What’s so Important About Those Kites?

Coi Williams
Karen Amano-Tompkins
English 1A
May 7, 2013
What’s So Important About Those Kites? Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, a tale of a boy’s quest for love and a man’s journey for redemption and happiness, is a complex novel that overflows with symbolism. Hosseini shows many symbols throughout the novel that are very strong. These symbols correspond with the story’s depth, context, as well as its themes. All of these various symbols throughout the novel play a part in how the story unfolds and of the development of the characters and plot. However, the strongest and most universal symbol throughout the entire novel is the kite. Kites are the central symbol in the novel because everything in the story, from the differences in classes to the relationships between characters, can be related back to them both directly and indirectly. Just by simply analyzing the title alone, one can conclude that kites play a major role in the novel on many levels. Beyond the obvious, referring to the title and the plot, kites have a deeper symbolism. Many of the ideas and themes throughout the novel can be described, in one way or another, by kites. This is true because in the novel, kites are not only functional entities, but symbolic as well. Kites, as well as kite fighting and kite running, have multiple layers of symbolism and importance in the novel.
In the novel, kites are the one thing that the main character, Amir, keeps going back to. For Amir, kites stopped being a child’s toy during his childhood in Kabul. To Amir, kites represent so much more for him. They represent the relationship that he has, or tries to have, with his father Baba. They represent the chance to finally have his father’s love and attention, but more importantly his father’s acceptance. Kites represent the relationship with his Hazara servant and half brother, Hassan. Though the relationships are important to Amir, the kites in his life don’t stop there. They go on to represent his betrayal of Hassan, the guilt that comes with his betrayal, the happiness he feels while flying the kites, and the redemption he longs for. The kite represents the piece of his life that he tries to and wishes he could control. It’s not until the “kite” spins out of control that he could really redeem himself for what he did.
In regards to relationships in the novel, Amir and Hassan’s is complicated to say the least. To this affect, one can say that their relationship is very one-sided; hence the completely different views of their relationship. Hassan’s take on their relationship is “Amir Agha and I are friends,” (Hosseini 72). But, Amir doesn’t feel the same way about Hassan. “But he’s not my friend! I almost blurted. He’s my servant,” (Hosseini 41). Even though their views on their relationship were different, they did have one very important thing in common…kites. Flying kites was what brought the boys together and as well as what tore them apart. For that little bit of time while they fought and ran kites, they weren’t servant and master. They were a team and their love for kites was mutual. It allowed them momentary escape from their differences and be able to enjoy just a moment of freedom and excitement. This is just the positive symbolism of the kites to their realtionship. There is a much deeper as well as a much darker meaning of kites for these two boys.
One of the negatives, as I mentioned before, is that kites represent their difference in classes. Amir is naturally above Hassan due to his heritage of being Pashtun as well as his wealth and standinf in society. This is translated through the kites in the act of the fighting of the kites. “Every kite fighter had an assistant--in my case, Hassan—who held the spool and fed the line,” (Hosseini 51). All Hassan is really good for is assisting Amir in anyway that he can because Hassan is afterall Amir’s loyal servant. Though Hassan may share the same love for kites and kite fighting that Amir does, he will never actually be in control of the kite. He will never share the same victories with Amir. All of his joy in winning is being experienced vicariously through Amir, along with his experiences of wealth and privilege. Another negative meaning of the kites for Amir and Hassan is seen after Hassan runs his last kite and saying the words that end up haunting Amir for years to come. “For you a thousand times,” (Hossieni 67). The kite takes on a much deeper significance to Amir after he watches Hassan get raped by Assef for his shiny blue kite.
The kite now represent several more things for Amir. One of these things being his betrayal and cowardice. The other is guilt, but beyond that is his father’s acceptance because to him, Hassan running the kite for him successfully was a small price to pay for his father’s love and acceptance. “…Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba,” (Hosseini 77). In the end, only thing he really got out from allowing that to happen to Hassan was guilt and a small period of acceptance from Baba because that ended up being short lived.
Amir’s realtionship with Baba, much like his relationship with Hassan, wasn’t black and white. They too only really had kites in common because Amir was nothing like his father. Amir was a coward and ran from trouble and respinsiblility whereas Baba took on the world head on and chest out and with no fear. Strangely enough, Amir knew this about himself and his father. “With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little,” (Hosseini 15). Amir felt as though Baba didn’t love or accept him. "If I hadn't seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I'd never believe he's my son," (Hosseini 23). So when the kite fighting tournament came around to Kabul in 1975, Amir had to jump on the opportunity to indulge in the only thing that they had in common. “…the chill between Baba and me thawed a little. And the reason for that was the kites. Baba and I lived in the same huse, but in different spheres of existence. Kites were the one paper-thin slice of intersection between those spheres” (Hosseini 49). Amir truly believed that if he got the kite back from Hassan after he won the tournament that Baba would finally accept him. “Then I saw Baba on our roof. He was standingf on the edge, pumping both his fists. Hollering and clapping. And that right there was the single greatest moment of my tweleve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud at last,” (Hosseini 66).
Beyond just kites in general, the other symbols in the novel, The Kite Runner are kite fighting and kite running. Both of these represent different factions of the novel in their own way. Kite fighting for example, represent the fights, both internal and external in the novel. Amir says that “ kite fighting was a little like going to war…As with any war, you had to ready yourself for battle…if the kite was the gun, then tar, the glass-coated cutting line, was the bullet in the chamber,” (Hosseini 50). The kite fighting represents the violence that took place in the novel. Kite fighting is a violent game by nature. The children of Kabul gladly play this game, cutting their fingers deeply in the process, all for the satisfaction of cutting down another kid’s kite. This can be interpreted as kite fighting is really only about winning the fight. If Amir hadn’t won the kite fight, Hassan would have never have had to run the kite for him and he would have never gotten raped, and therefore Amir and Hassan’s friendship would have survived unscathed. Again it all goes back to the kites.
Unlike kite fighting, kite running has a much more “positive” connotation that comes with it. Kite running represents loyalty and innocence. The title The Kite Runner refers to Hassan. Hassan is Amir’s loyal servant and would do anything that Amir asks him to do. “Would I ever lie to you Amir agha?... I’d sooner eat dirt,” (Hosseini 54). Hassan also sacrificed himself many times in the novel for Amir’s sake, from getting in trouble over mirror pranks to being raped for a kite that Amir had won in the tournament, Hassan loyalty never faltered. This was why Amir felt so guilty for allowing the rape to happen. Hassan was really a friend to him and not a servant. Running a kite is also symbolic of innocence. In the beginning of the novel, Hassan was a character of innocence. He gained this innocence from serving Amir. Him running the kites represents his state of servitude. Ironically, at the end of the novel, the tables have turned and it is Amir who must serve Sohrab, Hassan’s son, by running a kite for him. He even used Hassan’s loyal words “For you a thousand times over,” (Hosseini 371). By this point in the novel, Amir has finally reached that state of purity and innocence that had had spent all those years searching for after he allowed Hassan to be raped. He had finally been redeemed and cleansed of his guilt thanks to a kite. All the symbolism of the kite presented in “The Kite Runner” deals with the friendship of Amir and Hassan, the relationship between Amir and his father, as well as Amir’s journey to redemption.