The Kite Runner Chapter 24 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
[Amir:] "Well, Mr. Faisal thinks that it would really help if we could...if we could ask you to stay in a home for kids for a while."
[Sohrab:] "Home for kids?" he said, his smile fading. "You mean an orphanage?"
[Amir:] "It would only be for a little while."
[Sohrab:] "No," he said. "No, please."
[Amir:] "Sohrab, it would be for just a little while. I promise."
[Sohrab:] "You promised you'd never put me in one of those places, Amir agha," he said. His voice was breaking, tears pooling in his eyes. (24.350-355)
Just when you thought Amir did something nice for a change...he goes back on his promise to Sohrab. Amir's broken promise has disastrous consequences: Sohrab tries to kill himself. Does Amir betray yet another person? Or, is this "betrayal" out of Amir's hands? If so, does Amir's helplessness in this situation force you to reinterpret Amir's earlier abandonment of Hassan? Does this passage suggest Amir really wasn't to blame for abandoning Hassan?
"Because – " he [Sohrab] said, gasping and hitching between sobs, "because I don't want them to see me...I'm so dirty." He sucked in his breath and let it out in a long, wheezy cry. "I'm so dirty and full of sin."
[Amir:] "You're not dirty, Sohrab," I said.
[Sohrab:] "Those men – "
[Amir:] "You're not dirty at all."
[Sohrab:] " – they did things...the bad man and the other two...they did things...did things to me."
[Amir:] "You're not dirty, and you're not full of sin." I touched his arm again and he drew away. (24.87-92)
Although Sohrab misses his father and mother (and grandmother), he admits he doesn't want to see them. Or, rather, them to see him. All the terrible things Assef and the guards did to him has made him feel "dirty" and guilty. Sohrab's father, Hassan, seems like the most lovable guy in the world. Hassan does, however, hide his tragedy from others, compounding Amir's guilt. How does Amir hide the fact that he abandoned Hassan? Does Baba hide anything? What about Soraya? Why do all these characters hide so much? Will Sohrab, like them, hide his tragic experience?
Sohrab stopped chewing. Put the sandwich down. "Father never said he had a brother."
[Amir:] "That's because he didn't know."
[Sohrab:] "Why didn't he know?"
"No one told him," I said. "No one told me either. I just found out recently."
Sohrab blinked. Like he was looking at me, really looking at me, for the very first time. "But why did people hide it from Father and you?"
[Amir:] "You know, I asked myself that same question the other day. And there's an answer, but not a good one. Let's just say they didn't tell us because your father and I...we weren't supposed to be brothers."
[Sohrab:] "Because he was a Hazara?"
I willed my eyes to stay on him. "Yes." (24.106-113).
Amir has recently rescued Sohrab from Assef and the Taliban. And Amir, eating lunch with Sohrab, suddenly blurts out that he and Hassan were half-brothers. As Amir says, "[...] [H]e had a right to know; I didn't want to hide anything anymore" (24.105). Amir does the right thing here – most readers probably let out a sigh of relief when Amir tells Sohrab the truth about Hassan. But we also find it a little sad that this twelve-year-old boy already knows enough about his homeland to guess Amir and Hassan shouldn't have been brothers because of ethnicity. It's a sort of barometer of ethnic relations in Afghanistan: even a young boy knows it's somehow improper for a Hazara and Pashtun to have the same father.
Quote 4
That night, we were lying on our beds, watching a talk show on TV. Two clerics with pepper gray long beards and white turbans were taking calls from the faithful all over the world. One caller from Finland, a guy named Ayub, asked if his teenaged son could go to hell for wearing his baggy pants so low the seam of his underwear showed. [...]
On the TV screen, the two mullahs were consulting each other. [...]
The mullahs decided that Ayub's son would go to hell after all for wearing his pants the way he did. They claimed it was in the Haddith. (24.120-137)
On the surface, it seems like Hosseini is again commenting on how religion can get focused on the wrong things (see 13.60 above). During this television program, though, Amir is sitting next to Sohrab in their hotel room. Amir recently told Sohrab that he and Hassan were half-brothers. This confession must have brought up all sorts of guilt: his betrayal of Hassan and the fact he never really told his father what happened to Hassan and how he abandoned Hassan. Sohrab's rescue, in a way, is Amir's attempt to be good again, his penance for leaving Hassan in the alley and sending Ali and Hassan away. Does Sohrab's rescue redeem Amir? Does Amir believe in the same hell as the cleric on the TV program?
Quote 5
[Raymond Andrews:] "Of course," he said. Cleared his throat. "Are you Muslim?"
[Amir:] "Yes."
[Raymond Andrews:] "Practicing?"
"Yes." In truth, I didn't remember the last time I had laid my forehead to the ground in prayer. Then I did remember: the day Dr. Amani gave Baba his prognosis. I had kneeled on the prayer rug, remembering only fragments of verses I had learned in school. (24.207-210)
Raymond Andrews questions Amir about his faith in the context of adoption: it's easier for Amir to adopt Sohrab if he's a practicing Muslim. But Andrews' question also illuminates Amir's faith and spiritual practice. Amir answers "Yes" to Andrews' question even though he can't remember the last time he prayed. And even then the prayers came to him in fragments. If we can wade past the surface discussion of adoption here, and Amir's practical motivations (adopting Sohrab), what does his answer say about his faith? Perhaps that he has carried it with him almost unconsciously since childhood. His affirmation springs forth from an unconscious the way his faith aids him in times of need: his father's diagnosis, Sohrab's suicide attempt, and Sohrab's later silence.