New Amir over Time

Question: Are any of the characters a developing character ,changing over time ?Explain how the character changed in the story.  (what were they like before? What were they like after? Who or what changed them?) Was the change a large or a small change? Is the change believable for the character in his/her situation?

Amir was a devoloping character , changing over time.As a child Amir lived with his father and his servant Hassan in Wazir Akbar Khan the district of Kabul. Hassan was Amir’s best friend. As Amir and Hassan grow up Amir feels like his father doesn’t love him. Amir gets jealous of Hassan because he and Baba have more in common than him and Baba. Amir wins the kite contest and he gets more of what he wants and his father starts to accept him. When the contest was over Hassan went to look for the last losing kite. When Amir went to go look for Hassan, Amir witnessed Hassan get raped by Assef he decided to let the rape continue because he was scared of them. After watching his friend get raped he begins to get uncomfortable living with Hassan. I mean knowing that your friend was raped and you didn’t do anything about it who wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.

Amir says “Nothing was free in this world.Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.”(Hosseini pg 77)

This was cruel of Amir to say. Amir just thought of himself which is very wrong. As you can see he is just trying to make Baba like him more than Hassan. He could only think of his relationship with his father. When Amir arrives back home he gets what he wants and that was Baba’s attention. Amir gets very uncomfortable with the fact that he did not do anything about Hassan getting raped so therefore Amir gets cash and his watch to put under Hassan’s bed.

In the Kite Runner, written by, Khaled Hosseini it says,“ I took a couple of my envelopes of cash from a pile of gifts and my watch, and tiptoed out…I lifted Hassan’s mattress and planted my new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it.” (Hosseini pg 104)

This quote explains how Amir got really uncomfortable with Hassan and put cash and his watch under Hassan’s bed so that it could look that he stole it from him. So he had to leave. He then tells Baba that he misplaced the watch but Hassan admits to stealing the watch. After, Baba and Amir are forced to leave Kabul. On his way out of Kabul he says “Tell him I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place,” (Hosseini pg 116) He was saying this to a Russian soldier because he was trying rape a Afghani women. This made Amir feel further away from his father because he felt that he would never be able to stick up for people like his father does.

When Amir leaves to America he and his dad begin to get closer. Amir tries to forget what he did back in 1975. Overtime Baba and Amir are very close that he buys him a car and supports Amirs dreams and says “Amir is going to be a great writer….He has finished his first year of college and earned A’s in all of his courses.(pg139) Baba said this because he is very proud of Amir. All of these great things he says about him makes him feel good and makes him forget about his tragic past and meets his future wife. Amir gets married and his father passes away. A few weeks later he receives a call from his old friend Rahim Khan. Rahim Khan says “ Come.There is a way to be good again,”(pg 192) This reminded Amir about what happened to Hassan. So he told his wife and packed and left to Pakistan. Amir felt as if he could atone for the sins he had done previously. Amir arrived in Pakistan and went to Rahim that was when he gave Amir a letter from Hassan that explained how he was doing and how his life was going. Rahim told him the horrible news that had happen, that Hassan and his wife had been killed. They had a son together named Sohrab and he was put in an orphan.Rahim tells Amir to get Sohrab and put him in a new orphan that no longer existed so he tries to end up adopting him. Amir gets brutally beaten by Aseff the same guy who raped Hassan and was then treated in the hospital. Sohrab was living with that guy in the orphan and was getting raped and mistreated. Sohrab and Amir get very close but this changes when Amir breaks a promise he made to him. The promise was that he would never go to orphanage again, but in order for him to get adopted he had to go back to one. Amir told him that he had to go back and sohrab tried drowning himself. In the end Amir was a able to do a good deed and was able to take Sohrab back to America with him.

Amir changes throughout the whole story because at first he does this really bad thing and then at then end of the book he saves Hassan’s son and becomes this strong man.

I feel that Baba made him the man he was the day he got to take Sohrab to America. His father made a great impact on his life. He really pushed him to become a good man. I’m sure Amir felt good of himself and his dad would be proud.

wordcount:784

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead, 2003. Print.

 

 

 

Redemption & Betrayal

Question: What is the theme of your book?(How do you know) Does the theme reinforce or go against what people think? (Would most people agree or disagree with this theme?) Explain.

I think the theme of the this novel is betrayal and redemption which can be described as a form of sin. Betrayal it happens quite a few times in this novel. For most of the novel Amir tries to live with the guilt by trying to avoid that he seen his friend get raped and did nothing to save him although Hassan always stood up for him before. Trying to avoid this clearly doesn’t do anything to redeeming himself and his guilt endures. Which is why he still cringes when Hassan’s name is brought up. Amir then gets worse and drives Ali and Hassan out of the house because he gets his money and his watch so he could put it under Hassan’s bed. He made it look as if Hassan had stole it. amir was always jealous of Hassan. Amir found out about Baba’s betrayal with Ali. Baba had betrayed Ali by fathering a child (Hassan) with Ali’s wife Sanaubar. Then Amir realizes that everything he thought he knew and understood about his father was all a lie. So then Amir feels betrayed as well because his father would always tell him that he shouldn’t lie nor steal and just everything he shouldn’t do. So Amir felt betrayed. These two betrayals lead in the two men’s lives and create tension and guilt between all them throughout the novel.
There betrayals also lead to quests for redemption that bring some good to Amir. The quest for redemption made up much of the novel’s plot. It spreads a theme to include both personal and political. Amir’s whole childhood was to redeem himself to Baba for supposedly killing his mother during birth.
In the novel The Kite Runner it says “Because the truth of it was, 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.”(Hosseini pg 9)
Amir feels that Baba hate him for “killing” his wife but really it’s not his fault. Also, for growing up a disappointing son who was not like Baba at all. After, Hassan was raped Amir then spent the rest of his life trying to redeem himself for the betrayal of his loyal friend Hassan. This then culminates, reached the climax to Amir returning to Afghanistan and trying to find Hassan’s son Sohrab. Amir is able to find a redemption in his bloody with Assef the guy who raped Hassan and his son and with the  adoption of Sohrab. I think people would agree with the theme Redemption and betrayal because really betrayal was all it was throughout the whole book. It was straightforward.

 

wordcount;381

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead, 2003. Print.

Social issues in Afghanistan

Question: Does the book address broader social issues? (e.g., inequality, racism, abortion, hunger, etc.) what stance does the author take on this issue? How do you know? Do you agree with the author?

In this novel there are several social issues that has been portrayed. For example, in this novel the issues that are portrayed are women rights, Hazaras and Pashtuns relationships and the freedom rights of Afghanistan. This is the same as human rights. We are all the same species and live on the same planet however we don’t always treat each other fairly. The book the Kite Runner ,written by Khaled Hosseini, said that

“The woman’s knees buckled under her and she slumped to the ground. The soldiers pulled her up and she slumped again. When they tried to lift her again, she screamed and kicked. I will never, as long as I draw breath, forget the sound of that scream” (page 282).

“Karmi cleared his throat…said the soldier wanted a half hour with the lady in the back.”(121)

Woman suffer from abuse, isolation,rape etc. This is a big issue in the novel The Kite Runner. In both of the quotes above it shows how the soldiers in Kabul mistreated women. Although it was just one women in this particular part of the novel it still shows how women were only used for sexual relations. Soldiers didn’t care about anyone but themselves when they took over Kabul.

Another social issue was the Hazaras and the Pashtuns. The dominant minority of the Afghanistan people referred as the “true” Afghans are the Pashtuns. As for the underprivileged minority they are referred as the Hazaras. In the novel The Kite Runner Amir was a Pashtuns as well as his father however Amir had a Hazara that was his brother but Amir never knew. Hazaras were servants and had many duties to do. Many Hazaras were poor and also mistreated. While Pashtuns were wealthier and had good jobs.

“We crossed the border and the signs of poverty were everywhere. On either side of the road, I saw chains of little villages sprouting here and there, like discarded toys among the rocks, broken mud houses and huts consisting of little more than four wooden poles and a tattered cloth as a roof. I saw children dressed in rags chasing a soccer ball outside the huts. A few miles later, I spotted a cluster of men sitting on their haunches, like a row of crows, on the carcass of an old burned-out Soviet tank, the wind fluttering the edges of the blankets thrown around them. Behind them, a woman in a brown burqa carried a large clay pot on her shoulder, down a rutted path toward a string of mud houses” ( Hosseini pg 231-232).

Lastly, another social issue was the freedom rights of Afghanistan people. When the Talibans took over Kabul everyone’s world turned upside down. When Amir and Baba left Kabul it was a beautiful place. After Baba past away Amir went back to rescue Sohrab, Hassan’s son and he didn’t recognize his hometown. The quote above explains how everything was destroyed when the Talibans took over. The Taliban’s stayed and mistreated everyone there, They would rape little kids and beat people up. In this novel there was many social issues that till this day still go on.

wordcount:321

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead, 2003. Print.

 

Afghanistan vs the Russians & Taliban

 

Question:What is a “conflict” in literature? What is the main conflict in your book?How does the ending resolve(or not resolve) the main conflict? Is the ending happy, unhappy, or intermediate?

In the book The Kite Runner there was two main conflicts one being the struggle Afghanistan faced against both the Russian and the Talibans and the other one being between Amir and Hassan back to when they were children. In the beginning of the book the Russians have invaded Afghanistan which caused many people to flee to to Pakistan to be safe. Later in the novel the Taliban took control of Afghanistan , destroying the country and threatening the lives of people. This conflict was never resolved in this novel.The conflict between Amir and Hassan lasted throughout the whole novel. It all started when they were children. Amir had just won the competition of the Kites. Amir goes off looking for Hassan and asks some neighbors if they know where he went and they say that they saw the boy going South. Amir runs off and finds him.Hassan was in the middle of three boys. Amir stays behind a building so the three boys won’t be able to see him.  In the book the Kite Runner, the author, Khaled Hossesin:

“Assef knelt behind Hassan, put his hands on Hassan’s hips and lifted his bare buttocks.He kept one hand on Hassan’s back and undid his own belt buckle with his free hand. He unzipped his jeans. Dropped his underwear. He positioned himself behind Hassan.

“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 was afraid of getting hurt.That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan.” (Hosseini pg 77)

In these two quotes it show how there the theme of rape is introduced.It is a image of a the rich Pashtun boy raping the poor Hazara which is how the conflict between Amir and Hassan happened. Although, Hassan did not know that Amir saw what happened. Amir lived with the guilt his whole life. After this happened they became distant from each other. This was a symbolic of Amir’s cowardness and unwillingness to stand up for what is right.

At the end of the book the main conflict is resolved when Amir and his father leave t0 America. Later, on Amir father passes away.After many years Amir still feels guilty about Amir gets a call from Rahim Khan who was a close friend of Baba’s/Amir’s father. Rahim khan tells Amir that there is a way he can be “good” again so he left to Kabul. When Amir arrived he found out that Hassan had died and he could only be good again if he rescued Hassan’s son.Who would’ve thought Amir would ever do this. He went to rescue Hassan’s son which is how this conflict was resolved and brought him back to America with him where he lived a happily ever after.

Wordcount: 371

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead, 2003. Print.

Themes of the Book

Does the theme give you a new insight or deepen what you already know?

The theme of the book seems to be appreciating what you have every moment you can because at a blink of an eye everything/ everyone you love can be gone. The theme gives me a new way to think about the book because it adds to the meaning of the book. Not only is the main character ( Mia) stuck between deciding to live or die, but in my eyes she is also forced to feel guilt about the moments she took for granted with her loved ones. Her family is now all dead, If she lives, she has to live with going on with her life without every seeing her family. Throughout the book her soul is roaming around witnessing the pain the accident has caused her family, friends and Adam. She is basically thinking about the same thing over and over again as she roams, If I stay…How will I ever get over my parents death, If I stay I will get to find out if I made it into Julliard etc. I think the title makes the theme/conflict of the story more clear. Another theme in the book is Love and how Adam stays with along the side of Mia as she tries to make the most difficult decision of er life. Adam is there and goes out of his way to be with his girl. This theme does give a new insight because you towards the from what I understood Mia stays because of Adam. True love.

Main Characters

Are the characters consistent in their actions? Realistic? Adequately motivated?

Till now the majority of characters have been very consistent in their action in the book. Adam Mia’s boyfriend and Kim Mia’s best friend are the only ones that have got a little inpatient with the Mia’s accident. Adam and Kim have truly became friends and have gone about their way to get Adam into the ICU to see Mia. I believe that if Mia was not dieing Adam and Kim would not have come together and became friends like Mia wanted them too. Unfortunately people do not take advantage of the moments they have with their friends and family until something goes wrong. To me it was sad that what motivated Adam and Kim to truly become friends was Mia’s accident. Besides Adam, Mia’s grandparents and Kim the rest of the characters stay realistic although Mia was the only one left pf her family. The grandma and grandpa reacted like if they were family friends, they did show some emotions, but they don’t go crazy like Adam and Kim. It was not enough for me, they were to calm. I feel like the family of Mia did not stay realistic with their actions, I would have been all over the place if my son, daughter in law, and grandson had died. I think adding a little more emotion would have been more realistic. Props to Adam and Kim for playing their role. they nailed it, went out of their way just to get in the ICU to let Mia know that she still had them and that she wasn’t alone.

Significant of the Book

What is the significance of the title of your book?  What does the title mean?  Does it mean more than one thing?  In what ways do you understand your book better because of the title?

The title of the book I am reading this quarter is called If I stay by Gayle Forman. The title of the book represents the biggest conflict that occurs in the book. After being in a car crash with her family, on their way to visit friends a truck hits their car. Mia’s parents die on the spot, her brother teddy is nowhere to be found and Mia is rushed to the hospital and is taken into the ICU.  Mia has to decide if she she stays on earth or if she goes to heaven with her mother and father. The doctors do all they can but its Mia’s decision if she stays or goes. Mia’s spirit is out wondering around witnessing the sadness her condition brings to her family, friends, and her boyfriend Adam. Does she stay and wake up to being fatherless and motherless or does she go and leave her loved ones behind. Mia is trying to stay but she can’t wake up. She has tried taping her heels, but it doesn’t work/ Why can’t she wake up? Whats holding her back from living? Could it be the thought of not having her parents with her? Perhaps. In my opinion the title fits the story of the book and it gives a better understanding about the the obstacles that the main character has to go through. If she stays she will have no parents, is she stays who will she live with, if she stays what will kids at school say. But most importantly if she stays will she still have Teddy. The title is very helpful to understanding the book but I don’t like that it gives it away almost completely, perhaps “Live for Love” would have been a better title for the book.

Physically&Emotionally

The main conflict of the story is that Dave is getting abused by his mother.The protagonist of the story which is Dave highly wishes for a better life,food,and a non abusing mother.In this story it never really said what the reason was for his mothers abusing. Dave’s mother is keeping him from getting food and from having a regular life like his other siblings.

This conflict is physical and emotional.She has been physically abusing him for years without a reason.She has made him sit in the bathroom with a bucket of clorox and has locked the door.He couldn’t breath and his lungs were hurting.She has also filled the bath tub with water and has shoved his head in the water trying to drown him.

It is physical because Dave’s mother physically abuses him.She hits him and has but him in the oven to burn him.The conflict is also emotional because its was sad imagining a first grader getting hit badly by his own mother.It is also emotional because his father has always seen him suffer and for Dave his father has always been his only hope. This really breaks Dave’s heart.Overall, the main conflict was about a kid who’s daily life revolved around abusing.

Sad Ending

Is the ending happy, unhappy, or indeterminate (just ends, leaves you hanging, the conflict is not clearly resolved). Is the ending the appropriate ending for this book?

The ending of the book was sad in many ways.Dave was still a kid that would have to live with his abusive mom.In the end of the book Dave’s mom dropped off his father at a motel and the kids were there.Dave knew this was the end he no longer had hope because he knew that’s his father was leaving and their was no way he would ever escape from his cruel mother.His father and mother were separating and that destroyed him.Dave knew that meant more beating,more name callings,and more terrifying games.

At the end of the story when his father has been dropped off Dave says”I knew she was going to kill me,if not today ,tomorrow”(153)This shows that the ending was sad because Dave had no hope left he knew he his life was gone now that his father wasn’t there anymore to protect him from his mother.That broke him into pieces which made the ending of the story sad.I think that the conflict was not resolved.The conflict wasn’t resolved because at the end of the day Dave’s parents still separate and Dave still gets abused and mistreated.The only thing that he could do was pray for everything to get better.

The Changes of Stephen Joseph

 

Question;Choose a character who is not the protagonist. How does he/she change or affect the course of action (plot) of the novel?

 

Stephen Joseph, which is David’s father is a character who changed throughout the book.David’s father was always good to him.He loved him very much as much as he did with his other sons.Throughout the book David’s dad was always the nice one.Everyone else was so harsh and cruel especially his mother.David realized as a child that when his father was home it meant “no beating,mirror treatments, or long searches for her missing things.Father became my protector”(32).child that when his father was home it meant David’s father would protect him from his mother.When he was home there was no way his mom can beat him.He would secretly give his son food when Catherine wasn’t looking.

But everything changed over time.David’s father no longer was in a hurry to get home after the knife incident happened.David says “After the knife incident,father spent less and less time at home and more at work.He made excuses to the family,but i didn’t believe him”(101).After his mom had stabbed David he no longer wanted to be home.He eventually was moving out of the house.His father had now changed.He knew that he wouldn’t get help from his father anymore.Now that his father was moving out he had no hope of being rescued.His father was tired of it and didn’t want to see him suffer anymore. Dave’s father was his only hope but then realized that his hopes were just a fantasy that would never come true. Dave’s father changed in many ways that effected David.He went from loving and trying to help him get through his mom’s rage to no longer wanting to be at home.He no longer cared what Dave went through so he moved out.