The Minor Characters In The Kite Runner Essay Example

A minor character seems to be used as a pawn in a chess game of sorts as they are used to not only allow the Main characters to advance their story but allow small interventions of their own. In the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, minor characters seem to play a large role in how Amir’s life changes, in both better and worse ways. These minor characters' use of their words and actions allow Amir to repay for his mistakes during childhood, ensure that Amir doesn’t have any regrets, and allowed Amir to shine, even when he didn’t believe in himself. These minor characters, whilst mostly irrelevant, still change Amir'sr's life drastically and change his story along with it.

These little people use their actions to restore Amir's beauty. The actions of primarily Rahim Kahn and Farid allowed Amir to repay his dues during his resurgence back into Afghanistan, as they used him as a key piece to find Sohrab, and extract him from the dreadful situation he was in. Rahim Kahn states “There is a way to be good again” (Pg.168) as an invitation to allow Amir to repay his dues and redeem himself for the actions he committed as a child. Furthermore, Farid and Amir revisit an orphanage in the middle of Kabul which had been used as a birthing place for child soldiers as Taliban insurgents had been allowed to take children for money. Amir did speak up about this action as he asks about how he could sleep with himself after allowing a child to be used in that fashion all due to a small amount of money, but soon after the man explains how he must use that money to feed the rest of the children. This shows character development as he speaks up for himself and these children, and does it purely for the sake of the children who are stuck within the orphanage. Amir changes his character as he ages due to maturity and through experiences of tragedy, but he also ensures that he doesn’t live with any regrets as he did when he was a child.

Living with regrets is a large theme within the story. As a child, Amir lives with regrets as most do when are children, as we don't have the power physically or verbally do to otherwise as we don't have much experience or control over our own life at this stage. Our parents chaperone our life as due to the lack of experience, it may elude us to do idiotic things, but on the contrary, it restricts us from expressing ourselves and withholds us from an experience that we may not be able to do father on in our life. This is seen when Amir tries to get Baba to read his story, but is soon shot down as Baba states ‘“Well that's very good isn’t it” Baba said. Then nothing more, he just looked at me through a cloud of smoke.’ (Pg 25). This act is seen multiple times during the play as Baba is restrictive about Amir, and how he chooses to deny his writing shows how he doesn't seem to be very willing to have his son one day become an author. Moreover, Baba later learns that Amir is going to college to study creative writing, as he states “So if I understand, you’ll study several years for a degree than you’ll get a chatii job like mine” (Pg 113). Baba believes that his career path has severely gone off course as he doesn’t believe that creative writing is a solid career due to the lack of known writers and the slim chance of being well recognized in the vast community of writers. Although his father doesn’t respect his choice of study, he remains in the course and continues to write as that is his true passion in life.

Allowing Amir to shine not only changes his story but progresses it. Due to the unwillingness of his father Baba, Amir begins to believe that Creative Writing isn’t a true career, such as Mathematics or Physics, he believes that it is a pipe dream that he finds true success, which isn’t true due to the sheer talent of Amir’s writing. This is seen with Rahim Kahn as he shows Amir that someone does believe in him and that there is a path to success with writing. Rahim Kahn states “'God has granted you a special talent.”(Pg 26). He tells Amir these nice comments a multitude of times as a way to insist that he has some sort of talent in writing, and he should continue as he believes that he has a true talent with creative writing.  Another example of putting Amir in the spotlight is shown with Rahim Kahn during the last phone call. He talks of how exemplary he has become and how much he has done with his life such as marry a well-known woman, become a known author, and continue to publish as he once was told by Rahim Kahn. Rahim Kahn allows Amir to see how much of a success he has become since leaving Kabul, and uses these compliments to restore his confidence and pride after soon losing his father due to Cancer.

The entire book was centered around what had happened to Amir during his life both in Kabul, and Fremont, but the secondary characters such as Rahim Kahn, Farid, and others show how much a side character can change both the outcome of the book and the details within the book.