Commentary/Response to the text
“To him, the words on the page were a scramble of codes, indecipherable, mysterious. Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys.” (Hosseini 30)
By saying “I held all the keys” Amir means that he is able to open Hassan to a new world. Since Hassan can’t read, he finds the separate worlds in books “indecipherable” or “mysterious”. This causes him to live only by what he sees in his everyday life. But, since Amir can read, he is able to unlock many different worlds inside these stories for Hassan by reading them out loud to him.
“In Kabul, fighting kites was a little like going to war. As with any war, you had to ready yourself for battle.” (Hosseini 50)
This excerpt displays both the themes of father bond relationship as well as the recurring theme of masculinity. It is shown that Amir’s father doesn’t appreciate how soft Amir is and …show more content…
I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.” ( Hosseini 136)
This metaphor uses the comparison of America being a river to represent the power that this new country had to wash away the painful memories of what came before. Similarly to how a river flows in one direction and keeps pushing regardless of what’s in its path, American keeps pushing forward in areas such as innovation without regard for the consequences. The irate tone in which this quote is stated gives off a feeling of regret for they way Amir treated Hassan and all of the mistakes he made as well as a yearning to start his life fresh without any of the pain from his old life.
“We all had our reasons for not adopting. Soraya had hers, the general his, and I had this: that perhaps something, someone, somewhere had decided to deny me fatherhood for the things I had done. Maybe this was punishment, and perhaps justly so.” (Hosseini