theme of kite runner essay

The Kite Runner

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Betrayal and Irony

A strong streak of betrayal runs throughout The Kite Runner . Because Hassan is presented as a profoundly good person, it is unexpected that he will be hurt—much less killed—before Amir can make amends. This subversion of expectations by way of betrayal is foreshadowed early on, when Rahim Khan tells Amir in a letter that good stories have irony . This letter comes after Amir has written his first short story, the tale of a man who kills his wife to draw pearls from his tears. The irony at work in Amir’s short story is the same irony at work in his real-world betrayal of Hassan, which correlates directly to Baba’s own secret betrayal of Ali a decade earlier. 

In The Kite Runner , irony is used to imply fate at work or predeterminism—

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The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

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The Kite Runner Essays

Amir’s quest for salvation in the kite runner anonymous, the kite runner.

“There is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 2). Rahim Khan’s first words to Amir in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner set in motion Amir’s attempt to mend his scarred past. A mentally tormented man until Khan’s call, he has repressed memories from...

A Journey for Redemption in The Kite Runner Justin Caleb Walters College

In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, several major themes arise. One of the most dominant themes is the idea of redemption for past wrongdoings. The protagonist, an Afghani-American named Amir, relays the story of his childhood; through this, one...

Redemption in Kahled Hosseini's The Kite Runner Kayleigh Parham 12th Grade

From the wealthiest neighborhood in Kabul to the poverty of San Francisco, Khaled Hosseini creates a story of redemption which transcends cultures and time in The Kite Runner. Hosseini uses the dynamics of father-son relationships to express a...

Assef: Why Is He the Way He Is? Anonymous 12th Grade

In the novel The Kite Runner , author Khaled Hosseini focuses on many critical parts of life. The main character, Amir, struggles to find redemption throughout the story, and finally finds it when he rescues Sohrab, his half-brother Hassan’s son,...

Emotional Intertextuality Between Death of a Salesman and The Kite Runner Haley Paige Parson 12th Grade

There are numerous similarities between Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. However, most of the similarities readers identify are only surface deep, and essentially superficial. Sure, readers know that both...

"So It Went!" Malena Marcase 12th Grade

We see playful children - giggling, laughing, not a care in the world - and envy their innocence. Their spirits have not yet been hardened and jaded by the world around them. Our lives are made up of a series of moments, big and small, that...

Which Character Is Most Responsible for Determining the Character of Amir? Kolby Hamilton 12th Grade

An individual's personality is quite often determined by the actions and remarks of another person. One can become timid because another person has caused one hurt or worry. One can become brave because another person has made one fight for...

Literacy in The Kite Runner Anonymous 10th Grade

774 million adults around the world are illiterate. In many places, people are not provided the opportunity to get education. In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Amir is lucky enough to learn how to read and write, while many people in his...

Th Kite Runner vs. Where There's a Wall: Comparative Essay on Character and Symbolism Anonymous 11th Grade

One thing that perhaps all humans can agree on, based on their own experiences of life, is that obstacles cannot be avoided. They can be ignored, they can even be dodged sometimes, but at the end of the day, they cannot be avoided. In the novel ...

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Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner depicts the lives of two Afghan boys who grow up in the turmoil of invasion, heartbreak and war. Amir, the protagonist and narrator of the story, is Pashtun and Hassan, a Hazara boy, is Amir’s servant with a cleft...

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As psychologist Rollo May once said: “The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.” Throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the reader is exposed to the dueling themes of conformity versus nonconformity,...

The Balance of Dying: Complex Approaches to Mortality in The Kite Runner Anonymous 12th Grade

There is a considerable difference between being dead, and dying. Everyone is dying, some people die for ninety years, others for three. Death cannot be escaped. Although, with this mindset, a question is sparked-is anyone truly living? Humans are...

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The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, centers around the interplay between guilt, redemption, and sacrifice. Hosseini refers to the concept of religious sacrifice through which individuals cleanse themselves of sin and free their consciences....

Afghan Culture and The Kite Runner Anonymous 12th Grade

Afghanistan translates to “Land of the Afghans” and is a nation with a strong culture, including diverse subcultures and Islamic traditions. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is the story of a young boy, Amir. He lives in an affluent neighborhood...

Pride and Afghanistans Nicole Rong 10th Grade

When pride is prioritized, morality is compromised at the expense of others. Despite this being a desparingly unfortunate scenario, this case appears more often than one would think. As shown in the bildungsroman The Kite Runner by Khaled...

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In the social and political protest writing Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ and Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’ the desired impact upon the audience is arguably to reveal to them a truth about society or about a particular situation, to inspire empathy and...

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One of the main ideas explored in both The Kite Runner , a novel by Khaled Hosseini, and Atonement , a film directed by Joe Wright, is the everlasting presence of the past in the lives of the protagonists, both of whom make a mistake in their...

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Kite Runner — Theme of Betrayal in “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini

Theme of Betrayal in "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

• Categories: Betrayal The Kite Runner

About this sample

Words: 1040 |

Published: Jun 17, 2020

Words: 1040 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Works Cited

• Hosseini, K. (2003). The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books.
• Edwards, N. (2012). The Kite Runner: Betrayal and Redemption. In C. Moran & J. Elsner (Eds.), The Kite Runner (pp. 95-114). Cambridge University Press.
• Schlegel, C. (2011). "There is a way to be good again": Betrayal and Redemption in The Kite Runner. Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, 17(1), 16-25.
• Khan, T. (2010). Loyalty as Defined in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. The Criterion: An International Journal in English, 1(2), 1-5.
• Mukhtar, I., & Ashraf, H. (2013). A Study of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner as a Socio-Political Allegory. Language in India, 13(4), 214-225.
• Shukla, M. (2015). A Psychoanalytical Critique of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. The IUP Journal of English Studies, 10(3), 42-54.
• Mustafa, F., & Siddiqui, K. (2016). Representation of Hazaras in The Kite Runner. Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics, and Innovation, 2(2016), 1-13.
• Fazel, J., & Tazari, M. (2017). Post-Colonial Dilemma of Identity Crisis in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. English Language Teaching and Literature, 1(2), 61-71.
• Crick, D. (2019). Guilt and Redemption: A Comparative Study of The Kite Runner and Atonement. Portals: A Journal of Comparative Literature, 16(2), 67-83.
• Heinze, R. (2020). The Quest for Redemption in The Kite Runner. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 9(3), 71-78.

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The betrayal of a loyal friend by a wealthier, more corrupt “master” is a recurring motif in The Kite Runner , and Amir and Baba ’s feelings of guilt for their betrayals drive much of the novel’s action. The central betrayal comes when Amir watches and does nothing as Hassan , who has always stood up for Amir in the past, gets raped by Assef . Amir then worsens the betrayal by driving Ali and Hassan from the household. Later in the book, Amir learns that Baba also betrayed his own best friend and servant – Ali, Hassan’s father – by fathering a child (Hassan) with Ali’s wife Sanaubar . This knowledge comes as another kind of betrayal for Amir, who had always hero-worshipped Baba and is shocked to learn of his father’s flaws.

These low points in the two men’s lives create a sense of tension and guilt throughout the novel, but the betrayals of Amir and Baba also lead to quests for redemption that bring about some good in the end – as Baba leads a principled, charitable life, and Amir rescues Sohrab from Assef.

Betrayal ThemeTracker

Betrayal Quotes in The Kite Runner

That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

Because the truth of it was, I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could have done was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him.

The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either… Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame… a boy with Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of these things. Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that.

He stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “For you a thousand times over!” he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph.

“But before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: Would he do the same for you? Have you ever wondered why he never includes you in games when he has guests? Why he only plays with you when no one else is around? I’ll tell you why, Hazara. Because to him, you’re nothing but an ugly pet…”

“Amir agha and I are friends,” Hassan said.

In the end, I ran.

I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me… I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?

I thought about Hassan’s dream, the one about us swimming in the lake. There is no monster , he’d said, just water . Except he’d been wrong about that. There was a monster in the lake… I was that monster.

I flinched, like I’d been slapped… Then I understood: This was Hassan’s final sacrifice for me… And that led to another understanding: Hassan knew. He knew I’d seen everything in that alley, that I’d stood there and done nothing. He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time.

In the morning, Jalaluddin… would probably think we’d gone out for a stroll or a drive. We hadn’t told him. You couldn’t trust anyone in Kabul anymore – for a fee or under threat, people told on each other, neighbor on neighbor, child on parent, brother on brother, servant on master, friend on friend.

Long before the Roussi army marched into Afghanistan, long before villages were burned and schools destroyed… Kabul had become a city of ghosts for me. A city of harelipped ghosts. America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.

I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her how I’d betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. But I didn’t.

As I drove, I wondered why I was different. Maybe it was because I had been raised by men; I hadn’t grown up around women and had never been exposed firsthand to the double standard with which Afghan society sometimes treated them… But I think a big part of the reason I didn’t care about Soraya’s past was that I had one of my own. I knew all about regret.

My suspicions had been right all those years. He knew about Assef, the kite, the money, the watch with the lightning bolt hands. He had always known.

Come. There is a way to be good again , Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up.

As it turned out, Baba and I were more alike than I’d ever known. We had both betrayed the people who would have given their lives for us. And with that came this realization: that Rahim Khan had summoned me here to atone not just for my sins but for Baba’s too.

Another rib snapped, this time lower. What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in the corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this… My body was broken – just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later – but I felt healed .

I loved him because he was my friend, but also because he was a good man, maybe even a great man. And this is what I want you to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your father’s remorse. Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.

Your father, like you, was a tortured soul , Rahim Khan had written. Maybe so. We had both sinned and betrayed. But Baba had found a way to create good out of his remorse. What had I done, other than take my guilt out on the very same people I had betrayed, and then try to forget it all?

“Sohrab, I can’t give you your old life back, I wish to God I could. But I can take you with me. That was what I was coming in the bathroom to tell you. You have a visa to go to America, to live with me and my wife. It’s true. I promise.”

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