Chapter+Seven+-+The+Kite+Runner


 * __ The Kite Runner

Chapter Seven – The Kite Runner __** This chapter begins with an example of foreshadowing. //See the page on foreshadowing.// Hassan tells Amir about his dream about a monster lying under the surface of a very still and beautiful lake. As this is the chapter where Hassan gets raped, this is like an underlying monster of human creation that threatens to drag Hassan’s life down into the depths of human depravity. Hassan is afraid of losing the Kite tournament. His courage begins to fail. **“Suddenly I wanted to withdraw. Pack it all in, go back home. What was I thinking ? Why was I putting myself through this, when I already knew the outcome? Baba was on the roof watching me. I felt his glare on me like the heat of a blistering sun. This would be failure on a grand scale, even for me.”** It is Hassan who steps in to encourage Amir. **“Remember, Amir agha. There’s no monster, just a beautiful day.”** Again we have evidence of Amir’s thoughts being an “open book” to Hassan. **“How could I be such an open book to him when, half the time, I had no idea what was milling around in his head? I was the one who went to school, the one who could read, write. I was the smart one…That was a little unsettling, buyt also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed.”** Amir is constantly watching whether Baba is watching him or not. **I kept stealing glances at Baba sitting with Rahim Khan on the roof, wondered what he was thinking. Was he cheering for me? Or did a part of him enjoy watching me fail?** Amir wins. He is redeemed in his father’s and his own eyes. **“All I saw was the blue kite. All I smelled was victory. Salvation. Redemption. If Baba was wrong and there was a God like they said in school, then He’d let me win…this was my one chance to become someone who was looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard…I’d endured too much, come too far…then I was screaming, and everything was color and sound, everything was alive and good. I was throwing my free arm around Hassan and we were hopping up and down, both of us laughing, both of us weeping. ‘You won, Amir agha! You won!”** ** Redemption = ** concept referring to forgiveness or absolution for past sins
 * “//We// won! //We// won!” was all I could say. …then I saw Baba on our roof. He was standing …pumping both of his fists. Hollering and clapping. And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last.” **
 * ** Salvation = ** being saved from or liberation from something, such as suffering or the punishment of sin – also called //deliverance//.
 * ** Sin = wrong doing **

Baba starts to signal that Amir needed to chase the last Kite that he cut out of the tournament. It is custom to chase the last kite and bring it back as a trophy– hence Kite running. **“I know,” he said, breaking our embrace…”I’m going to run that blue kite for you,” he said.** Amir runs after Hassan to find out why he is taking so long to bring back the kite. He sees the rape begin and does not have the bravery and honour to defend his life-time friend from Assef.**"I heard the voices again, louder this time, coming from one of the alleys. ..Hassan was standing at the blind end of the alley in a defiant stance: fists curled, legs slightly apart. Behind him, ...was the blue kite. My key to Baba's heart....i watched them close in on the boy i'd grown up with, the boy whose harelipped face had been my first memory."**
 * “Hassan!” I called. “Come back with it!”…”For you a thousand times over!” he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared…the next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years later, in a faded Polaroid photograph.” **
 * But Amir and Hassan do not end up living “happily ever after” as Amir had thought they would. The “monster” of human depravity rises from its depths and spoils any possible triumph or joy. It only leaves Amir with a hollow victory. A victory that he ends up paying for with his self-pride, personal integrity, friendships. A victory that he is ashamed of because it could only be achieved through his allowing that Hassan’s blood, belief in the goodness of Amir and sexual innocence be violated and spilt. – Hassan is raped by Assef. The boy that he defended Amir from by threatening to shoot him in the eye with his slingshot earlier in the novel.  **

Assef wants the blue kite. **"Amir agha won the tournament and I ran this kite for him. I ran it fairly. This is his kite."**


 * "A loyal hazara. Loyal as a dog," Assef said..."But before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: Would he do the same for you? Have you ever wondered why he never includes you in games when he has guests? ...Because to him, you're nothing but an ugly pet. Something he can play with when he's bored, something he can kick when he's angry. Don't ever fool yourself and think you're something more."**

"Amir aghan and I are friends," Hassan said.


 * "Friends?" ...You pathetic fool. Someday you'll wake up from your little fantasy and learn just how good of a friend he is...**

Hassan still wont give Assef the kite and so Assef rapes him. **"It's just a Hazara," Assef said.** Amir doesn't stop it from happening. **"I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn't. I just watched. Paralysed....i bit on my fist. Shut my eyes....There were two things amid the garbage that i couldn't stop looking at: One was the blue kite resting against the wall...the other wa Hassan's brown corduroy pants thrown on a heap of eroded bricks. ...Hassan didn't struggle. Didn't even whimper. He moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. Saw the resignation in it. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb." [They would sacrifice a lamb as part of a religious festival]...Just a second before he slices the throat in on expert motion, I see the sheep's eyes. ...that look of acceptance in the animal's eyes."**

Amir still has a chance to defend Hassan from Assef even though he is being raped.

**HASSAN PLAYS THE PART OF THE SACRIFICAL LAMB. Before Christ, Jews used to sacrifice a lamb to god for the forgiveness of their sins. Christ called himself the lamb of God. He presented all those that believed in him with a clean slate.
 * Amir chooses not to defend him. He wants to believe it is because he is afraid of Assef/ a coward/ BUT THIS IS NOT THE REASON. THE REASON IS BECAUSE, CONTRARY TO HOW HASSAN BELIEVED AMIR REGARDED HIM - HASSAN WAS JUST A HAZARA IN HIS EYES. HE COULDN'T RISK NOT GETTING THE KITE TO GIVE TO BABA and GIVING IT TO ASSEF TO STOP HASSAN BEING RAPED.**

"I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan - the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past-and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. I the end, I ran. I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. ....that's what I made myself believe. I actually //aspired// cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hasah was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart [stop] it: He was just a Hazara, wasn't he?"...i ran back the way I'd come..."** Amir was afraid that Hassan would still look at his with devotion. He wanted Hassan to look at him with blame.

Amir pretended to find Hassan when he was dressed again. **"I pretended I hadn't heard the crack in his voice. Just like I pretended I hadn't seen the dark stain in the seat of his pants. Or those tiny drops that fell from between his legs and stained the snow black."

Amir gets his hugs from his father. But the cost to his life, Hassan's life, Hassan's father's life and then to Baba - will be great. The knowledge that Hassan knows that Amir knew what happened and did nothing to prevent it turns from extreme guilt to frustration that Hassan wont hate him for it. Amir can't bare Hassan being around to remind him of what a self-centred coward he is.**