- Provide a description of the persona of the following characters. Identify their role in the text and locate three quotes you could use to highlight who they are.
Amir
Amir’s role in the text is the main character, he does something unspeakable and we know this from chapter one as he says that he regrets something so we expect something to happen throughout the book. We simultaneously hate Amir but at the same time understand where he’s coming from because of his background. He’s the anti hero character where you love but hate him.
“It’s wrong, what they say about the past, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realise I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”
“…I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could have done was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him. Not at all.”
“…I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could have done was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him. Not at all.”
- Identify three key relationships that are developed in the text. For each, explore what is ‘key’ about them for the characters involved and what kind of impact the relationship has on both characters’ development.
Amir and Hassan: they are half brothers and they don’t know it and they grew up together, and Hassan is good for Amir, they bonded and they were amazing together, (Amir never really made a really good friend when he went to America, not like Hassan.) When Amir was suffering from guilt, he ruined what they had and drove Hassan away even though he was willing to forgive Amir, Amir wasn’t willing to forgive himself.
Amir and Baba: Amir is just a little boy wanting to be loved by his father and he can never find it so when opportunities arise he either takes advantage of it or doesn’t know what to do with it. But either way he ends up losing it and feels even worse after because of the things he did to get his father’s love. He can never win it. But little does he know that Baba is also struggling because he is also Hassan’s father and he can’t show that or tell so he vents in different ways and I think that he doesn’t know how to love or show love to Amir when his wife died.
- Consider the narrator of the novel, Amir. Explain how he fulfils the expected characteristics of the antihero. Discuss the ways that he changes throughout the novel and how, given he is the one that is telling the story, the audience is positioned to view him.
Amir is the antihero because he looks out for himself and thinks in the now and not in what could possibly happen so he’s left with all of these consequences and he doesn’t know what to do. He changes every now and then throughout the book, the first change is from the free conflicted boy that he was before Hassan got raped, and he turns into an insomniac and guilt overrides him and he becomes this hollow version of himself, it is almost like he was doomed from the start. But then he has a change of heart when he meets Sohrab and brings him home to redeem himself in a way. He changed from the man that he was living with guilt but then he changes to the man he was at the end of the book having forgiven himself. He was a little self centered.
- Reflect on the purpose of telling this story, a story of redemption and reconciling your past, from the antihero perspective. Why have our narrator as a character whom we grow to respect rather than establishing them as ‘honourable’ right from the beginning?
The purpose of telling this story is to recognize that redemption comes differently for everyone, Amir needed to feel that release of what he thought he deserved as in the fight he had with Assef, he thought he needed to be punished for what he did and so he did, hr got what would have happened if he has stopped Assef in the alleyway and so he can finally could forgive himself. He does things throughout the text that aren’t agreeable but at the same time you can kinda get the psychological thinking behind the reasons as to why he does it. We respect him in a way we respect someone who comes back from war. They have done horrible things and we know this but they had to do the things in war to survive, or what they thought was necessary for them to survive. But he gets better and redeems himself in others eyes as well as his own.
- Provide a description of the persona of the following characters. Identify their role in the text and locate three quotes you could use to highlight who they are.
Hassan
Hassans role in the text is for him to be the suffering person, the source of the story, the turning point, the other end of the horrible thing we already know is going to happen. Sadly he doesn’t survive to the end of the book, but a part of him does in the shape of Sohrab, his son. Innocent child role, the one who is the purest but gets the punishment befitting of devils.
In The Kite Runner, Hassan is the driving force (also called a catalytic character) for almost all of the main character’s (Amir) actions. Amir saw his friend, Hassan, being raped and assaulted. Instead of helping, he ran away. Much of The Kite Runner retells the stories about the two boys growing up together. By looking at Hassan’s most important quotes, we can gain solid insight into his character.
“And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
”. . .suddenly Hassan’s voice whispered in my head: For you, a thousand times over.”
“Would I ever lie to you, Amir Agha? Suddenly I decided to play with him a little. “I don’t know. Would you?” “I’d sooner eat dirt,” he said with a look of indignation. “Really? You’d do that?” he threw me a puzzled look. “Do what?” “Eat dirt if I told you too,” I said…. “If you asked, I would,” he finally said, looking right at me.”
- Provide a description of the persona of the following characters. Identify their role in the text and locate three quotes you could use to highlight who they are.
Baba
Baba is Amir’s father and a wealthy businessman who aids the community by creating businesses for others and building a new orphanage. He is the biological father of Hassan, a fact he hides from both of his children, and seems to favor him over Amir.
Baba in ”The Kite Runner” is an imposing figure, not only to those around him, but also to his son Amir. Amir idolizes his father and attempts to live up to his expectations, only to find him unyielding, the result of an unspoken secret.
“A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.”
“‘There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life,’ Baba said, ‘you steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?’”
‘Hassan’s not going anywhere,’ Baba snapped. He dug a new hole with the trowel, striking the dirt harder than he had to. ‘He’s staying right here with us, where he belongs. This is his home and we’re his family. Don’t you ever ask me that question again!’
- Provide a description of the persona of the following characters. Identify their role in the text and locate three quotes you could use to highlight who they are.
Sohrab
Sohrab is the young son of Hassan and Farzana. He is an ethnic Hazara, and is described as having the same eyes as his father. It turns out that Hassan was Amir’s half brother, so Sohrab is Amir’s nephew. When the Taliban murders Hassan and Farzana, Sohrab is sent to an orphanage in Kabul.
Sohrab is the reincarnation of Hassan in Amir’s life, the last piece of him that he could find since 26 years ago when he sent him away. He repeats a lot of the things that Hassan did when he was younger and around the same age, the innocent boy that gets caught up in too many ies and deceptions that he doesn’t know what to do, and so he tries to commit suicide because he doesn’t want to be kept in another orphenage. He is the symbol that Hassan lives on in him and that a person is never really gone.
“One time, when I was very little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I’d just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn’t have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples.”
“And so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm, black tarmac and I brought Hassan’s son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty.”
“Sohrab, I can’t give you your old life back, I wish to God I could. But I can take you with me. That was what I was coming in the bathroom to tell you. You have a visa to go to America, to live with me and my wife. It’s true. I promise.”
- Provide a description of the persona of the following characters. Identify their role in the text and locate three quotes you could use to highlight who they are.
Assef
Assef is the source of the problem, the one who causes all the trouble and makes the situation that changes both boys’ lives for the worse. He is the turning point in the book, created turmoil in Amir’s life and stole what was left of Hassan’s innocence.
Assef lives for the power he extracts from bullying other kids in Kabul with his sidekicks and his brass knuckles. He’s the bully of the story.
“‘Friends?’ Assef said, laughing. ‘You pathetic fool! Someday you’ll wake up from your little fantasy and learn just how good of a friend he is. Now, bas! Enough of this. Give us that kite.’”
“Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this Flat Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our blood.”
“…Hitler. Now, there was a leader. A great leader. A man with vision…. if they had let Hitler finish what he had started, the world would be a better place now.”
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