The Kite Runner Chapter 2 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Sometimes, up in those trees, I talked Hassan into firing walnuts with his slingshot at the neighbor's one-eyed German shepherd. Hassan never wanted to, but if I asked, really asked, he wouldn't deny me. Hassan never denied me anything. And he was deadly with his slingshot. Hassan's father, Ali, used to catch us and get mad, or as mad as someone as gentle as Ali could ever get. He would wag his finger and wave us down from the tree. He would take the mirror and tell us what his mother had told him, that the devil shone mirrors too, shone them to distract Muslims during prayer. "And he laughs while he does it," he always added, scowling at his son.
"Yes, Father," Hassan would mumble, looking down at his feet. But he never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbor's dog, was always my idea. (2.2-3)
This passage shows up early in the novel and really tells us quite a bit about Amir and Hassan's friendship. Hassan protects and defends Amir and, foreshadowing later events in the novel, refuses to tell on Amir. (Hassan will later take the blame for the wad of cash and the watch.) We should also note that Amir seems like the gang leader in this passage, getting the two boys into trouble. Does Amir control the relationship? Is this why Hassan often takes the blame for things? Does Amir ever take responsibility for anything in the novel?
Quote 2
Then he [Ali] would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.
Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was Baba.
His was Amir. My name. (2.34-37)
There's a primal closeness between Amir and Hassan. Later, we'll find out the two boys have the same father, but notice how Hosseini is laying the groundwork for that revelation. The two boys might as well be brothers: they learn to walk together, they learn to speak together, and they feed from the same breast. Which brings up an interesting question: What does Rahim Khan's revelation – that Amir and Hassan are half-brothers – really change? Aren't the two already brothers in everything? Or does "blood" fundamentally change Amir's relationship with Hassan?
Quote 3
They called him "flat-nosed" because of Ali and Hassan's characteristic Hazara Mongoloid features. For years, that was all I knew about the Hazaras, that they were Mogul descendants, and that they looked a little like Chinese people. School text books barely mentioned them and referred to their ancestry only in passing. Then one day, I was in Baba's study, looking through his stuff, when I found one of my mother's old history books. It was written by an Iranian named Khorami. I blew the dust off it, sneaked it into bed with me that night, and was stunned to find an entire chapter on Hazara history. An entire chapter dedicated to Hassan's people! In it, I read that my people, the Pashtuns, had persecuted and oppressed the Hazaras. It said the Hazaras had tried to rise against the Pashtuns in the nineteenth century, but the Pashtuns had "quelled them with unspeakable violence." The book said that my people had killed the Hazaras, driven them from their lands, burned their homes, and sold their women. The book said part of the reason Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras was that Pashtuns were Sunni Muslims, while Hazaras were Shi'a. The book said a lot of things I didn't know, things my teachers hadn't mentioned. Things Baba hadn't mentioned either. It also said some things I did know, like that people called Hazaras mice-eating, flat-nosed, load-carrying donkeys. I had heard some of the kids in the neighborhood yell those names to Hassan. (2.23)
Ethnicity is complicated in The Kite Runner. Amir and Hassan have different ethnic groups: Amir is Pashtun and Hassan is Hazara. To make matters confusing, though, Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims and Hazaras are Shi'a Muslims. (So ethnicity and religion intertwine.) Here, Amir talks about how the Hazara people have been pretty much erased from official Afghani schoolbooks. Since the Pashtuns are in control, the Hazaras don't get much space in the official history of the country. There's also an attempt, it seems, to cover up the genocide committed by the Pashtuns against the Hazaras in the nineteenth century. Do you think Amir's betrayal of Hassan is just another instance of Pashtuns mistreating Hazaras – or does Amir, by telling Hassan's story, attempt to change things?
Quote 4
But despite sharing ethnic heritage and family blood, Sanaubar joined the neighborhood kids in taunting Ali. I have heard that she made no secret of her disdain for his appearance.
"This is a husband?" she would sneer. "I have seen old donkeys better suited to be a husband." (2.25)
Amir praises Sanaubar's beauty. Ali, on the other hand, isn't known for his looks. Even though Sanaubar strikes us as cruel here, we can make sense of her disdain for her husband's appearance. Powerful people sometimes mock powerless people. Athletic people sometimes dislike clumsy people. It's mean, but it's also human. (For example, "If I have this trait, why don't other people have it?") However, we at Shmoop think something else is going on: self-loathing. Two paragraphs before this one, Amir recalls some of the terrible ethnic slurs for Hazaras. One of them is "load-carrying donkey." Sanaubar, like Ali, is a Hazara. And so there's some self-hatred when she says, "I have seen old donkeys better suited to be a husband." In a way, she's adopting the slur that the Pashtuns use against her own people. It could be that she has internalized hatred.
Quote 5
The following week, after class, I showed the book to my teacher and pointed to the chapter on the Hazaras. He skimmed through a couple of pages, snickered, handed the book back. "That's the one thing Shi'a people do well," he said, picking up his papers, "passing themselves as martyrs." He wrinkled his nose when he said the word Shi'a, like it was some kind of disease. (2.24)
Amir receives wildly different educations on ethnicity and religion right at the start of the book. (Background Note: Hazara people are typically Shi'a Muslims and the Pashtun people are typically Sunni Muslim.) Amir's mother, whom we later discover was a kind and enlightened university professor, owned a book which included Shi'a Muslims in the official history of Afghanistan. That seems very important since Amir strikes Hassan, a Shi'a, from his personal history. Then there's Baba who loves and respects Ali (also a Shi'a Muslim), but who doesn't refer to Ali as his friend. And at the other extreme: Amir's teacher, the soldiers, and Sunni society in general which consistently discriminates against Shi'a Muslims. Amir has to navigate these different degrees of racial tolerance. Where does Amir end up in this spectrum? How does Amir treat Hassan? Is Amir guilty of religious discrimination against Hassan?
Quote 6
Upstairs was my bedroom, Baba's room, and his study, also known as "the smoking room," which perpetually smelled of tobacco and cinnamon. Baba and his friends reclined on black leather chairs there after Ali had served dinner. They stuffed their pipes – except Baba always called it "fattening the pipe" – and discussed their favorite three topics: politics, business, soccer. Sometimes I asked Baba if I could sit with them, but Baba would stand in the doorway. "Go on, now," he'd say. "This is grown-ups' time. Why don't you go read one of those books of yours?" He'd close the door, leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups' time with him. I'd sit by the door, knees drawn to my chest. Sometimes I sat there for an hour, sometimes two, listening to their laughter, their chatter. (2.6)
This is a little heartbreaking. In his devotion to his father, Amir sits by the door of Baba's study for hours. It's easy to see just how central unrequited affection becomes in The Kite Runner. Amir's affection for Baba, which isn't returned, in some ways drives him to betray Hassan. Jealously, as much as cowardice, may motivate Amir to leave Hassan in the alleyway. Here's another example of unrequited affection: Would Sanaubar have slept with Baba if she really loved Ali? What about Amir and Hassan – if Amir stayed as loyal to Hassan as Hassan stayed to him, would the novel change? (Sufficed to say, if Amir didn't betray Hassan, the novel wouldn't be half as interesting.)