The Kite Runner: Key Quotations (Friendship)

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  • Created by: mhannah
  • Created on: 08-03-18 22:11
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  • The Kite Runner: Key Quotations (Friendship & Family)
  • "there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break..And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.Mine was Baba.His was Amir. My name."
    • Chapter 2. Closeness between Amir and Hassan--(later find out the two boys have the same father)-- Hosseini is laying the groundwork for that revelation. There are already brothers in some aspects: they learn to walk together, they learn to speak together, and they feed from the same breast.
    • Does Rahim Khan's revelation – that Amir and Hassan are half-brothers – really change anything? Aren't the two already brothers in everything? Or does "blood" fundamentally change Amir's relationship with Hassan?
  • "Baba would laugh and throw his arm around Ali.But in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend."
    • Chapter 4. Baba and Ali's friendship parallels Amir and Hassan's on a number of levels. there's a similar pattern of leadership (and power): both Baba and Amir have dominant roles in each friendship. And, lest you forget, Baba betrays Ali much like Amir betrays Hassan.
    • "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" (18.7)
  • "Sometimes, my entire childhood seems like one long lazy summer day with Hassan, chasing each other between tangles of trees in my father's yard... insect torture."
    • Chapter 4. Nature imagery depicts the purity and innocence within Amir and Hassan's bond as children before society and politics crippled their relationship.
  • "But we were kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, society, or religion was going to change that either."
    • Chapter 4. Amir lays out the opposing argument just prior to this paragraph. In it, he says ethnicity will always define a relationship.Does Amir's friendship with Hassan ever get past history, ethnicity, society, and religion?
  • "For you a thousand times over!" he said.
    • Chapter 7. Hassan demonstrates his loyalty and devotion to Amir. If we were to judge Amir and Hassan's friendship by actions and not simply expressions of loyalty, the score would be pretty lopsided.
    • Irony that Amir replays the alley **** scene over and over again as the guilt piles up in him; the phrase "a thousand times over" is colored with some pretty devastating irony.
  • "Think of something good," Baba said in my ear. "Something happy."...Friday afternoon in Paghman. An open field of grass speckled with mulberry trees in blossom."
    • Chapter 10. Baba and Amir are on their way to Pakistan, but they're not traveling by taxi or bus. They're in the belly of an oil tanker along with dozens of other Afghans. Baba tells Amir to think of something "good," something "happy."
      • Significant that Amir thinks of his childhood with Hassan; proves (brotherly) love for Hassan. Amir doesn't recall a special moment with Baba, or even his books or poetry. He thinks of Hassan.
    • Nature imagery employed here again
  • "Then I blinked and, for just a moment, the hands holding the spool were the chipped-nailed, calloused hands of a harelipped boy. I heard a crow cawing somewhere and I looked up. The park shimmered with snow so fresh, so dazzling white, it burned my eyes... I smelled turnip qurma now. Dried mulberries. Sour oranges. Sawdust and walnuts."
    • Nature imagery associated with memories of Hassan and childhood once again.
    • Chapter 25. The smells of Kabul mix with the smells of the New Year celebration in the park. Perhaps, at least in the space of this passage, Amir does find peace. America allowed Amir to escape his past for so many years; but, in this moment, the two homelands merge.

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