Through this logic, Amir has made himself responsible for their deaths. He realizes he cannot save them, but a piece of Hassan lives on in Sohrab. By rescuing Sohrab, Amir will figuratively rescue Hassan as well. While Amir was in the United States attending school, countless Afghans were fighting to free their country from the Soviets. Thousands of Afghan men died, leaving children behind. After these wars, landmines that had been planted to kill the enemy were never cleared.
Farid knows all these facts firsthand. He lost his father to the fighting when he was sixteen, then later lost two daughters as well as some fingers and toes to a landmine blast.
Though Amir left behind his wealthy life when he and Baba left Afghanistan, he still never had to endure the tragedies that the average Afghan faced during the s and 90s. Farid recognizes that Amir did not suffer the way many Afghans did. Amir escaped when Farid and most others could not, making Farid resent Amir at first.
While rich Afghans had the money to leave, an expensive endeavor that required paying drivers to smuggle them out or buying plane tickets, most Afghans did not. Even before the wars destroyed Afghanistan, life was different for the rich. Knowing that Amir grew up rich, Farid says Amir was always a tourist in Afghanistan. As a boy, Amir lived in a large house with servants. Most Afghans, by contrast, have very little. When Farid points to the old man walking with a sack filled with scrub grass on his back and calls him the real Afghanistan, he is right to a large degree, and Amir knows it.
He realizes they gave him their food out of courtesy, but it meant that they and their children had nothing to eat. In an act recalling the way he framed Hassan years earlier, he stuffs money under the mattress before he leaves, only this time he does it to make amends. Ace your assignments with our guide to The Kite Runner! Jekyll and Mr. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. What happened to Hassan in the alley?
There are few real signs of life left, made clear by the fact that not even trees remain, rendering the landscape oddly desolate. When Amir finds the pomegranate tree where he and Hassan used to play, he discovers it no longer bears fruit.
The barren tree serves as a powerful symbol that the Kabul Amir knew is dead, at least figuratively if not yet literally. The city appears even stranger and more sad by the many reminders that this is, in fact, the place where Amir grew up. As Amir describes his homecoming, it is like bumping into an old friend who you learn has become destitute.
Amir also has his first encounter with the Taliban, the group of Islamic radicals that now control Afghanistan. His meaning is double: the term describes the Taliban men, who are all bearded, but it also describes what they are doing, which among other things is to literally make sure that all men have beards.
According to the Taliban, a man who shaves his beard is committing a sin, and they make it their job to punish any person caught sinning. Shaving was one of many illegal acts under the Taliban, which is why Amir bought a fake beard before entering the country. The Taliban also prohibited women from working, which the director of the orphanage, Zaman, says is part of the reason there were so many children there. When Afghan men died during the wars, their wives were left to care for their children.
But since the women could not work, they had no way to feed the kids. Rather than watch them starve, they would leave them with orphanages. The public stoning that Farid and Amir witness at the stadium is another example of Taliban law. The Taliban claim to enforce Sharia, the law that all Muslims are supposed to follow. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and non-religious matters, Sharia governs everything from business ethics to criminal justice, which is why a cleric rather than a judge or some other secular official comes out to speak to the crowd before the stoning begins.
Many Muslims, however, believe the Taliban used Sharia as a way to oppress women and justify their violent behavior. The book raises this viewpoint as the crowd prepares to watch the stoning. In fact, most of the Muslims Amir speaks with, including Zaman and Rahim Khan, deplore the society the Taliban has created, underscoring the point that the Islamic state the Taliban established is not supported with all Muslims.
The book hints at the corruption of the Taliban by having a Taliban official taking girls and boys from the orphanage. We do not know at this point why the official is taking the children, but the unspoken implication is that the official is sexually abusing them.
Whatever the case, the official is clearly misusing his position of power. As Zaman, the orphanage director, tells Farid after Farid strangles him, he has not been paid in six months and has already spent his life savings on the orphanage.
Furthermore, if he protests, the official takes ten children instead of one. Again, it is a case of the powerful in Afghanistan taking advantage of the powerless. Ace your assignments with our guide to The Kite Runner! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Then Sohrab admits that he is beginning to forget his father's face. Amir gives Sohrab the Polaroid photo of Hassan. Sohrab then asks Amir if he thinks God will put him in hell for hurting the bad man.
Sohrab is concerned about disappointing his father. He then says that he is full of sin because of what the Taliban men did to him. Amir asks Sohrab whether he wants to go to America with him. And a week passes before the topic is mentioned again. While talking, Amir admits to Sohrab that he and Hassan were half-brothers.
He acknowledges that Hassan's being Hazara was the reason for the distance between the two. Sohrab admits to being scared about the uncertainty of their future together: What if Amir's wife doesn't like him?
What if they tire of him? In response to his concerns about going to an orphanage, Amir promises him that we will never need to go to an orphanage again. Sohrab nods in agreement after Amir implores him to "Come home with me. Amir finally calls home, after having been away for almost a month, and he tells Soraya everything that has occurred, not only during this return visit to Afghanistan, but also during his entire life.
Amir encounters red tape at the American embassy, finding out that adopting Sohrab will not be as easy as he initially anticipated.
Raymond Andrews is the agent who tells Amir, "It's a dangerous business, making promises to kids. Although Amir is initially annoyed with Mr.
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