Circularity In The Kite Runner

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There is an old saying that: Life follows a circular path. This idea can be seen especially in Khaled Hosseini's first book, The Kite Runner, a beautiful, yet devastating story of love, traitorousness and payback. The narrative takes place over collar generations: Baba and Ali's generation, Amir and Hassan's, and Sohrab's. Circularity is one of the core concepts in the novel and it is employed by Hosseni as a narrative technique. It is portrayed through the main characters relationships, and has a powerful connection to the main root word, redemption. First important cycle is Assef's life; another example was when Hassan threatens Assef by saying he would hit Assef in his left eye, then later on, Sohrab hits Assef in his left eye; finally, …show more content…

When the readers were first introduced to Assef, he was described by Amir as a sociopath. He approved of Hitler's ways, said what he tried to do was right, and Assef wanted the same to happen to the Hazaras, because of his beliefs, "Afghanistan is for Pashtuns,"(Hosseini,43) this quote was said by Assef to Amir when he met them in an alleyway after Daoud Khan had become president. Years later, when Amir met Assef again, when Amir was trying to get Sohrab, you can see how much worse Assef had become, he turned into what he had admired when he was younger. His hatred of the Hazaras in Afghanistan had led to the massacre in Mazar-i-Sharif. That was the circularity in the life of Assef, going from a young sociopath, to a …show more content…

Trying to redeem himself for how he had betrayed Hassan, twice, when he was younger. He travelled to Pakistan, initially, to visit Rahim Khan, since Rahim was getting older and wanted to meet Amir for the last time. Then Rahim Khan asked Amir to bring Sohrab back, Amir had rejected bringing Sohrab back because he did not want to risk his life but he agreed once he knew Hassan was his half-brother. When he had fought with Assef, he was laughing while he was getting beat up by Assef, because he finally felt like he got redemption for what had happened with Hassan, "What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace"(Hosseini, 303). He did manage to bring Sohrab to the U.S, and when they were flying kites, Amir decided to run the last kite, and said the same thing Hassan had said to him when he ran the last kite during the kite tournament, "For you, a thousand times over,"(Hosseini, 391). That was the circularity of Amir

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