91 pages • 3 hours read
Khaled HosseiniThe Kite Runner
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 18-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 18 Summary
At a tea house, Amir stews about the various truths Rahim Khan has burdened him with. He considers the moments when Baba seemed to favor Hassan and the surgery to fix Hassan’s harelip. Amir reflects on the ways Baba’s secret had wounded so many: “[...] from me the right to know I had a brother, from Hassan his identity, and from Ali his honor” (197). Now, Baba’s legendary reputation—his nang and namoos, or honor and pride—are called into question. Realizing that Rahim Khan has given him a chance to redeem not only himself but Baba, too, Amir decides to go to Kabul to find Sohrab. He returns to Rahim and tells him he will bring the boy to the Caldwells. Rahim tells Amir that he will pray for him.
Chapter 19 Summary
While traveling in a taxi with an Afghan native named Farid whom Rahim Khan put him in contact with, Amir struggles with his car sickness. He is disguised, dressed in a pakol—a traditional Afghan cap—and fake beard to protect himself from Taliban persecution. Farid and Amir quickly fall into an antagonistic relationship concerning Amir’s connection to Afghanistan. Farid has lived the opposite of Amir’s life, having fought against the Russian occupation with his father and lost two of his daughters to war. He bears the scars of Afghanistan’s strife, having lost three fingers on his left hand. Farid is dismissive of Amir’s return to his home country, stating that Amir is no different than many others who return to Afghanistan to broker family estates, benefitting from the war-torn land.
Amir barely recognizes the city, many of the homes reduced to bombed out ruins, its sugar cane fields stripped and altogether missing. When they arrive in Jalalabad, Farid’s brother, Wahid, takes them in for the night. Wahid lives in a flat with his three young boys and his wife. When Wahid asks Amir what he is doing in Afghanistan, Farid insults Amir, but Wahid snaps at him. Amir admits he has come to find his nephew, a Hazara boy, to take him back to Peshawar. Wahid calls him a true Afghan. Later Farid apologizes, saying that he will help him find Sohrab.
While Amir eats, he notices that Wahid’s children are watching him. Assuming they are admiring his watch, Amir leaves it with them after asking permission from a reluctant Wahid. Later Amir overhears Wahid and his wife arguing in the kitchen. Amir comes to understand that there was not enough food left for Wahid’s family, Amir having been served the lion’s share of their food. The boys he assumed had been coveting his watch were starving. Amir leaves a sum of money beneath one of their mattresses before leaving with Farid.
Chapters 18-19 Analysis
Farid and Wahid serve as new foils for Amir and Hassan. It is fitting that these new foils are also brothers, echoes of the brothers Hassan and Amir might have become in Afghanistan. Amir is tested constantly by Farid, who reminds Amir of his privilege at every turn, repeatedly rebukes Amir’s return, tests his knowledge of traditional home remedies for car sickness, and even bears the scars of ground wars fought against the Soviet invasion that Amir and his father fled. Farid goes as far as to insult Amir in Wahid’s home, notably breaking with Afghani custom, which Wahid ferociously upholds.
Farid becomes an ally, however, as Amir begins to earn recognition for bravery, impressing both Farid and Wahid as he rises to the level of “an honorable man [...] [a] true Afghan” (208). This shift signals new character development, as Amir is finally accepted on his own merit. Although he is out of step with Afghan culture—he comments to Farid, “I feel like a tourist in my own country” (203)—Amir has nonetheless gained the admiration of men in much the same way Baba’s achievements and great feats garnered him his own reputation. However, Amir is no longer in Baba’s shadow. Now he is following his own path to act honorably toward those around him, even as he defies tradition at various points. By risking his life for Sohrab, a Hazara, giving the children his watch, and leaving a large sum of money for Wahid, Amir is redefining nang and namoos.
While Wahid is perhaps plainer to see as a good man, Farid’s decency is more coded and takes longer to show itself over the development of his friendship with Amir. Although he is wounded and jaded by a lifetime of war, Farid’s disfigurement continues a motif that runs through The Kite Runner, linking characters like Ali, Hassan, and the blind seer who reads Hassan’s fortune in a flashback as innately good people marked as such by the scars they bear. As the story progresses, Farid’s selfless actions in defense of the orphans in Karteh-Seh, his role as a guide to Amir, and his search for Sohrab depict a quiet goodness that is without ego.
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