guilt and for being a braver and better person than him. Her sin may be smaller than his, but she has the strength to admit to it at the risk of losing him. Amir himself does not reveal his sin until fifteen years later, when he calls her from Islamabad. Only when he has no choice can Amir admit out loud to what he has done because for him, “America [is] a place to bury [his] memories.”