Themes

Through out the book, The Kite Runner, there have been many themes and meanings covered. This includes friendships, father-son relationships, and the power of man over a location.

One of the main parts of the story is the friendship between Amir and Hassan. The book shows a lot of their friendship when they were young boys. At that young age, the two boys were extremely close, but the complication between the two classes created Amir to become hesitant with being seen playing with Hassan in public, since he was a lower class. This represents how people are able to become friends with someone who is totally different from them and really connect, but there are a lot of others complications to worry about on the side. As time goes on, Hassan and his father, Ali, end up moving away and not working for Baba anymore because the environment was becoming too difficult for Hassan. Then, Baba and Amir end up moving to America, because the environment of Kabul had become dangerous to live in, and they had the money to escape. The two boy spent years apart and created lives for themselves. "I wish you could see Sohrab. He is a good boy. Rahim Kahn and I have taught him to read and write so he does not grow up stupid like his father." (Page 216) This proves that distance is able to disintegrate friendships because not seeing each other causes it to be easier to ignore one another. This book also proves that even after not seeing each other for many years, Amir is still willing to care for Hassan's son after Hassan gets shot in the head and dies. He was willing to go all the way to Kabul, where he could easily die, to save his childhood best friend's son. This shows that friendship is able to last forever, even if they were never reunited over so many years.

Another theme in the story is father-son relationships. This is shown in the book through Amir and Baba. Throughout Amir's childhood, Amir was always striving to gain Baba's appreciation and acceptance. Baba was a tough man who was very different from Amir, which caused difficulty for Baba to relate to his son. As time went on and Amir and Baba grew older, their relationship became stronger; he helped Amir with girls and supported him through his wedding. "'Thank you Baba. Are you all right? Do you feel up for this?' 'Up for this? It's the happiest day of my life, Amir,' he said smiling tiredly." (Page 167)  He also became supportive of Amir's passion for writing. "..I said, though as soon as I picked up the leather-bound book, I knew. I traced my fingers along the gold-stitched borders. I remembered the fireworks the night Rahim Khan had given it to me, the night of my thirteenth birthday, flares sizzling and exploding into bouquets of red, green, and yellow. 'I can't believe you can write like this,' Soraya said. Baba dragged his head off the pillow. 'I put her up to it. I hope you don't mind.'" (Page 172) I believe the reason for this new strength in their relationship was because of how Baba was sick and close to death. Knowing that he did not have much longer, Baba began to patch up their relationship and began to try to understand and relate to his son.

Finally, this book also demonstrates the theme of the power of man over a location. The author shows this theme by including the current events that were happening in the world during the time period of the story. The author writes about how the Talibs were taking over Kabul and other surrounding territories. There was violence, chaos, and starvation everywhere. "Alas the Afghanistan of our young youth is dead. Kindness is gone from the land and you cannot escape the killings. In Kabul, fear is everywhere, in the streets, in the stadium, in the markets, it is a part of our lives here Amir Agha. The savages who rule out watan don't care about human democracy." (Page 216) By having this event be in the book, it represents that in the short time of around twenty years, a country can go from a peaceful homeland to a terrifying, unsafe, war zone, that is all caused by humans.

The theme of friendship in The Kite Runner also shares similar characteristics of  friendship with The Handmaid's Tale. In The Handmaid's Tale, friendship is shown between Offred and Moira. They were friends when they were young girls being trained to become a handmaid, but then were separated after the training and had not seen each other for a long period of time. During this time of separation they lived completely different lives, Offred being a handmaid to a commander, and Moira being a Jezebel. Then, after time goes on, they end up reuniting with one another, but Moira is not the same person she used to be. Now she is a person with no hope and has given up on trying to fight the system. This plot relates to The Kite Runner because Amir and Hassan were great friends when they were young boy, they end up moving away from each other and creating separate lives for themselves, and then they reunite through a letter written by Hassan. The only difference is that Moira changed her personality by not having any hope, and Hassan changed in the story because he ends up being killed.