Chapter two We are introduced to the relationship between Amir and Hassan. They appear to be carefree and equal in status up their tree. We are informed about Hassan’s facial features and how they are representative of his race Hazara. “…a face like a Chinese doll chiselled from hardwood: his flat, broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes like bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, depending on the light, gold, green, even sapphire. I can still see his tiny low-set ears and that pointed stub of a chin…and the cleft lip…where the Chinese doll maker’s instrument may have slipped…” Extended metaphor is used by Hosseini to compare Hassan’s facial features to a Chinese doll. Welearn that Amir is the dominant partner in the friendship and that Hassan always did what Amir wanted. Amir could get Amir to fire walnuts with his slingshot at the neighbour’s German Shepherd. “Hassan never wanted to, but if I asked…he wouldn’t deny me. Hassan never denied me anything.” We also learn that Amir has a bit of a mean streak. We learn that Amir does not own up to anything that he has made Hassan do. “He never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbour’s dog, was always my idea.” We learn that Baba built a beautiful home for his family to live in and that they were very rich. We learn that Baba does not include Amir in his life as much as Amir would like. In chapter two Amir describes Baba’s upstairs smoking room. “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?’ Amir describes how Baba would close the door and “leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups’ time with him. I’d sit by the door…sometimes I sat there for an hour, sometimes two, listening to their laughter, their chatter.” Amir therefore, misses out on his father’s attention. We learn about Amir’s relationship with Rahim Khan. Rahim is Baba’s business partner and best friend. There is a photo of Baba holding Amir as a baby, outside their house. Baba looks grim butAmir tells us that it is “Rahim Khan’s pinky my fingers are curled around.” This symbolises that Rahim is a kind of life-line for Amir to cling to throughout his childhood, and that Rahim is there for him. We learn about Hassan’s modest lifestyle. Amir tells us about where Hassan lives with his father Ali :”On the south end of the garden, in the shadows of a loquat tree, was the servants’ home, a modest little mud hut where Hassan lived with his father. It was there, in that little shack, that Hassan was born.” WE learn that Hassan was born close in age to Amir and also does not have a mother. We also learn that Hassan feels responsible for his mother’s death and his father’s unhappiness. Hassan “…was born in the winter of 1964, just one year after my mother died giving birth to me.”“While my mother haemorrhaged to death during childbirth, Hassan lost his less than a week after he was born. Lost her to a fate most Afghans considered far worse than death: She ran off with a flan of travelling singers and dancers.” We learn that Hassan’s mother had a reputation for having loose morals and had been forced to marry her cousin, Ali. She did not love Ali and had laughed at his withered polio leg. We learn that Hassan belongs to a race called the Hazara which is looked down on by the other Afghanis, the Pashtuns. We learn that Hassan is embarrassed and hurt by his mother’s behaviour. Amir tells us about a time they were taking a short-cut through the army barracks when a soldier yelled at Hassan. “You! The Hazara! Look at me when I’m talking to you!...I knew your mother, did you know that? I knew her real good. I took her from behind by the creek over there.”Amir tells us that later in the movie Hassan started to cry. We see that Amir does love Hassan at a deep level and can show concern for his feelings. Amir tells us that he comforted Hassan in the movie theatre after Hassan had been teased by the soldier about “knowing” his mother. “I reached across my seat, slung my arm around him, pulled him close… ‘He took you for someone else.’” We learn that there are two dominant religions in the country. Sanaubar and Ali were Shi’a Muslim and ethnic Hazara.Baba and Amir were Pashtuns and were Sunni Muslims. We learn that the Pashtuns oppressed and still oppress and look down on the Hazaras and their Shi’a religion. Amir tells us about a history book of his mother’s that he found. In it there was a whole chapter dedicated to the history of the Hazara race. When Amir told his Pashtun teacher all he did was “wrinkle his rose when he said the word Shi’a, like it was some kind of disease.” We learn that right from birth Hassan has always been a boy that was “incapable of hurting anyone.” Amir tells us about how easy Sanaubar’s birth of Hassan was: “She hadn’t needed much help at all, because, even in birth, Hassan was true to his nature: He was incapable of hurting anyone. …out he came smiling.” We learn that Amir and Hassan became breast-fed brothers.Amir tells us that Baba hired the same nursing “woman who had fed me to nurse Hassan.” Ali, Hassan’s dad, explains the special connection that Hassan and Amir have now. Ali reminded his that …there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship [family bond] that not even time could break.” We learn that while Amir grew up trying to live up to Baba’s ideas of what a boy and man should be, Hassan looked up to Amir for his direction. “…under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name.”“looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 – and all that followed – was already laid in those first words.”
We are introduced to the relationship between Amir and Hassan. They appear to be carefree and equal in status up their tree.
We are informed about Hassan’s facial features and how they are representative of his race Hazara. “…a face like a Chinese doll chiselled from hardwood: his flat, broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes like bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, depending on the light, gold, green, even sapphire. I can still see his tiny low-set ears and that pointed stub of a chin…and the cleft lip…where the Chinese doll maker’s instrument may have slipped…” Extended metaphor is used by Hosseini to compare Hassan’s facial features to a Chinese doll.
We learn that Amir is the dominant partner in the friendship and that Hassan always did what Amir wanted. Amir could get Amir to fire walnuts with his slingshot at the neighbour’s German Shepherd. “Hassan never wanted to, but if I asked…he wouldn’t deny me. Hassan never denied me anything.”
We also learn that Amir has a bit of a mean streak.
We learn that Amir does not own up to anything that he has made Hassan do. “He never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbour’s dog, was always my idea.”
We learn that Baba built a beautiful home for his family to live in and that they were very rich.
We learn that Baba does not include Amir in his life as much as Amir would like. In chapter two Amir describes Baba’s upstairs smoking room. “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?’ Amir describes how Baba would close the door and “leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups’ time with him. I’d sit by the door…sometimes I sat there for an hour, sometimes two, listening to their laughter, their chatter.”
Amir therefore, misses out on his father’s attention.
We learn about Amir’s relationship with Rahim Khan. Rahim is Baba’s business partner and best friend. There is a photo of Baba holding Amir as a baby, outside their house. Baba looks grim but Amir tells us that it is “Rahim Khan’s pinky my fingers are curled around.” This symbolises that Rahim is a kind of life-line for Amir to cling to throughout his childhood, and that Rahim is there for him.
We learn about Hassan’s modest lifestyle. Amir tells us about where Hassan lives with his father Ali :”On the south end of the garden, in the shadows of a loquat tree, was the servants’ home, a modest little mud hut where Hassan lived with his father. It was there, in that little shack, that Hassan was born.”
WE learn that Hassan was born close in age to Amir and also does not have a mother.
We also learn that Hassan feels responsible for his mother’s death and his father’s unhappiness. Hassan “…was born in the winter of 1964, just one year after my mother died giving birth to me.” “While my mother haemorrhaged to death during childbirth, Hassan lost his less than a week after he was born. Lost her to a fate most Afghans considered far worse than death: She ran off with a flan of travelling singers and dancers.”
We learn that Hassan’s mother had a reputation for having loose morals and had been forced to marry her cousin, Ali. She did not love Ali and had laughed at his withered polio leg.
We learn that Hassan belongs to a race called the Hazara which is looked down on by the other Afghanis, the Pashtuns.
We learn that Hassan is embarrassed and hurt by his mother’s behaviour. Amir tells us about a time they were taking a short-cut through the army barracks when a soldier yelled at Hassan. “You! The Hazara! Look at me when I’m talking to you!...I knew your mother, did you know that? I knew her real good. I took her from behind by the creek over there.” Amir tells us that later in the movie Hassan started to cry.
We see that Amir does love Hassan at a deep level and can show concern for his feelings. Amir tells us that he comforted Hassan in the movie theatre after Hassan had been teased by the soldier about “knowing” his mother. “I reached across my seat, slung my arm around him, pulled him close… ‘He took you for someone else.’”
We learn that there are two dominant religions in the country. Sanaubar and Ali were Shi’a Muslim and ethnic Hazara. Baba and Amir were Pashtuns and were Sunni Muslims.
We learn that the Pashtuns oppressed and still oppress and look down on the Hazaras and their Shi’a religion. Amir tells us about a history book of his mother’s that he found. In it there was a whole chapter dedicated to the history of the Hazara race. When Amir told his Pashtun teacher all he did was “wrinkle his rose when he said the word Shi’a, like it was some kind of disease.”
We learn that right from birth Hassan has always been a boy that was “incapable of hurting anyone.” Amir tells us about how easy Sanaubar’s birth of Hassan was: “She hadn’t needed much help at all, because, even in birth, Hassan was true to his nature: He was incapable of hurting anyone. …out he came smiling.”
We learn that Amir and Hassan became breast-fed brothers. Amir tells us that Baba hired the same nursing “woman who had fed me to nurse Hassan.”
Ali, Hassan’s dad, explains the special connection that Hassan and Amir have now. Ali reminded his that …there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship [family bond] that not even time could break.”
We learn that while Amir grew up trying to live up to Baba’s ideas of what a boy and man should be, Hassan looked up to Amir for his direction. “…under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name.” “looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 – and all that followed – was already laid in those first words.”