The Kite Runner

Question 1

‘something, someone, somewhere, had decided…

Answer 1

…to deny me fatherhood for the things I had done. Maybe this was punishment, and perhaps justly so’

Question 2

‘I could almost feel the emptiness in…

Answer 2

…Soraya’s womb, like it was a living breathing thing.’

Question 3

(America is) ‘someplace with no ghosts, …

Answer 3

…no memories and no sin’

Question 4

‘there is only one sin, only one…

Answer 4

…And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.’ (Baba is guilty of the theft of Ali’s wife, and perhaps of depriving Amir of self-worth/confidence)

Question 5

Amir is the only thing not ‘…’ to Baba’s ‘liking’.

Answer 5

‘moulded’
Almost every story of Baba includes him affecting the world around him - Amir is a stark juxtaposition to this.

Question 6

‘I always felt like Baba…

Answer 6

…hated me a little’

Question 7

‘I had killed [Baba’s]…

Answer 7

…beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I?’

Question 8

‘Children aren’t colouring books…

Answer 8

…You don’t get to fill them in with your favourite colours’

Question 9

‘A boy who won’t stand up for himself…

Answer 9

…becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything’

Question 10

‘Hassan steps in and…

Answer 10

fends [the neighbourhood boys] off’

Question 11

How does Amir respond to Hassan’s finding of a plot hole in his story?

Answer 11

He thinks: ‘What does he know, that illiterate Hazara? He’ll never be anything but a cook’

Question 12

How does Amir lord his literacy over Hassan?

Answer 12

When Hassan asks what ‘imbecile’ means, Amir misleads and ridicules him, telling him it means ‘smart, intelligent’, saying ‘Hassan is an imbecile’

Question 13

‘But he’s not my friend…

Answer 13

I almost blurted out. He’s my servant’

Question 14

‘Why did I play with Hassan only …

Answer 14

…when no one else was around?’

Question 15

‘I wondered briefly…

Answer 15

…what it must be like to live with such an ingrained sense of one’s place in a hierarchy’

Question 16

‘he was just a Hazara, …

Answer 16

… wasn’t he?

Question 17

‘I ran because…

Answer 17

…I was a coward’

Question 18

How does Amir describe his presents?

Answer 18

‘blood money’

Question 19

‘Baba loved the idea…

Answer 19

…of America’

Question 20

In what chapter does Amir receive the phone call from Rahim Khan?

Answer 20

14

Question 21

in what chapter does Amir visit Rahim Khan in Peshawar?

Answer 21

15 - 18

Question 22

‘fifteen years after I had buried him…

Answer 22

…I was learning that Baba had been a thief’

Question 23

Amir: ‘like father, …

Answer 23

… like son’
His indignation is misplaced, his actions were far worse.

Question 24

What happens when Farid accuses Amir of always having been a ‘tourist’ in Afghanistan?

Answer 24

• He has a bout of motion sickness.
• It reflects his weakness and inability to cope with the pressures of life.

Question 25

In what chapter does Amir receive Hassan's letter?

Answer 25

17

Question 26

'a towering...

Answer 26

... Pashtun specimen'

Question 27

How does Amir describe Sanaubar?

Answer 27

'a beautiful but notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonourable reputation'