Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, is essentially about the love, or lack thereof, between men. The love between the protagonist, Amir, and his illegitimate brother, Hassan, is evident but is stained by an unfortunate turn of events. The pomegranate tree is symbolically rooted in Amir and Hassan’s relationship, representing and analogously describing the status of their relationship throughout the novel. The pomegranate tree is a symbol of Amir and Hassan’s relationship both symbolically and literally. It formally becomes part of the relationship when Amir carves their titles, "Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul” (Hosseini 24). The pomegranate tree both marks and becomes marked by the beginning of Amir and Hassan’s relationship. But the mark bears a false title for Hassan. It is really Amir who is the king and Hassan who is the servant. Amir repeatedly takes advantage of Hassan and constantly makes him a fool. This eventually becomes problematic to Amir when Hassan stays ever so obedient to his master. Hassan is evidently Amir's foil. His qualities of honesty, courageousness and loyalty are juxtaposed to Amir’s deceit, cowardice, and treachery. Because Hassan is raped at Amir’s expense, Hassan becomes a daily reminder to Amir’s about his weaknesses. Amir subjectively looks at the tree with bias against it: “The …show more content…
In order to redeem their relationship, he travels far to find and save Sohrab. When Amir finds the tree he savored “the tangy taste of pomegranate” (Hosseini 230). Hosseini depicts that the fruit of their relationship many years later is now strong and piquant. With new revelation on familial affairs, the relationship to Amir has taken on a new sentiment. It’s something that cannot be buried. Amir finally returns his loyalty to Hassan by securing his son’s safety. By completing this task, the challenges he needed to hurdle removed Amir’s imprisoning qualities and redeems multiple