[Music] hello and welcome to my video looking at some of the symbols used in khalid hussaini's novel the kite runner i have another video that covers the plot summary and some background details that you can watch here but for now i'm going to jump into the symbols used in the story the kite runner contains a great deal of symbolism which can be drawn upon for student analysis and i thoroughly recommend digging deeper into these to get a greater understanding of the story and its characters while there are many symbols and motifs in the novel that can be explored i will only look at five main ones here the monster in the lake on the morning of the big kite fighting tournament in an attempt to calm amir's nerves hassan tells amir about a dream he had the night before he tells amir that in the dream the two of them are at kahaga lake alongside thousands of other people but everyone else is too afraid to swim because they fear that a monster is in the lake in the dream amir and hassan jump in the water and swim out to the middle and everyone sees there was no monster at all when amir thinks about withdrawing from the tournament hassan says remember amir there's no monster just a beautiful day but later that day during the kite fighting tournament the local bully asaf rapes hassan in an alleyway and amir witnesses the horrific event amir is afraid and does nothing to help hassan he doesn't even tell his father barbara could artef the wicked bully be the monster in the lake that everyone was afraid of or could amir's jealousy of hassan be the monster in the lake or perhaps amir himself is the monster much like the crowd of people in the dream that cheer when amir and hassan swim out to the middle of the lake babar and rahim khan cheer for amir when he wins the tournament does this symbolize that babar and rahim khan are oblivious to the monster amir's jealousy the pomegranate tree the pomegranate tree represents the relationship between amir and hasan early in the story the pomegranate tree is where amir and hassan grow close to each other this is where they play together amir reads hassan's stories there and they carve their names into the tree after hassan is raped by asaf and the other bullies amir and hassan's relationship is never the same amir resents himself for not helping his friend knowing that hassan and his loyalty far outweigh his own he feels as though he himself needs to receive some sort of punishment amir begins pelting hassan with pomegranates and becomes frustrated that hassan won't fight back in a larger sense amir wants hassan to hold him a cannibal for his inaction and accuse him of betrayal hassan refuses to fight back and instead begins crushing the pomegranates on his own head in defiance of amir's demands the pomegranate tree once a sight of brotherly love is now filled with bitterness and anger amir's sense of personal resentment and inadequacy lead him to cast the very symbol of their friendship at hassan hassan's intense loyalty to emir will not be broken and this is symbolized by his voluntary actions to crush the pomegranates on himself for you a thousand times over the cleft lip hassan's cleft lip is a mark of his own low social status not just as a hazara but also as a servant it signifies his poverty which is one of the things that separates him from amir there is no way that hassan's father ali could afford the surgery to fix his cleft lip but on hassan's 13th birthday bubba pays a surgeon to fix hassan's cleft lip which signifies and foreshadows his secret fatherly love once the stars cleft lip is fixed it symbolizes that he is no longer separated from amir in babar's eyes that both of them are his sons and worthy of his affection later in the novel when the adult emir is brutally beaten by asaf amir's lip is split leaving him with a permanent scar amir's cleft lip now links him with hassan once again as he moves forward and becomes a father figure to hassan's orphaned son sohrab amir's scar can also symbolize his redemption as he earns it attempting to save sahara from the sickening conditions that he's in baba and the bear early in the novel amir talks about the rumor that babar had wrestled a black bear and won a rumor that as a child amir believes to be true amir dreams about his father wrestling the bear and says i can never tell babar from the bear this symbol highlights amir's unshakable faith in his father's strength but it also shows that he's intimidated by his father he perceives babar as strong but ferocious the bear symbolizes a duality in babar and this duality is deepened further when amir discovers babar's indiscretions and lies babar had developed a reputation in the community as a generous man building an orphanage a man with unquestionable integrity and yet in his personal life babar was harboring shame for his infidelity with ali's wife and for fathering a secret illegitimate child later in the novel when amir is being beaten by the taliban he loses consciousness and begins to dream of babar wrestling the bear again amir says he looks up at me and i see he's me i'm wrestling the bear perhaps this revelation of amir's represents that he's taken on the characteristics of babar that amir 2 struggles with this duality while outwardly amir is a successful author attempting to adopt a traumatized afghani orphan inwardly he's still wrestling his own shame for betraying hassan as a child the flying of kites possibly the most prominent and multi-layered of all the symbols in the novel is the flying of kites kite fighting and kites throughout the novel represent the dichotomy of beauty and violence they represent the novel's key theme of betrayal and redemption but they also represent hope while flying their kite as children amir and hassan are bonded together as it takes both of them to successfully steer their kite to victory their relationship is also represented in their kite fighting roles with the mirror directing the kite while hassan performs the servant or assistant role holding the string and retrieving the losing kite before it lands this is known as running the kite but the tournament victory that was supposed to be a glorious and joyous celebration for amir and hassan is horribly corrupted and defiled when hassan is raped in an alleyway attempting to retrieve a mirror's winning kite amir's in action when he witnesses sasan's rape transforms the kite into a symbol of betrayal amir does not fly another kite for the rest of the nobel or at least until the very end because of his deep-seated regret that stems from this moment amir spends the rest of the novel regretting his betrayal and eventually attempts to seek redemption by saving hassan's orphan son sohrab from the clutches of the taliban it's not until the end of the book that amir flies another kite and this time it's with saharab in the park in california but this time amir has switched positions and he has taken on the servant role of holding the string as he teaches sohorab to direct the kite in this instance the kite represents amir's redemption as he embodies hassan's former role and takes on the fatherly responsibility of raising and protecting sahara another layer to the kite's symbolism at the end of the novel is one of hope not long after amir's regret filled childhood victory as the kite-fighting champion kite fighting is banned in afghanistan by the soviets just as emir abandons hope for any kind of personal redemption kites never again fill the skies of afghanistan as the age-old tradition is abandoned but 30 years later amongst a burgeoning afghan immigrant community in california several traditional kites are flying in the sky when amir and sahrab fly theirs perhaps the kites here symbolise hope hope that these immigrants who have fled the horrors of war have found safety a new home one where they can keep their traditions alive hope for amir and sahrab whose relationship is unstable due to the trauma inflicted upon sahara hope for a brighter future i hope this video has been helpful and educational in some way and if you enjoyed it please let me know in the comments below if there are any other books or plot summaries you'd like me to cover on this channel please let me know [Music] you