Key quotes chapters 4-6

Chapter 4
-"In the end, I was Pashtun and he was Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that."
-"-after all, what use did a servant have for the written word?"
-"What does he know, that illiterate Hazara? He'll never be anything but a cook."
The historical problems between Hazara and Pashtuns affects the way Amir views his friendship with Hassan and the wasy Baba views his with Ali. Although they are close friends it is made clear that they are also the servants, a lower class than Amir and Baba.
-"My favourite part of reading to Hassan was when we came across a big word he didn't know. I'd tease him, expose his ignorance."
Amir's cruelty is shown in this quote, he is teasing Hassan because he can't read, playing mind games with him as he doesn't understand the meaning of the words.
-"That same night I wrote my first short story."
This is said after Hassan compliments Amir on the story he made up as a joke. It shows that Hassan is the reason Amir starts writing and goes on the get published.
-"As always it was Rahim Kahn who rescued me"
Baba does not even offer to read Amir's first short story, and instead Rahim Kahn steps in. This supports my idea that Rahim Kahn is more loving to Amir and he seems to have a stronger connection, always being the one to 'rescue' him.
-"My door is always open to you, Amir jan. I will always hear any story you have to tell. Bravo.
Said by Rahim Kahn and supports the above.
-"But right then, I wished I could open up my veins and drain his cursed blood from my body."
In this quote Amir is talking about Baba, it is said when Baba does not read Amir's story and instead goes upstairs to get ready for an evening out. This shows that he sometimes feels ashamed to be his son, and he does hate the way Baba does not have a stronger relationship with him, and cherish him more.

Chapter 5
-"Later, I would tell myself I hadn't felt envious of Hassan. Not at all."
Amir says this during the 'bloodless coup' when Ali had held Hassan close to comfort him. Amir is obviously jealous that Hassan gets more affection from his father than him.
-"Afghanistan for Pahtuns, I say. That's my vision"
Said by Assef, the neighbourhood bully. Shows the extreme view of some Pashtuns that the Hazara don't have a place in Afghanistan.
-"How can you call him your friend?" said by Assef about Hassan
"But he's not my friend! I almost blurted. He's my servant" -Amir
-"Why did I only play with Hassan when no one else was around?"
This shows, again, that the cultural and political differences between the two boys cause a problem for Amir and in some ways cause him problems. It also makes him ashamed.
-"I wished I too had a scar that would beget Baba's sympathy. It wasn't fair."
Amir is jealous that Baba has got Hassan a surgeon to fix his cleft lip and sees it as unfair that he gets such a present when he has 'done nothing.'
-"Because that was the winter Hassan stopped smiling"
Giving more clues about a complication.

Chapter 6
-"Baba and I lived in the same house but in different spheres of existence. Kites were the one paper-thin slice of intersection between those spheres."
Amir finally has something he can talk with his father about that Baba approves of.
-"Sometimes I wished he wouldn't do that. Wished he'd let me be the favourite
Again Amir's jealousy is shown in this quote. Baba treats Amir and Hassan equally, and Amir finds this unfair and becomes jealous, wishing Baba would show more affection towards him than Hassan.
-"But Hassan was by far the greatest kite runner I had ever seen"
Although Amir sees Hassan as a servant and gets jealous of him he does have a lot of respect for his talents at kite running
-"Kind of like when we used to play insect torture. Except now, he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass."
This is Amir when he and Hassan are talking about Hassan eating dirt if Amir told him to. It shows the power which Amir has over Hassan, and the way he knows what he can do with that power.
-"Then Hassan blinked and it was just him again. Just Hassan."
Amir says that he sees some other face sometimes when he is looking at Hassan. This may be a clue as to the complication later on in the book, the other side of Hassan we can't see yet.
-"Show him once and for all that his son was worthy."
-"And maybe, just maybe I would be pardoned for killing my mother."
-"I wasn't going to fail Baba. Not this time"
Amir thinks that if he wins the big kite fighting tournament it will solve the problems between him and Baba. He thinks that it will stop Baba from thinking that is not the perfect son. The last 2 quotes show that Amir feels as though he is responsible for his 'failures' and that is why Baba was not very affectionate towards him.
-"That was the thing with Hassan. He was so goddamn  pure, you always felt like a phony around him."

Chapter summaries 4-6

Chapter 4
-We find out how Hassan and Ali came to live with Baba and Amir; Ali's parents were killed in a drink driving accident and Amir's grandfather took him in.
-Hassan and Amir seem to be quite cruel and don't  realise, they throw things at animals for entertainment.
-Amir often teases Hassan about his inability to read and understand words, occasionally playing mind games
with him. Again this shows his cruelty as he enjoys it.
- Amir makes up a story without Hassan knowing, and Hassan says it's the best book he had ever heard and so Amir begins writing.
-Again we see how Baba is not very involved with his son when Amir writes his story but Baba is not interested, so instead Rahim Kahn reads itand praises him
-When Hassan reads the story and makes a comment on it Amir gets angry, thinking of him as an 'illiterate Hazara'

Chapter 5
-Daoud Khan, the Kings cousin, take over the government.
-Assef, the bully of the neighbourhood, and his friends threaten Amir and Hassan with brass knuckles. Luckily Hassan saves Amir using his slingshot and Assef retreats, claiming that is not the end of it.
- After Daoud Khan has taken over things go back to normal.
-It comes to winter and it is Hassan's birthday. As a present Baba get Hassan a plastic surgeon to fix his cleft lip, leaving only a faint scar.

Chapter 6
-It is winter and the schools are closing, so the boys start buying, making and flying their kites.
-Hassan and Amir are talented Kite Fighters.
-This is a passion which Amir can share with his dad, in fact it is one of the only things they have in common.
-We find out the Winter of 1975 is the last time Hassan runs a kite.
-There is talk of televisions and Amir promises to buys Hassan one.

Hazara and Pashtuns

Amir's best friend, Hassan, is a 'Hazara', whereas Amir is 'Pashtun' which seems to be a point made throughout the book.
But what are Hazara and Pashtun, and what is their history?

Hazara

Hazara are Persian speaking people who mainly live in central Afghanistan and Pakistan. They have Mongolian ancestry and are primarily Shi'a Muslims. However most people from Afghanistan are Sunni Muslims, and so the Hazara have been discriminated against for centuries.
Pashtun
The Pashtun are Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, and Pakistan's second largest. Most Pashtun's are Sunni Muslims, however a small minority are Shi'a.
The taliban are a group of severely right wing Pashtuns.

History
The Sunni and Shi'a Muslims have had a history of conflict. They are distinct ethnic groups and, as said before, the Hazara are a minority group in Afghanistan.
The battle of Uruzgan was between the Pashtun and the Hazara people. The Pashtuns pushed the Hazara out of Uruzgan and re-occupied it.
The two groups had different views on who should've been the successor when Mohammad died, and this is what split them and caused problems.

Character descriptions chapters

Amir
Straight away we find out Amir has a troubled past, the first chapter makes this quite clear. Throughout chapters 2 and 3 we see that his relationship with his father is not a particularly affectionate one. His mother died whilst giving birth to him and so he feels responsible. He is very close to a Hazara boy named Hassan, they seem to be very close friends. Amir is a Pashtun.
There are some parts in chapters 4-7 where we see the meaner side of Amir. He and Hassan enjoy throwing rocks and other items at animals and torturing insects. Amir is cruelest though, he enjoys teasing Hassana about his inability to read and understand words, playing mind games with him.

Baba
Baba comes across as a very cold man. He is said to see things in black and white, showing he is not very tolerant of things which he doesn't like. He is not a particularly religious man, he smokes and drinks. Very imposing, tall and dark. He likes to prove people wrong, both in his work and personal life. He sees his son as a bit of a disappointment as he has not turned out as he had hoped. Baba shares an interest with Amir in kite fighting, it seems to be the only thing the two have in common.

Hassan
There is a lot of description of Hassan at the beginning of chapter two, but what particularly stands out is his cleft lip, an imperfection. He was a very loyal friend to Amir and they were very close when they were young. He is a Hazara. Hassan is very truthful and quite naive in some ways. He always tells the truth, and thinks others always do too.

Ali
Ali is Hassan's father. He is a very gentle man, also a Hazara. He has a flawed appearance and is teased by locals for this. His wife ran away when Hassan was born. Ali is also very truthful, like Hassan. He is said to be 'incapable of lying'.

Sanaubar
Hassan's mother who ran away with travelers just after Hassan was born. Comes across as promiscuous and  not a particularly nice person. She was very beautiful and many men were attracted to her.

Rahim Kahn
There is not much information on Rahim Kahn in the first few chapters, but it seems as though he likes Amir and is kind to him. Throughout the first few chapters it seems as though Rahim Kahn is closer to Amir than Baba is.

Assef
Assef is the bully of the neighbourhood. He carries round brass knuckles to beat people up with. He is one of the people who bullies Ali because he is Hazara and has a bad leg. He does not like Amir because he is friends with Hassan, who is also a Hazara like his father. He has very extremist views on the Hazara being in Afghanistan, similar to Hitler's about the Jews in Germany.

Important quotes from chapters 1-3

Chapter 1
-"There is a way to be good again"
-"That was a long time ago, but 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."
-"It was my past of unatoned sins."
These quotes straight away show that there has been some conflict in Amir's life, and something in his past is troubling him. The 'unatoned sins' also implies that he may have done something in his life which was related to the event which he is trying to forget.

Chapter 2
-"Hassan never denied me anything"

This quote shows the strong bond between the two boys. It also shows how loyal Hassan was towards Amir.
-"I'm in his arms, but it's Rahim Kahn's pinky my fingers are curled around"
The relationship between Amir and his father is clear in this quote, he is obviously not very close to his father, and the way his fingers are curled around Rahim Kahn's pinky shows he may feel closer to him than his father.

Chapter 3
-"At parties when all six-foot-five of him thundered into the room, attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun."
This quote shows how powerful Baba is, and the simile used, comparing him to the sun, also shows respect from others.
-"You can't love someone who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little."
-"It wasn't often Baba talked to me, let alone on his lap"
-"The least I could have done was to have the decency to have turned out a little more like him."
-"I already hated the kids he was building the orphanage for; sometimes I wish they'd all dies with their parents"
Again these show the unstable relationship between Amir and his father. Even though Amir looks up to his father and seeks his affection he also fears him and resents him slightly for the way he controls everything and  doesn't pay much attention to his son. The last quote shows that he is jealous of people who get attention from Baba, and this is also shown in chapter 2 where Amir talks about Baba putting his arm around Hassan.
-"If I hadn't seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I'd never believe he was my son."
Shows Baba is slightly disappointed that Amir has not turned out like him at all.

Chapters 1-3 summaries

Chapter 1

-In chapter 1 we find out that something happened to Amir at the age of 12 which has made him what he is today.
-He received a phone call from Rahim Khan, who is in Pakistan, last summer. He asks Amir to come to Pakistan and see him.
-Once off the phone he takes a walk in the park, noticing 2 red kites which remind him of Hassan.

Chapter 2
-Amir reminisces about his childhood with Hassan and how they used to be troublemakers
-We are given a detailed description of Hassan, and find out his is a loyal friend.
-Amir and Hassan have different lifestyles, Hassan lives in a mud hut whereas Amir lives in a mansion. They both with their fathers and neither know their mother; Amir's mother died giving birth to him and Hassans mother eloped with a group of travelling singers and dancers
-Hassan is shouted at by a soldier as they are walking, he tells Hassan that he had sex with his mother. We then find out she had a 'dishonourable reputation'
-Hassan is a Hazara and Amir is a Pashtun. Amir finds out that the Hazara had an uprising which was brutally suppressed by the Pashtuns.

Chapter 3
-We get a description of Baba, who comes across a little scary. He does all the things people say he cannot: design and build an orphanage, marry well, become a successful business man etc.
-Baba is not very strongly religious and only believes in one sin; theft. He believes every other sin is just a variation of theft.
-Amir tries to impress his father, but thinks his talents (reading and poetry) are not considered manly enough by Baba.
-Amir feels responsible for his mothers death.
-He over hears his father talking to Rahim Kahn saying he isn't like other boys and may not be able to stand up for himself as an adult.