The Kite Runner Summaries Chapter 15-18

Chapter Fifteen
As Amir rode through the streets of Peshawar in a cab, he remembered being there in 1981 as a refugee. The city was bustling with vendors, families, and children. Rahim Khan was staying in the Afghan section. Amir had last seen him the night before he and Baba fled Kabul, and has barely spoken with him since. When Rahim Khan answered the door, Amir saw how emaciated his illness had made him. Still, Rahim Khan's face brightened in Amir's presence and at the news of his marriage fifteen years earlier. He did not remember the notebook he gave Amir.
Rahim Khan described how the Taliban was terrorizing Afghanistan, though they had been received initially as heroes. Once, at a soccer game, a man next to him cheered too loudly. A Talib pistol whipped Rahim Khan, thinking he had made the noise. People in Kabul were afraid to leave their houses because of frequent shootings and bombings. Even Baba's orphanage had been destroyed, with many children inside it. Then Rahim Khan told Amir that he did not have long to live. He laughed at Amir's offer to take him to America, saying he accepted his fate. Then he revealed to Amir that for all the years he lived in Baba's house after 1981, Hassan lived there with him. He told Amir that he needed a favor of him, but first wanted to tell him about Hassan.

Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen is in Rahim Khan's voice; he is telling Amir the story of what happened to Hassan. He went searching for Hassan in 1986 because he was dreadfully lonely, so many of his relatives and friends having been killed or fled since 1981. He was managing to take care of the house and himself despite his age and arthritis, but when the news of Baba's death reached him, he felt the weight of it all was too much. He drove to Hazarajat, where Ali and Hassan had been living, and was directed to a village outside Bamiyan. He found Hassan, now in his early twenties, and his pregnant wife, Farzana, living in a small hut. Hassan was overcome with joy when he saw Rahim Khan. He told him that Ali had been killed by a land mine two years before. He asked many questions about Amir. Initially, Hassan and Farzana refused to move to Baba's house, but then Rahim told him of Baba's death. Hassan cried all through the night and in the morning he agreed to move in with Rahim Khan.

Despite Rahim Khan's protestations, Hassan and Farzana stayed in the servants' hut and did all the chores. Hassan also wore black for forty days in mourning for Baba. In the fall, their daughter was stillborn; they buried her and Hassan placed a flower on her grave every day. Then in 1990, Farzana became pregnant again and Hassan's mother, Sanaubar, came to find him. She collapsed at the gate of the house; when they carried her inside and removed her burqa, they discovered that the former beauty was malnourished, had no teeth, and had grotesque scars all over her face from being cut. Hassan ran out of the house and was gone for hours, but when he returned he accepted Sanaubar as his mother. She became healthy and a part of the family; she even delivered Farzana and Hassan's son. Hassan named him Sohrab, after the hero in his favorite story from the book Amir used to read him. Sohrab became inseparable from Sanaubar, whom he called Sasa. Four years later, Sanaubar died peacefully. Hassan tried to give Sohrab a good childhood despite the constant fighting and danger in Kabul. He even took him kite running in the winter. When the Taliban took over, most people celebrated, but Hassan knew Hazaras' lives were in peril. He was right; in 1998 the Taliban "massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif."
Summary
Chapter Seventeen
After Rahim Khan finished telling the story about him and Hassan, he handed Amir a letter and a photograph. The photograph was of Hassan and Sohrab. In the letter, Hassan described the violence and injustice in Afghanistan. One day, Farzana spoke slightly loudly in the market and a Talib beat her so hard that she fell down and was bruised for days. Despite the terror, Hassan said, Sohrab was a healthy and smart boy; Hassan had made sure he was literate and knew how to shoot a slingshot as well as his father. Hassan ended his letter by expressing his wish to see Amir in Afghanistan again. Rahim Khan explained that the letter was written six months before. A month after he had arrived in Peshawar, he received news of Hassan's death from a friend. After he left Kabul, word spread that a Hazara family was living alone in Baba's house. One day, the Taliban came to the house and demanded that they leave. When Hassan protested, they took him out to the street, forced him to kneel, and shot him in the back of his head. Farzana ran out screaming and they shot her dead as well. The news devastated Amir, who could only whisper, "No. No. No."

Rahim Khan explained that the Taliban now occupied Baba's house and they were not held accountable for Hassan and Farzana's murders. Then he told Amir that he real reason he made Amir come to Peshawar was to bring Sohrab there. An American couple named Thomas and Betty Caldwell ran a goodwill organization there and would take care of him. When Amir protested and suggested Rahim Khan hire someone to find Sohrab, Rahim Khan was insulted. He told Amir, "I think we both know why it has to be you, don't we?" Then he asked Amir if he had become what Baba feared so many years before, a person who "can't stand up to anything." He said it was his dying wish for Amir personally to bring Sohrab to Peshawar. When Amir continued to refuse, Rahim Khan revealed a monumental secret. Amir and Hassan were half-brothers. Ali was infertile, as evidenced by the fact that his first wife bore him no children, but bore her second husband three daughters. It was Baba who had gotten Sanaubar pregnant, making Hassan his son. Rahim Khan explained that no one but himself, Baba, Ali, and Sanaubar had known about the matter in order to preserve their honor. Hassan never found out. Amir was furious at all of them for keeping the secret. He screamed at Rahim Khan and left the apartment.
Chapter Eighteen
After storming out of Rahim Khan's apartment, Amir had tea at a local café. He felt like a foreigner in his own life. Now that he knew Hassan was his half-brother, it seemed absurd that he had not realized it before. Baba had always treated Hassan like a son not just because he cared for him, but because Hassan was really his son. Amir wondered how Baba could have broken his own cardinal rule about not lying, how he could have lived with himself after shaming Ali.

Suddenly, Baba did not seem like such a shining example of righteousness. Amir now understood that Rahim Khan had called him to Peshawar to pay not only for his betrayal of Hassan, but for Baba's betrayal of Ali. Amir wondered if he was to blame for Hassan and Ali's deaths because he was the one who drove them out of the house and split up the family. Finally, at thirty-eight years old, Amir was ready to take responsibility for his actions. He returned to Rahim Khan's apartment to find him praying and told him he would bring Sohrab to Peshawar.

WEEKEND OBJECTIVES

The Kite Runner: Chapters 19-22

The Kite Runner Test (Closed Book) Monday December 14, 2009

KITE RUNNER PROJECT SITES

REMEMBER FOR YOUR GROUP PROJECTS, YOU MUST RELATE THE INFORMATION YOU GATHER WITH AN EXAMPLE FROM THE BOOK.

Taliban- http://middleeast.about.com/od/afghanistan/ss/me080914a.htm

Chronological History and Women of Afghanistan: http://www.afghan-web.com/history/


http://www.gl.iit.edu/govdocs/afghanistan/EthnicityAndTribe.html Pashtun vs. Hazara


http://www.religionfacts.com/islam/comparison_charts/islamic_sects.htm Sunni and Shia

http://www.islamfortoday.com/shia.htm

WEEK 12 VOCABULARY

· Allah – surpreme god
· Quran – holy book
· Shari’ah – set of practical laws to regulate their daily lives
· Caliph – religious and political successor to Muhammad
· Jihad – fair, defensive warfare
· Shia – group that only accepts the descendants of Ali as the true rulers of Islam
· Sunni – accepts only the descendants of the Umayyads as the true rulers of Islam
· Sultan – holder of power
· Mosque – muslim houses of worship
· Bazaar – covered markert
· Dowry – gift of money or property

The Kite Runner Summaries

THERE WILL BE A TEST ON TUESDAY

Chapter One
The Kite Runner begins with our thus-far nameless protagonist explaining that the past cannot be forgotten. A single moment in time defined him and has been affecting him for the last twenty-six years. This moment was in 1975 when he was twelve years old and hid near a crumbling alleyway in his hometown of Kabul, Afghanistan. When the protagonist's friend, Rahim Khan, calls him out of the blue, he knows that his past sins are coming back to haunt him even in the new life he has built in San Francisco. He remembers Hassan, whom he calls "the harelipped kite runner," saying "For you, a thousand times over." Rahim's words also echo in his head, "There is a way to be good again." These two phrases will become focal points for the rest of the novel and our protagonist's story.
Chapter Two
The protagonist remembers sitting in trees with Hassan when they were boys and annoying the neighbors. Any mischief they perpetrated was the protagonist's idea, but even when Hassan's father, Ali, scolded Hassan, he never told on the protagonist. Hassan's father was a servant to the protagonist's father, Baba and lived in a small servant's house on his property. Baba's house was widely considered the most beautiful one in Kabul. There Baba held large dinner parties and entertained friends, including Rahim Khan, in his smoking room. Though the protagonist was often surrounded by adults, he never knew his mother because she died in childbirth. Hassan never knew his mother, either, because she eloped with a performance troupe a few days after his birth. The protagonist always felt a special affinity with Hassan because he too was motherless. It was not a surprise that Hassan's mother, Sanaubar, left Ali. The only things these first cousins had in common were being of the Hazara ethnicity and the Shi'a religion. Otherwise, Sanaubar was nineteen years younger than Ali, gorgeous, and reportedly promiscuous. Meanwhile Ali was a pious man afflicted by paralysis of the lower face muscles and a crippled leg. Rumor had it that Sanaubar taunted Ali for his disabilities just as cruelly as strangers and refused to even hold the infant Hassan because of his cleft lip.
One night, after hearing so many insults thrown at Hassan because he was Hazara, the protagonist secretly read a summary of Hazara history. He found out that the Hazara people were descended from Moguls, owing to their flattened, "Chinese-like" facial features. The Hazaras were brutally oppressed throughout their history for being Shi'a instead of Sunni Muslim. His own people, the Pashtun, oppressed the Hazaras. The protagonist wondered why Baba had never told him any of this. He pitied Hassan for being a hated minority because he was an unusually gentle and kind person, "incapable of hurting anyone." In lieu of the boys' mothers, a kindly woman nursed and sang to both of them. Ali used to remind the boys that they were bound together because they had "fed from the same breasts." The boys were indeed like brothers. The protagonist explains that his first word was "Baba" while Hassan's was his name, "Amir." He says that the event that transpired in 1975, to which he alluded in Chapter One, was "already laid in those first words."
Chapter Three
Amir describes Baba as being a huge and intimidating man who stood six feet, five inches tall and was purported to have wrestled a bear because of the long scars on his back. Despite his huge size, Baba was softhearted. He even devoted three years to funding and building an orphanage. Amir was proud to have such a successful father. Together with Rahim Khan, Baba owned several successful businesses and he had also married well; Amir's mother, Sofia Akrami, was a highly respected and educated poetry professor of royal descent. However, Baba's successes took him away from home and from Amir most of the time. When he was present, he was usually aloof.
One day in school, a Mullah or Muslim teacher told Amir and his classmates that drinking was a sin. When he got home, Amir asked Baba, a frequent drinker, about what the teacher had said. Baba told Amir that ultra religious people were not only wrong in their convictions but dangerous. He said, prophetically, "God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands." Then he explained to Amir that the only sin is stealing, whether a piece of property or a life. Baba knew about having things stolen firsthand; his father's life was stolen by a thief who stabbed him to death while robbing his house. Amir was grateful that Baba spoke to him so personally, but felt a simultaneous guilt for not being more like his father. He always felt that Baba hated him a little for 'killing' his mother as he was born.
Because Baba was aloof and often absent, Amir turned his attention to books. By the age of eleven, he could recite more poetry than anyone in his class at school. Baba wanted Amir to be an athlete like him, but Amir was not talented at soccer and did not have an interest in Baba's choice sport. Once, Baba took Amir to the yearly Buzkashi tournament. Buzkashi is a traditional Afghani sport in which a "highly skilled horseman" called a chapandaz from one team must retrieve an animal carcass from inside the other team's stampede and drop it in a special scoring circle while being chased by chapandaz from the other team who try to steal the carcass from him. As they sat watching the tournament, Baba pointed out Henry Kissinger, who was sitting in the bleachers, to Amir. Before Amir had a chance to ask Baba who Henry Kissinger was, one chapandaz fell off his horse and was trampled to death. Amir cried all the way home while Baba tried unsuccessfully to hide his disgust at his son's weak disposition. Back at home, Amir overheard Baba complaining to Rahim Khan about how Amir was always lost in his books and did not stand up for himself. Rahim Khan told Baba that he was self-centered, but Baba maintained that Amir was "missing something." Amir heard him say, "If I hadn't seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I'd never believe he's my son."

Chapter Four
Chapter four opens with the story of how Ali became a part of Baba's family. In 1933, the same year Baba was born, two intoxicated young drivers struck and killed a Hazara couple. Only their five-year-old son, Ali, survived. Baba's father was asked to decide the young men's punishment. After sending the young men to serve in the army, he took Ali into his household. Baba and Ali grew up as quasi-brothers, just like Amir and Hassan a generation later. But despite their closeness, Baba never considered Ali his friend just as Amir never considered Hassan his. According to Amir, their ethnic and religious differences kept them from being true friends or family. At the same time, all these years later, Amir says Hassan is "the face of Afghanistan" to him. The boys played and got into mischief together like any other two boys, except that Hassan made Amir's breakfast, cleaned his room, and did all his other household chores. While Amir went to school, Hassan stayed home to do housework with Ali. After school, Amir would read to Hassan, who loved books despite his illiteracy.
One day, Amir pretended to read to Hassan from a book but made up his own story to trick Hassan. When Amir finished, Hassan clapped and told him it was the best story he had ever read him. Amir was so happy that he kissed Hassan on the cheek, and that night he wrote his first short story. It was about a man who had a cup that turned his tears into pearls. The man grew greedy and tried to find ways to make himself cry as much as possible. It ended with him sitting on top of a mountain of pearls, holding his wife's slain body. Amir took the story to Baba, but he refused to read it. Rahim Khan read the story and gave Amir a piece of paper on which he had written "Bravo." The rest of his note explained that Amir had achieved irony in his story, which is something many writers never manage to master. He encouraged Amir to put his talent to use. In the letter, he called Amir his friend, and for a moment Amir wished that Rahim Khan was his father instead of Baba. He was so overcome with guilt that he vomited.
Amir rushed down to where Hassan was sleeping on a mattress with Ali and woke up his friend. After hearing the story, Hassan proclaimed that Amir would be world-famous someday. However, he also pointed out a plot hole in the story. He asked why the protagonist did not just smell an onion to make himself cry instead of killing his wife. Amir was speechless.

Chapter Five
Before Amir could respond to Hassan's criticism of his story, gunfire erupted outside. The boys huddled together with Ali until Baba came home. For the first time, Amir saw fear on his father's face. He was even glad for the violence for a moment, because Baba held him and Hassan close. The events of that night, July 17, 1973, were a precursor to the end of life as Afghanis knew it. What would follow was the Communist coup d'etat of 1978, followed by the Russian occupation beginning in December of 1979. On that July night, the king's brother, Daoud Khan, had seized Zahir Shah's kingdom while he was away. Afghanistan had gone overnight from a monarchy to a republic. Tired of listening to the radio news, Amir and Hassan went to climb their favorite tree. On the way, a young "sociopath" named Assef and his friends confronted them. He taunted Hassan for being a Hazara; Assef also had a habit of taunting Ali, whom he called Babalu. He praised Hitler and then said that he wanted to finish what Hitler started and rid Afghanistan of Hazaras. He called Amir and Baba "a disgrace to Afghanistan" for taking in Hazaras. Just as Assef threatened to punch Amir with his brass knuckles, Hassan pointed his slingshot at the bully and threatened to take out his eye. Assef and his friends retreated, but promised to come back for Amir and Hassan later.
On Hassan's birthday, Baba summoned him to the house as usual to collect his present. To Hassan, Amir, and Ali's shock, Baba had hired a plastic surgeon to correct Hassan's harelip. Amir was jealous that Baba was giving Hassan such special attention. The surgery went well and Hassan could finally smile an unbroken smile. Ironically, Amir explains, it was soon after that Hassan stopped smiling for good.

Chapter Six
Chapter six opens in winter. Amir loved the icy season because the school was shut down for its duration. But he loved winter even more because then he flew kites with Baba, the only activity that consistently brought them closer. The pinnacle of winter for every boy in Kabul was the yearly kite-fighting tournament. Every year, Amir and Hassan saved their allowances to buy materials to make their kites, but they were not very good craftsmen. When Baba realized this, he started taking them to Saifo's to buy their kites, always buying the boys equally good kites. In the tournament, contestants used their kites' glass strings to cut others' kite strings until only one triumphant kite remained in the sky. Hassan was Amir's assistant. When kites fell out of the sky, especially the last kite to fall, those not flying their own kites would chase them and try to catch them-they were called "kite runners." Hassan was an exceptionally good kite runner. Once, Hassan convinced Amir to run the opposite way that a fallen kite was floating and sit under a tree with him to wait. While they sat, Amir taunted Hassan a little. Amir was unsettled to see Hassan's face change the way it sometimes did, as though there was an unfamiliar, sinister, hidden face behind his usual expression. After that uncomfortable moment, however, Hassan's face changed back to normal and the coveted kite came floating into his open arms.
In the winter of 1975, Amir watched Hassan run his last kite. That year, there was to be the biggest kite tournament the boys had ever seen. Boys from several neighborhoods would be competing in Amir and Hassan's neighborhood, Wazir Akhbar Khan. One evening, Baba suggested that Amir would win the tournament this year. After that, Amir became determined to win so that he could finally prove to Baba that he was a winner and a worthy son. The night before the tournament, Hassan and Amir huddled under blankets playing cards while Baba, Rahim Khan, and Assef's father met in the next room. Upon hearing that Afghanistan might get television under president Daoud Khan, Amir promised to buy Hassan a television set one day. Hassan responded that he would put it on the table in his and Ali's hut. Amir was dismayed than Hassan had accepted his fate of always living in the hut and being a servant. As though he read Amir's mind, Hassan told him, "I like where I live."

Chapter Seven
The morning of the tournament, Hassan described his dream to Amir. In it, the two boys amazed the people of Kabul by swimming in a lake and proving it contained no monster. Then the boys were lauded as heroes and became the lake's owners. When Amir said he didn't want to fly a kite, Hassan told him, "no monster," and convinced him to proceed. Amir and Hassan were a great team and theirs was one of the last two kites left in the sky. Their hands were bloodied from holding the sharp string, but their hearts were filled with hope of winning the tournament. Amir focused hard and to his surprise, he cut the last, blue kite and won. The true victory for Amir was seeing Baba hollering with pride. Hassan took off to run the blue kite and Amir followed after bringing his kite home. A merchant told Amir that he had seen Hassan running by with the blue kite. He finally found Hassan facing Assef and his two friends, who were trying to steal the kite from him. Assef told Hassan that even Amir considered him worthless, but Hassan defended himself and Amir, saying that they were friends. Amir stood frozen in shock as the fight began.
The chapter is interrupted with Amir's memories, which appear in italics. The first is of Ali's words about his kinship with Hassan because they had the same nursemaid. The second is of Amir and Hassan visiting a fortune teller who gets a look of doom on his face while reading Hassan's fortune. Next is a dream, also in italics. Amir is lost in a snowstorm until he takes Hassan's outstretched hand in his. Suddenly the boys are in a bright, grassy field, looking up at colorful kites.
Amir transports us back to the moment when he hid in the alley, watching Assef and his friends seizing Hassan. He remembers the blue kite and Hassan's pants lying on the ground. Assef told both his friends to rape Hassan, but they refused. They consented to hold Hassan down while Assef raped him. Amir saw "the look of the lamb," the look of defeat, on Hassan's face.
The chapter is interrupted by another italicized memory. Baba, Ali, and their sons gathered in the yard to sacrifice a lamb for Eid-e-Qorban, in honor of the prophet Ibrahim's near sacrifice of his son. A mullah makes the meat halal and the tradition is to give one third to family, one third to friends, and one third to the poor. Baba's tradition is to give all the meat to the poor because he says, "The rich are fat enough already." Just before the mullah slaughtered the lamb, Amir saw its look of acceptance, as though it understood that its death was for "a higher purpose." The look would haunt him forever after.
We return to Hassan's rape. Amir turned away, weeping, still hearing Assef's grunts issuing from the alleyway. Instead of standing up for Hassan the way his friend had for him so many times, he fled. Amir tried to convince himself that he ran out of fear, but he knew that he felt Hassan to be his sacrificial lamb, the one to suffer for him so that he could live happily. In spite of himself, Amir thought, "He was just a Hazara, wasn't he?"
Some time later, Amir found Hassan walking down the streets, holding the blue kite. He pretended that he hadn't seen the rape, but he was terrified that Hassan would know or worse, would show him devotion despite knowing. Hassan said nothing about the rape even though he was bleeding through his pants. The boys returned home and proud Baba wrapped Amir in his arms. Amir was so overjoyed that he momentarily forgot that he had just betrayed Hassan.
Chapter Eight
After the rape, Hassan did not spend time with Amir although he still did his chores. A worried Ali asked Amir about Hassan's torn shirt and bloodied pants the night of the tournament, but Amir pretended not to know what happened. That night, he asked Baba if they could go to Jalalabad; ever since Amir won the tournament, Baba had not denied him anything. When Baba suggested they invite Hassan along, Amir told him that Hassan was sick. Amir looked forward to having Baba to himself, but Baba invited three vans' worth of relatives and friends along. As they drove along in the car, one friend's twin daughters recounted Amir's victory at the kite-fighting tournament. At this, Amir's carsickness overwhelmed him and he vomited. As they aired out the van on the roadside, Amir saw Hassan's bloodied pants in his head.
Finally, they reached Kaka Homayoun's house in Jalalabad. Even though Amir finally had the intimacy with Baba he had wanted all his life, his guilt made him feel emptier than ever. As Amir, Baba, and everyone else slept in the same room, Amir confessed to the darkness, "I watched Hassan get raped." No one heard him. He realized that he was the monster in Hassan's dream and had dragged Hassan to the bottom of the lake. That night, Amir's insomnia began.
A week later, Hassan asked Amir to climb the hill with him and read to him. When they reached their favorite spot, Amir changed his mind and the boys walked back down. After that incident, Amir's memories of the winter of 1975 are unclear. He could not wait for winter to end and school to begin, even though he had fun with Baba. He made sure to never be in the same room as Hassan, although his loyal friend kept trying to make things better between them. One day, after Amir refused to walk to the market with him, Hassan asked Amir what he had done wrong. Amir told Hassan that he should stop harassing him. After that, Hassan left him alone. One day as they were planting tulips, Amir asked Baba if he would get new servants. Baba was furious and threatened to strike Amir if he ever suggested it again. Ali and Hassan were their family, he said.
When school started, Amir was relieved to have homework to keep him busy. Then one day, he asked Hassan to climb the hill with him to hear a new story. Hassan joined him eagerly. After they picked pomegranates, Amir asked Hassan what he would do if he threw a pomegranate at him. When Hassan said nothing, he threw the fruit at him and demanded that Hassan throw one back. As Hassan refused to fight back, Amir threw countless pomegranates at him until he was stained in blood-red juice. Finally, Hassan smashed a pomegranate against his own forehead and asked, "Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?" before leaving.
That summer, Amir turned thirteen. Even though the coldness between him and Baba had returned, his father threw him a lavish birthday party with a guest list of four hundred people. Assef showed up with his parents and charmed Baba. He invited Amir to come play volleyball at his house and to bring along Hassan, but Amir refused. Then Assef offered Amir his gift, a book he picked out himself. After awkwardly excusing himself, he unwrapped the present alone; it was a biography of Hitler, which he threw into the bushes. Rahim Khan found him and told him a story. He had almost married a Hazara woman, but his family was outraged at the proposition and sent her and her family out of town. Then Rahim Khan told Amir that he could confide in him, but Amir could not bring himself to tell his friend what he had done. Rahim Khan gave him his present, a notebook for his stories. Then they hurried back to the party to watch the fireworks. In one flash of light, Amir saw Hassan serving drinks to Assef and Wali. He saw Assef playfully punch Hassan in the chest before, to his relief, the light faded.
Chapter Nine
The morning after his birthday party, Amir opened his presents joylessly. To him, each gift was tainted with Hassan's shed blood. He knew Baba never would have thrown him such an extravagant party if he had not won the tournament, and to him the victory was inseparable from Hassan's rape. Baba himself gave Amir a coveted Stingray bicycle and a fancy wristwatch, but they too felt like "blood money." The only gift Amir could stand to enjoy was the notebook from Rahim Khan. As he considered Rahim Khan's story about his Hazara fiancée, Amir decided that either he or Hassan had to leave their household in order for them to be happy.
When Amir took his new bike for a ride, Ali and Hassan were in the yard cleaning up the mess from the party. Ali stopped Amir to give him a present from himself and Hassan, a new copy of the Shahnamah, the book from which he had so often read to Hassan. When he got home, Amir buried the book at the bottom of his pile of presents so it would not torment him with guilt. Then he began scheming how to get rid of Hassan. Before he went to bed, he asked Baba if he had seen his new wristwatch.
The next morning, Amir hid his wristwatch and a bundle of cash under Hassan's bed. Then he told Baba that Hassan had stolen from him. Baba called a meeting with Ali and Hassan in his office. When they arrived, their eyes were red from crying. Hassan lied and said that he had stolen Amir's wristwatch and money. Amir felt a pang of guilt because he understood that Hassan was sacrificing himself for him as usual. He also understood that Hassan knew everything about the night he was raped, that Amir stood by and did nothing to help him. To his shock, Baba forgave Hassan, but Ali and Hassan had already resolved to leave. From Ali's cold glance, Amir understood that Hassan had told him about the rape and about Amir's nonaction. Despite Baba's begging, Ali and Hassan left. When they were gone, Amir saw Baba cry for the first time. As though echoing Baba's grief, the skies opened up and it stormed during the dry season in Kabul.
Chapter Ten
When Chapter Ten opens Amir and Baba are being smuggled out of Soviet- or Shorawi-occupied Kabul along with other Afghanis. Their goal was to reach the safer territory of Pakistan. Amir still has carsickness at age eighteen, which embarrasses Baba. The truck stops so that Amir can vomit on the roadside. Amir thinks of how secretly they had to leave Kabul, telling no one, not even their servant. The rafiqs, or Communist comrades, had taught everyone in Kabul how to spy on their neighbors and even their family.
The truck was supposed to have no trouble crossing through the Russian-Afghani checkpoints because of the driver, Karim's connections. At a checkpoint, the Afghani soldiers would have let the truck pass without issue, but one Russian soldier demanded a half hour with one of the refugees, a married woman. To Amir's dismay, Baba defended the woman, telling the Russian soldier that he had no shame and that he would "take a thousand bullets before [he] let this indecency take place." Amir felt ashamed that while Baba would give his life to save someone, he did nothing to save Hassan. The Russian soldier aimed the barrel of his gun at Baba's chest, but the shot that rang out did not kill him. It came from the gun of a more senior Russian soldier, who apologized for the first one, explaining that he was on drugs. The truck passed the checkpoint safely and in the darkness, the woman's husband kissed Baba's hand.
When the refugees finally reached Karim's brother's house in Jalalabad, he told them that his brother, Toor's, truck had broken the week before and could not take them to Peshawar, Pakistan. Baba smashed Karim against the wall and began to strangle him, furious that Karim had lied to them in order to take their money. Only the married woman's pleas stopped Baba from killing Karim. It turned out that there were many other refugees in the house, who had been waiting there for two weeks. Amir, Baba, and the others went into the basement to wait with them. Waiting there with them in the damp, rat-infested basement were Amir's schoolmate, Kamal, and his father. Kamal had a sunken look in his eyes, and his father explained to Baba that his wife had been shot and Kamal had been raped.
Because it turned out that Toor's truck was irreparable, the refugees departed in the tank of fuel truck. Before they left, Baba kissed the Afghani dirt and put some in his snuff box to keep next to his heart. Later, Amir awoke in the fuel tank feeling as though he was suffocating. He comforted himself with the memory of a spring afternoon he spent kite-fighting with Hassan. When they finally got out in Pakistan, they were thankful to be alive. Yet Kamal had suffocated on the fumes and died. In a rage, Kamal's father put the barrel of Karim's gun in his mouh and shot himself.
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven opens in the 1980s in Fremont, California, a year and a half after Amir and Baba arrived in America. Amir explains that Baba loved "the idea of America" so much that it gave him an ulcer. He believed that the only worthwhile countries were America, Israel and Britain, even though his support of Israel drew accusations from other Afghanis of his being anti-Islam. He was the only Republican among their blue-collar neighbors and even hung a framed picture of Ronald Reagan in their apartment. One day, Baba got into a fight with Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen, the owners of the small grocery store across the street. Mr. Nguyen had asked for Baba's ID when he wanted to pay with a check and Baba was so insulted that he damaged their property. It was clear to Amir that Baba missed their old life in Kabul and was having trouble adjusting to America. Whereas in Kabul he had been wealthy and influential, in Fremont he worked long hours at a gas station and missed almost everything about home. He saw life in America as a gift he had given to Amir and something he would have to suffer. For Amir, America was an escape from his memories of Hassan.
Amir graduated from high school at the age of twenty, when Baba was fifty. After the ceremony, Baba took Amir to a bar, where he bought drinks for other patrons and became the life of his own impromptu party. When they drove home, Amir was shocked to find that Baba had bought him a Ford Torino to drive himself to junior college. When they went inside, Baba said he wished Hassan was there. Amir's throat closed up with guilt. Amir also had to grapple with Baba's disappointment that he wanted to be a creative writer instead of a doctor or lawyer. Amir found release from his guilt by driving his Ford for hours at a time and sitting by the ocean. He was grateful to be starting anew in America.
The next summer, when Amir turned 21, Baba bought an old Volkswagen bus. On Saturdays, he and Amir drove to yard sales in neighboring towns and then sold their wares at the San Jose flea market. The flea market was a cultural epicenter for Afghan families, who dominated the Used Goods section. One one such day, Baba introduced Amir to General Taheri, an old acquaintance of his from Kabul. The "casually arrogant" Taheri did not impress Amir, but his daughter, Soraya, entranced him. Baba told Amir that Soraya had had a relationship with a man that did not work out well and had not been courted since. This did not matter to Amir, who already thought of her as his "Swap Meet Princess."
Chapter Twelve
Amir's desire for Soraya tormented him. At the flea market, he made excuses to walk by the Taheris' stand just to get a glimpse of her, but he could not muster the courage to talk to her. Finally one Sunday, he asked Soraya what she was reading. This was not a casual question in the Afghani community, because two single young people chatting invited gossip. Soraya knew that Amir was a writer and said she would like to read one of his stories. Just then, Soraya's mother, Kamila (or Khanum Taheri), showed up and greeted Amir warmly. She was a nice woman with one peculiarity; one side of her mouth drooped. Khanum Taheri sent Amir off with fruit and asked him to visit again. Amir understood that Khanum Taheri, and perhaps the General, saw Amir as a suitor for Soraya.
Every week, Amir visited the Taheris' booth when the General was away. He chatted with Khanum Taheri and Soraya. He found out that like him, Soraya was attending junior college. She wanted to be a teacher. She told Amir how, as a child in Kabul, she taught her illiterate housekeeper, Ziba, how to read. Amir was ashamed, remembering how he had lorded his literary over the oblivious Hassan. Just as Amir handed her a story to read, General Taheri arrived at the booth and Soraya was forced to hand him the story out of propriety. He dropped it into the garbage can. Then General Taheri took Amir aside and scolded him for having such an open conversation with Soraya in the marketplace.
Later that week, Baba caught a terrible cold but did not wan to go to the doctor. Amir convinced him to see a doctor when he saw that Baba was coughing up blood. The doctor told Amir that there was a suspicious spot on Baba's lung that he needed to have checked out. That night, Amir prayed for the first time in a very long time. They finally got to see a specialist, Dr. Schneider, but Baba lost his temper when he found out the doctor was Russian-American. They found a new Iranian doctor, Dr. Amani, who discovered that Baba had terminal cancer. Baba refused to prolong his life with chemotherapy and made Amir promise not to tell anyone about his disease. After the diagnosis, Amir and Baba still went to the flea market on Sundays. As the weeks progressed, Baba lost weight and got sicker until one day, he fell on the ground and started having seizures.
At the doctor's office, the doctor showed Amir Baba's CAT scans. The cancer had spread to Baba's brain and he would have to take medications and receive radiation. Once news spread that Baba was dying, many local Afghans came to pay their respects, including the Taheris. Baba refused radiation, so Amir took him home to die. Then Amir asked him to ask General Taheri to go khastegari, to ask for Soraya's hand in marriage. Baba called and made arrangements to visit the Taheris the next morning. Amir helped Baba dress and drove him to the Taheris' house, then went home to wait. Finally, Baba called and said that the general had accepted and then put Soraya on the phone. She was delighted but said she wanted to tell him a secret. When the Taheris lived in Virginia, she ran off with an Afghan man. When her father found her and dragged her home, she found out that her mother had suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of her face. Amir was slightly upset to find out that Soraya was not a virgin because he was. At the same time, he knew that he of all people could not hold someone accountable for her past mistakes, so he told Soraya that nothing could change his desire to marry her. Envy tempered Amir's joy because Soraya was now free of her shameful secret whereas his still plagued him.

Summary
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen begins at the Taheris' house with "lafz, the ceremony of "giving word." Even though Baba is very ill, he proclaims it "the happiest day of [his] life." Baba made a speech and General Taheri welcomed Amir into his family. Then Soraya joined the celebration and kissed Baba's hands. Traditionally, lafz is followed by an engagement party called Shirini-kori and an engagement period, but everyone agreed that they should skip it because Baba was so close to death. Baba spent almost all the money he had left on the traditional Afghan wedding ceremony, called awroussi. According to the ceremony, Amir and Soraya were left alone together under a veil to gaze at each other's reflections in a mirror. There, Amir told her he loved her for the first time. Amir could not help wondering whether Hassan had gotten married and what his wife was like. The party continued until the early morning, after which Amir and Soraya made love for the first time.
Soraya moved in with Amir and Baba after the wedding so that Amir could spend his father's last days with him. Soraya cared for Baba as though he were her own father, bathing him, reading to him, cooking for him, and giving him anything else he needed. One day, Amir came home to find Soraya hiding Rahim Khan's notebook under Baba's mattress. Baba admitted that he had coaxed Soraya to read him Amir's stories. Amir left the room to cry tears of joy, since he knew Baba disliked seeing him cry. A month after the wedding, Soraya's family came over to Baba's for dinner. Amir could see how happy Baba was to see him happily married. At the end of the night, Soraya and Amir helped Baba into bed. He refused his morphine, saying, "There is no pain tonight." He died in his sleep.
Baba's funeral took place at a nearby mosque. The men's and women's sections of the mosque were separate, so Amir sat next to General Taheri while Soraya and her mother were in another room. Amir acknowledged that Baba was his obstinate self until the end; he even died "on his own terms." Countless people whom Amir had never seen shook his hand and told him how Baba had helped them in one way or another. As he listened to their remarks, Amir realized that he no longer had Baba to define him or guide him; he felt terribly alone. After the burial, Amir and Soraya walked through the cemetery together and Amir cried at last.
After Baba's death, Amir got to know the Taheris much more closely. General Taheri was a complicated man. He did not work and collected welfare because he considered this more dignified than taking on a blue collar job as Baba had. He suffered from terrible headaches lasting days, and spent the rest of his time waiting for the liberation of Afghanistan. He felt sure that he would be called back to serve in the government at any time, so he always wore his grey suit and watch in preparation to leave. Khanum Taheri was a talented singer, but the general forbid her to sing. Instead, she focused her energies on homemaking. Now that Soraya was married, Khanum Taheri focused much of her attention on Amir. She adored him especially because he listened to her long list of imagined ailments; ever since her stroke, she became convinced that every small disturbance in her body was a serious ailment. Amir knew that Khanum Taheri was grateful to him not only for this, but for relieving her of her greatest fear-of Soraya becoming a spinster.
One night, Soraya told Amir the story of how the general forced her to end her affair. He came to her lover's house and told him he would kill him and himself if Soraya did not come home. Soraya told her father she wished he was dead, but she came home with him. At home, he made her cut off all her hair. Ever after, Soraya heard derogatory whispers everywhere she went. After Soraya told Amir the story, he asked her never to mention it again. He understood too well the torment of guilt and betrayal, but he also pitied Soraya for being a woman in Afghan society; even in America, she was subject to a double standard regarding sexual behavior.
Amir and Soraya moved into their own apartment. The Taheris helped them furnish it, and the general gave Amir a typewriter. They both enrolled at San Jose University, where Amir worked toward a degree in English and Soraya, in teaching. In 1988, Amir finished his first novel, "a father-son story set in Kabul." Soon after, he got a lierary agent and became a published writer. Amir's feelings of success were tempered with his guilt; he felt himself to be undeserving. That same year, international politics were particularly fraught. The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, but a new conflict erupted between the Mujahedin and the remaining communist government. The Berlin wall was destroyed and the Tiananmen Square riots occurred. In their safe American abode, Amir and Soraya began trying to conceive a child.
After months of trying to conceive, Amir and Soraya consulted fertility doctors. Neither of them had any detectable fertility problems, but they were still unable to have a child. When they told Soraya's parents, General Taheri and Khanum Taheri were disappointed. The general urged them not to adopt, most of all because Afghan society depends on the line of succession, which the act of adoption obliterates. Amir thought privately that his and Soraya's infertility was punishment for his betraying Hassan so many years before. Soon after they discovered they could not have a family, Amir and Soraya bought a house. Despite their newfound material comforts, the absence of a child tormented them both.

Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen opens in June of 2001, when Amir received a call from Rahim Khan. He told Amir he was very sick and asked him to come visit him in Pakistan. Amir considered what Rahim Khan had said before hanging up, "Come. There is a way to be good again." Suddenly, he understood that Rahim Khan knew, and had always known, what he did to Hassan. Amir was comfortable leaving Soraya with her parents; her relationship with them had improved in the years since the wedding. The General no longer insisted that Soraya change her career path away from teaching; sometimes he sat in on the classes Soraya taught and even took notes. That night, Amir dreamt of Hassan as he had seen him right before the rape, shouting, "For you, a thousand times over!" A week later, he left for Peshawar, Pakistan.

Chapter Fifteen
As Amir rode through the streets of Peshawar in a cab, he remembered being there in 1981 as a refugee. The city was bustling with vendors, families, and children. Rahim Khan was staying in the Afghan section. Amir had last seen him the night before he and Baba fled Kabul, and has barely spoken with him since. When Rahim Khan answered the door, Amir saw how emaciated his illness had made him. Still, Rahim Khan's face brightened in Amir's presence and at the news of his marriage fifteen years earlier. He did not remember the notebook he gave Amir.
Rahim Khan described how the Taliban was terrorizing Afghanistan, though they had been received initially as heroes. Once, at a soccer game, a man next to him cheered too loudly. A Talib pistol whipped Rahim Khan, thinking he had made the noise. People in Kabul were afraid to leave their houses because of frequent shootings and bombings. Even Baba's orphanage had been destroyed, with many children inside it. Then Rahim Khan told Amir that he did not have long to live. He laughed at Amir's offer to take him to America, saying he accepted his fate. Then he revealed to Amir that for all the years he lived in Baba's house after 1981, Hassan lived there with him. He told Amir that he needed a favor of him, but first wanted to tell him about Hassan.

Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen is in Rahim Khan's voice; he is telling Amir the story of what happened to Hassan. He went searching for Hassan in 1986 because he was dreadfully lonely, so many of his relatives and friends having been killed or fled since 1981. He was managing to take care of the house and himself despite his age and arthritis, but when the news of Baba's death reached him, he felt the weight of it all was too much. He drove to Hazarajat, where Ali and Hassan had been living, and was directed to a village outside Bamiyan. He found Hassan, now in his early twenties, and his pregnant wife, Farzana, living in a small hut. Hassan was overcome with joy when he saw Rahim Khan. He told him that Ali had been killed by a land mine two years before. He asked many questions about Amir. Initially, Hassan and Farzana refused to move to Baba's house, but then Rahim told him of Baba's death. Hassan cried all through the night and in the morning he agreed to move in with Rahim Khan.
Despite Rahim Khan's protestations, Hassan and Farzana stayed in the servants' hut and did all the chores. Hassan also wore black for forty days in mourning for Baba. In the fall, their daughter was stillborn; they buried her and Hassan placed a flower on her grave every day. Then in 1990, Farzana became pregnant again and Hassan's mother, Sanaubar, came to find him. She collapsed at the gate of the house; when they carried her inside and removed her burqa, they discovered that the former beauty was malnourished, had no teeth, and had grotesque scars all over her face from being cut. Hassan ran out of the house and was gone for hours, but when he returned he accepted Sanaubar as his mother. She became healthy and a part of the family; she even delivered Farzana and Hassan's son. Hassan named him Sohrab, after the hero in his favorite story from the book Amir used to read him. Sohrab became inseparable from Sanaubar, whom he called Sasa. Four years later, Sanaubar died peacefully. Hassan tried to give Sohrab a good childhood despite the constant fighting and danger in Kabul. He even took him kite running in the winter. When the Taliban took over, most people celebrated, but Hassan knew Hazaras' lives were in peril. He was right; in 1998 the Taliban "massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif."

Week of Nov.30

Driving Question: How are class,
religion, language, and inventions
present in our lives today?

Subject:
Humanities 9 – Social Studies/ English
Prepared By:
Kimberly Hawkins & Desiree’ Fuller


Overview & Purpose

This week in Humanities, the students will begin reading Chapter 2 of the World History book. The students will learn about Western Asia and Egypt 3500-500 BC. The students will learn about the geography, religions, inventions and the people. Students will learn how the inventions are present in our lives today. Students will also
Education Standards Addressed
WHG Era 4 4.1 4.1.2 4.2 4.3
K1.4-1.7
ENG: 1.2 1.1 1.3 2.1
Theme: Western Asia and Egypt 3500-500 BC




Date/ Day of Week
Objectives and Procedures
Homework and Connections

Monday
November 30
Overview of the week
Finish Chapter 2 vocabulary
Discuss geography of Asia and Egypt compared to now
Discuss ACT Vocabulary assignments.
Introduce the short story of the week.
In depth discussion of “The Kite Runner” Chapter 8
Collection of Essays.

Materials Needed
· Paper
· Pencil
· World History Book
· Computer
· Internet
· The Kite Runner Novel.
· Blogger Account.
. http://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game.html

Tuesday
December 1
Chapter 2, Section 1
Pre-reading activity
Guided Reading*
Discussion of Section

In Class Reading- “The Most Dangerous Game.”
Presentation: Plot, Sequence, and Conflict
1. Code of Hammurabi writing assignment

Wednesday
December 2

Chapter 2, Section 2
Guided Reading*
Discussion of Section

In Class discussion of the Kite Runner.
Discussion of Group Project.
1. Color and Label Map of Ancient Asia and Egypt
2. The Most Dangerous Game Study Guide.




Thursday
December 3


Chapter 2, Section 3 and 4
Guided Reading*
Discussion of Sections
Vocabulary Crossword
Vocabulary Review.
Vocabulary Homework Due.
Friday
December 4
Discussion of Chapter 2
Answer any questions students may have
Complete Section Quizzes using guided reading worksheets and book
Vocabulary Test.

Study for Chapter 2 test
Use Guided Reading and Section Quizzes to help study


http://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game.html

Journal Entries: How would Amir and Hassan adapt to the Hammurabi Code and Way of Life? 500 words DUE FRIDAY DEC. 4