Amir's Journey Toward Identity In The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

Carson Lucia Mrs. Cipriano English 1 HH 03 March 2024 Amir’s Journey Towards Identity in The Kite Runner The Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini that takes readers on a journey of a lifetime from the rugged lands of Afghanistan all the way to America, with events starting in 1974 all the way through 2001, and he does it all through the perspective of one person, Amir Qadiri. Readers get to see how one traumatic childhood event can unfold into chaos, affecting more people than anyone could truly imagine. One major recurring theme in The Kite Runner is Amir’s journey to find his true identity, which has mostly been shaped by past childhood experiences, values instilled by Baba, and personal choices. The first quote that really had an impact on the book

Hoseini writes, “I don’t know at what point I started laughing, but I did” (Hosseini 289). This quote is extremely powerful for numerous reasons, the main one being that it kind of completes Amir’s journey in a sense. Throughout the entire book, readers see that Amir is never able to escape the mistake he made as a child. He has lived with the weight of his actions on his shoulders for years and years. Nothing he ever did could ever make up for his actions (or lack thereof), and he was living a nightmare. However, in this brief moment when he was getting the life physically beat out of him, he was finally at peace. No matter how brutal or close to death he was, this was the first time he was mentally alive since early 1975. In some sense, and in his own mind, Amir had finally made up for his actions, and Hosseini leaves it up to the reader if he started laughing because it was ironic that he was finally free at last, yet so close to death at the same time. The second quote falls in the final chapter of the book, chapter 25, and goes as follows, “For you, a thousand times over” (Hosseini