The Kite Runner- analysis

The analysis seems very hard for me to do. I feel like every single page of this book could be something significant. Overall the theme is about how one sin can haunt you for an entire life and the journey of atoning for that transgression. The author, Khaled Hosselini was brilliant in the weaved the story to force the audience to feel the emotions. Hassan was compared to the sacrificial lamb, similar to the Bible. He was the perfect, diligent, loyal, firstborn who deserved Amir's love, but was never given it. Amir is an exaggerated version of the average person. He is selfish, very flawed, and desperate to prove himself. He feels above others due to his place in society but still feels insignificant. Amir stood by and watched the most innocent, pure boy be tortured and did nothing. He tried to justify it, but in the end sins of ommission are just as severe as sins of commission. In fact, they may be even worse. Amir could have defended Hassan, just as Hassan had defended him numerous times, but he didn't. Hassan's fate lay in Amir's hands, and Amir turned his eyes. I was so frustrated during this part I just wanted to scream, but then I thought of the times we turn away when kids are being picked on at school. The gossip we overhear, but don't contradict; how everyone laughs at certain kids at school; how we walk away from what we don't want to see. Hossenili was a genius because he knows we've all done it. We have all betrayed a friend. Though Amir's case was much more extreme, we all had no choice but to be drawn in to the story. Amir spent the rest of his life looking into that dark alley. As he states on the very first page, "It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years." Amir had no choice but to sacrifice everything for Hassan's son because there had to be a way out. There had to be something he could do so that his conscious wouldn't suffocate him. When his body was broken, he finally felt whole. He had suffered, as had Hassan; he had finally made amends. This story just consumed me. I loved how life went on, but he never forgot. Hosselini was just brilliant: how Assef tortured Amir and Sohrab, as he had tortured Hassan; how Hassan turned out to be Amir's half-brother. The words "For you a thousand times over," haunted Amir throughout his life. To be honest, they haunted me as well. Sometimes those who are most willing to sacrifice everything for you are the easiest people to turn from your life. We all have skeletons lurking in our closets, whether it be things we have said or done, or things we DIDN'T say or do, but until we take the atoning journey, we can never find "a way to be good again."
Annotating:
I find I'm pretty bad at following rules. I made my own to way to annotate this book, because the way I did was just so perfect! There were obviously so many significant quotes in this story, but I began to realize most of those quotes were repeated, foreshadowed, or related to another one of those significant quotes. I began writing little side notes linking sections together. For example, on page one, next to the first paragraph, I wrote page 77 because that's what he was referring to when he mentioned the dark alley that haunted him. I ended up with a web of cross notes for the quote, "For you a thousand times over," but I could never stop highlighting it because it just meant so much to the book. There were also quotes that did not relate to anything else that I had no choice but to highlight because the words just haunted me.