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The Kite Runner Rhetorical Analysis

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini explicates the life of the main character Amir, and his relationship with his childhood best friend Hassan. Throughout the novel, Hosseini uses irony to show the growth and improvement of Amir’s character. Back when Amir and Hassan were little they used to be close. As children, they used to participate in Kite Fighting tournaments. One day, they went to Kabul with Amir’s father, Baba, to buy kites for the new season. Amir reflects on the experience by saying, “If I changed my mind and asked for a bigger and fancier kite, Baba would buy it for me--but then he’d buy it for Hassan too. Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t do that. Wished he’d let me be the favorite” (Hosseini 51). Amir lives the life that everyone …show more content…

He spends years trying to impress Baba so that he will finally be proud of Amir. However, Hosseini portrays the relationship between Baba and Hassan to be different than his and Amir’s. Baba is always proud of Hassan and wants the best for him. He sees himself in Hassan. When these relationships are put side by side it is clear that Hassan is Baba’s favorite. Later in the novel, Hosseini writes another passages that shows irony. This is when he writes, “My body was broken--just how badly I would’t find out until later--but I felt healed” (Hosseini 289). This is another significant moment of irony in the novel. Assef, the person who raped Hassan and is the root of Amir’s guilt, returns to the book as an adult but continues to bully small children like Sohrab, Hassan’s son. During this event, Amir is beaten harshly by Assef and he feels as though this is his payment for running away when Hassan needed help. This event shows irony when Assef used to bully and fight with Hassan and Amir as children and now, as an adult, he is fighting with Sohrab and Amir. These situations are similar yet they mean different things to Amir and show his growth over time. During his childhood, Amir was not a quality

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