The Kite Runner Symbolism Analysis

Dreams can often be symbolic of a person’s situation in real life. However, rather than this being true in The Kite Runner, Hosseini uses irony to flip the situation and make Hassan’s life quite the opposite of his dream. Hassan’s dream is set in Ghargha Lake, and Amir is seen to be the brave and courageous young boy who jumps into the lake to prove there is no monster. The created setting is one of great celebration as tons of people witness Amir’s bravery. Hosseini creates this setting to intensify the following scene, in which Amir turns out to be a coward, not saving his lifelong companion Hassan and therefore it is not probable of him to jump into a lake with a rumored monster dwelling at the bottom. However, Hassan’s dream of people cheering

Whilst Amir is looking for Hassan, he states that to his right were ‘rows of snow-burdened cypress trees.’ Cypress trees being present near Amir serve as a warning to him. This is because cypress trees are symbolic of mourning and are seen as a ‘graveyard tree,’ as that is a common tree found in cemeteries. This suggests the trees were present to foreshadow the death of Hassan and Amir’s friendship after Amir finds Hassan, and furthermore the death of Hassan’s purity. Cypress trees cannot regrow if they have been cut too deeply, and that essentially is what happens between Hassan and Amir- Hassan was cut too deep because of what happened to him, and even though after many years he still wanted to be Amir’s friend, Amir was cut too deep by his guilt and by the time he was even able to grow and develop as a person, it was too late to rebuild their friendship because Hassan was dead. Moreover, because the trees represent mourning, this foreshadows what will happen to both Hassan and Amir; how Hassan will have to mourn the house he grew up in because he has to leave, and how Amir has to mourn his old life before he witnessed such a thing happening and changing as a person. As well as that, because the cypress trees are ‘snow-burdened,’ Hosseini does this is to emphasize the extent of which the characters are burdened with the situation, so the snow essentially serves to show that although the cypress trees already represent mourning, it is amplified. Because the cypress trees are ‘peppered among flat-topped clay houses,’ this depicts the fact that because it is most likely the Hazaras living in these houses, the cypress trees are there because the Hazaras need to mourn the fact that they are living in poverty and treated with inequality despite both Hazaras and Pashtuns