Amir seems to be an independent child who is far from his father in personality though he still looks up to him. He follows the lessons Baba has told him and doesn’t seem to be rebellious. In some ways, though, Amir is scared of his father and looks up to him as a strong, frightening person who is quite powerful; not just in build but also in his lingo.

Questions Chapter 1-5

1. So far the book has explored Amir and Hassan’s friendship and Amir’s relationship with his father. It shows us that Amir isn’t very close with his father and spends most of his time playing with Hassan; his servant.
2. Hosseini starts the novel off by Amir narrating his regret to get the reader hooked into the book. It continues by going all the way back to his childhood but the question of what he regrets is always in the back of the reader’s head.
3. The relationship between Amir and Hassan is weird. Technically, Hassan is Amir’s servant but he has known him since he was first born. They seem very close but there is a sense of hierarchy between the two and Amir is on top. Amir can also say some nasty, hurtful things about Hassan behind his back but even if he said them to Hassan’s face he would still be his friend because he is his follower.
4. A cleft lip is a deformity in the top lip which make it look like it has been pinned up in the middle.

Questions Chapter 6-10

1. The red and blue kite in the start of the book symbolise the kite fight between Hassan and Assef in the kite fighting competition. This is significant because the events that happened after this are a huge turning point in the plot with Amir not being friends with Hassan anymore and him moving away.
2. When Amir says  “‘I opened my mouth and almost said something…The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had.” he means that if he had shouted at Assef to stop attacking Hassan their friendship might have stayed intact and Hassan wouldn’t have moved away.
3. The connection between Amir and the monster in Hassan’s dream is that Amir is actually the monster. The dream is ironic because in the dream Amir is the hero and he shows everyone there is no monster but when Hassan is being attacked Amir is cowardly and doesn’t show the people of Kabul how much of a hero he is.
4. It is significant that Amir picks a fight with Hassan in front of the pomegranate tree because it has “Amir and Hassan, sultans of Kabul” inscribed into it. It is their tree and an important landmark in their friendship where Amir would read stories to Hassan. This is also where Amir finalizes their friendship by throwing pomegranates at Hassan and calling him a coward.
5. My opinion of Amir has changed a lot over the duration of the novel up until chapter 11. At first I though he was a harmless kid who liked playing games with his best friend but now I realise that Amir is malicious and cruel with all of the hate he has brought towards Hassan even after he was attacked and vulnerable.

Questions Chapter 11-14

1. Amir and Baba are fleeing Afghanistan because of the Russian forces that are now all over the country.
2. The quote “America was different. America was a river roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far.” is spoken by Amir. It reveals that Amir prefers America over Afghanistan and that there was so much substance and things to do in America that you could just forget your sins.
3. Amir gets gifted a new car for his graduation but this present is nothing in comparison to the pride Baba feels for him.
4. When Baba says “It may be unfair, but what happens in a single day can change the course of a whole lifetime.”

Questions Chapter 15-20

1. Amir believes that cliches are sometimes true. The ‘elephant in the room’ when he visits Rahim Khan is that Rahim Khan knows about what Amir did to Hassan after he got attacked and Amir knows he knows this.
2. Hassan is dead and got shot by the Taliban. He had a wife who is also dead and he met his mother and he also had a kid called Sohrab who is in Kabul.
3. The letter to Amir from Hassan has quite a hopeful tone as Hassan was talking about how he now has a family and his own home. Amir doesn’t know what to say about the letter as it is a lot of news.
4. Amir doesn’t want to go and save Sohrab at first as he sees it as a death wish and doesn’t want to go back to Kabul. It is quite fair for Rahim Khan to have this as his dying wish as he knows how much Amir as wronged Hassan and the least he could do is to save his son.
5. The clues that hint at the secret in Ch 17-18 are that Baba treated Hassan as his own child and almost seemed to love him more than Amir because Hassan is really his child.
6. The realisation Amir comes to in Ch 19 is that Hassan is really his step-brother and Baba’s son.
7. Zaman defends his actions of sending children off by explaining that if he doesn’t give 1 child the Taliban take 10. They also pay him for the children and he needs that money to feed the rest of the children and keep them alive.