Quote 1
When we got to Kabul, I [Rahim Khan] discovered that Hassan had no intention of moving into the house. "But all these rooms are empty, Hassan jan. No one is going to live in them," I said.
But he would not. He said it was a matter of ihtiram, a matter of respect. He and Farzana moved their things into the hut in the backyard, where he was born. I pleaded for them to move into one of the guest bedrooms upstairs, but Hassan would hear nothing of it. "What will Amir agha think?" he said to me. "What will he think when he comes back to Kabul after the war and finds that I have assumed his place in the house?" Then, in mourning for your father, Hassan wore black for the next forty days. (16.24-25)
You may be confused by the voice here. It's actually not Amir – Rahim Khan gets one chapter in the book. Rahim Khan recounts his trip to Hazarajat to find Hassan and bring him back to the house in Kabul. When Hassan does move back to the house with Rahim Khan, he refuses to live where Baba and Amir lived. Does Hassan's refusal suggest that Hassan is only Amir's servant and the two never achieved an equal friendship? (Side question: Does Hassan sense – on some unconscious level – Baba's true relationship to him? Is that why he mourns Baba for forty days?)
Quote 2
"You know," Rahim Khan said, "one time, when you weren't around, your father and I were talking. And you know how he always worried about you in those days. I remember he said to me, 'Rahim, a boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything.' I wonder, is that what you've become?" (17.34)
Rahim Khan has just asked Amir to rescue Sohrab from Kabul. Amir is initially resistant, so Rahim Khan tries three times to convince Amir to undertake the task. (The task is obviously a redemptive quest because there's no reason Amir has to rescue Sohrab. Rahim Khan tells Amir he has enough money to get Sohrab, so it seems like anyone could have performed this task.) Anyway, Rahim Khan gives Amir three reasons why he should rescue Sohrab. One, because your father thought you couldn't stand up for anything and here's your chance to prove him wrong. Second, it's my dying wish that you rescue Sohrab. And third, Hassan was actually your half-brother, so you owe it to him. We think all these reasons add up and Amir agrees to rescue Sohrab. Of course, the third reason seals the deal, but they're all important and end up motivating Amir.
Quote 3
I was eighteen. Her name was Homaira. She was a Hazara, the daughter of our neighbor's servants. [...]
He took a long gulp of his scotch. Coughed. "You should have seen the look on my father's face when I told him. My mother actually fainted. My sisters splashed her face with water. They fanned her and looked at me as if I had slit her throat. My brother Jalal actually went to fetch his hunting rifle before my father stopped him." Rahim Khan barked a bitter laughter. "It was Homaira and me against the world. And I'll tell you this, Amir jan: In the end, the world always wins. That's just the way of things." (8.133-136)
Rahim Khan is telling Amir about an early romance of his with a Hazara woman named Homaira. (Don't forget that Rahim Khan's romance with Homaira parallels Baba's romance with Sanaubar.) The reactions from Rahim Khan's family might strike you as outlandish. Perhaps, though, they tell us a little about the distance between Hazaras and Pashtuns in the Afghanistan of Rahim Khan's early adulthood. Marriage binds two families together and you can see – pretty clearly – the fear expressed by Rahim Khan's mother (she faints) and his brother (he goes to get his gun). But we might want to disagree with Rahim Khan's last statement. Does "the world" always win? In the novel, do social prejudices win out over Amir's love for Hassan? Is Amir's rescue of Sohrab successful?