The Kite Runner

Amir is the narrative's central protagonist and narrator, and his deep need for redemption drives the plot of the story. As a boy, he leads a life of privilege in a wealthy neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan. Living with his father, Baba, and servants Ali and Hassan, Amir develops an insipid sense of superiority. Because Amir is unaware that Hassan is his half-brother, he becomes envious whenever Baba shows Hassan affection, eventually leading Amir to sacrifice Hassan to a vicious rape and then reject him. When Amir receives a phone call years later from his father’s friend Rahim Khan, he has been living in America trying to forget the immense guilt of his past. When Rahim Khan tells him that Hassan has been murdered and his son orphaned, the narrative’s dramatic action switches to follow Amir’s growth as a character. As he wades into a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in search of his nephew, Amir also starts on a road toward redemption and humility. 

Amir’s character arc closely follows the construction of a bildungsroman, or a journey from childhood into the experience of adulthood. In early chapters, Amir is compiling and investigating experience from secondhand sources: anecdotes and