Themes (DP IB English A: Language and Literature: HL): Revision Note

Responses that engage with themes at a conceptual and evaluative level are significantly more likely to access the highest bands of the IB mark scheme. Under Criterion A, students are rewarded for demonstrating detailed textual knowledge alongside a perceptive, nuanced understanding of ideas. Criterion B, meanwhile, assesses the precision with which students analyse how authorial choices shape meaning, requiring close attention to methods such as language, structure, and form. 

The most effective responses do more than identify a theme: they trace its development across the novel and evaluate how linguistic devices, structural decisions, and choices in vocabulary work together to construct and refine that theme over time.

Below are some key themes that are explored in the novel The Kite Runner. The following sections provide a focused discussion of each:

• Betrayal

• Redemption and forgiveness

• Male relationships

• Racism and ethnicity

Betrayal

Betrayal is a central theme of Hosseini’s novel, affecting the lives of all the characters as we see how Amir and Baba react to their feelings of guilt and how they punish themselves for it. 

Knowledge and evidence

• Both Amir and Baba “betray” a close friend and their characters are defined by their reaction to it

• Amir feels he has betrayed Hassan with his inaction as Hassan is raped, and then compounds his actions:

  • He starts to treat Hassan poorly, because being around him makes him feel guilty

  • He then sets up Hassan to look like he has stolen from him, so that he and Ali will be fired and forced out of his life

  • Hassan has always stood up for Amir, and is raped after refusing a chance to get away because it would leave Amir without his important kite

• Baba being Hassan’s father after sleeping with Ali’s partner changes how he treats people:

  • He is meaner to Amir because Amir represents a side of himself that he has decided is the cause of his betrayal: his entitlement and privilege

• This also becomes a form of betrayal to Amir, who feels his father has betrayed him with his lies:

  • He had hero-worshipped his father, assuming he was a man of certain standards that he failed to reach himself

  • To find his father is not who he thinks, and is as imperfect as him, in this regard, makes Amir feel he has lived under a shadow of expectation his father didn’t even meet himself

What is Hosseini’s intention?

• Hosseini could be trying to show the reader how we punish ourselves harshly for our mistakes, and how it can ruin our lives:

  • The guilt follows both Amir and Baba throughout the lives, and harms relationships they have with their loved ones:

    • Amir loses his best friend and struggles to believe he deserves happiness

    • He seems to believe that he and his wife cannot have a child as punishment for what he has done, which is putting an enormous amount of pressure on himself

  • Baba and Amir are not as close as they could be because Baba treats Amir harshly:

    • By treating Amir harshly, it creates a distance between the two, and ends up punishing Amir, who isn’t to blame, because Baba cannot forgive himself enough to be nicer 

• The author may also be trying to show us how we are all fallible, yet assume we are the sole perpetrators of immoral acts:

  • Amir hates himself for many years because he sees himself as flawed in a world where others are not, at least nowhere near his level

  • Yet he finds out Baba has also made mistakes:

    • Amir had judged himself against the high standards of Baba, which could be the author showing us that we compare ourselves to people unfairly, and without full knowledge of their lives

Redemption and forgiveness

The Kite Runner shows its main characters looking for redemption and forgiveness to atone for their actions in the past. The reader is shown the pain of those who cannot forgive themselves, and also the contrast between those who have done wrong but want to be better, and those who take pleasure in doing questionable things, and how different these people are.

Knowledge and evidence

• Both Amir and Baba are also two people chasing redemption for their missteps

• Baba engages in many charitable activities and uses his money to make others happier:

  • The building of the orphanage, giving Ali and Hassan a home, and fixing Hassan’s cleft lip can all be seen as trying to prove to himself and the world that he is good

• Amir is always thinking of how he can prove himself better than what he did to Hassan:

  • In the end, he goes back to visit Rahim Khan at the promise of some form of redemption

  • He nearly gets himself killed to save Sohrab because he is driven by his desire for redemption and he feels he owes Hassan

• Amir spends his early years trying to prove himself to his father and win his love:

  • He feels that he needs to redeem himself in his father’s eyes after “killing” his mother in childbirth

• Both men feel burdened by their secrets and want forgiveness, but are looking to forgive themselves by showing they do good things

What is Hosseini’s intention?

• This is another aspect where the author is showing how much pressure we put on ourselves to be better:

  • Amir and Baba are both difficult men in many ways because they feel they must constantly prove themselves

  • Their desperate need for redemption changes who they are as people and changes their lives

  • Neither feel they deserve to enjoy their success, thinking anything they achieve is overshadowed by their pasts

• Hosseini also aligns this need for change and redemption with the history and change in Afghanistan:

  • The country goes through turmoil, but the characters are always hoping they will see Afghanistan return to what it once was for them

  • In the same way that they want the version of Afghanistan from before it was tarnished by Soviet and Taliban rule, they want to be the people they were before their moments of guilt arose

Male relationships

The novel focuses on many different male relationships, and the romantic relationships between men and women are far more incidental. For the most part, the novel focuses on how male relationships are formed, the hierarchies within them, and the formalities and unspoken rules of male friendship.

Knowledge and evidence

• Amir’s friendship with Hassan is key to the novel

• There is an imbalance of power within it, and different attitudes to friendship:

  • Amir is in charge, due to his social status, and less willing to be open about how he feels about Hassan

  • Hassan is a doting and loyal friend, and one who forgives Amir because of his love for him

• Amir’s guilt does show how much he loves Hassan, but it also stops him from showing that:

  • He loves Hassan until the end of his days, but allows that to become tainted by what happened, ultimately robbing both of the friendship

• Hassan has no expectations, so his friendship is more honest and pure:

  • He does many things for Amir out of love, but Amir never understands that

• Assef’s friendship with Wali and Kamal is different, but shows a similar power imbalance:

  • Assef is powerful and of a high social status, so his two friends follow him

  • They are both subservient to him out of fear

  • Neither want to be involved in what happens to Hassan, and neither are as violent in the confrontations, but they are led by the fear they have of Assef

• Rahim Khan is a key character in relation to male friendships

• He acts as a friend to both Amir and Baba, although differently:

  • Rahim is one of the few who feel comfortable disagreeing with Baba and pushing back against him

  • He can do this because is is of the same social status as Baba, so there is no need to defer to him

• Rahim offers the redemption to Amir near the end of the narrative as he understands and keeps his secrets, like he did with Baba:

  • Rahim is not judgemental, but he also isn’t afraid to be honest if he feels it is needed

• Baba and Amir’s relationship is rarely warm:

  • Their inability to show love to each other comes from guilt and beliefs about proper male behaviour

• General Taheri and Amir also have an interesting dynamic:

  • The General is respectful, but as an older male, also feels he can speak down to Amir

  • He has an authority over Amir entirely due to age and being the father of Soraya, and Amir respects this as he understands the social traditions that the General is following

What is Hosseini’s intention?

• Hosseini examines the importance of friendships and relationships throughout The Kite Runner

• He shows us with Amir and Hassan that friendship should not be about status or duty, but love and care:

  • Hassan knows this far more than Amir, and he is not haunted by his memories of him because he forgives and loves his friend

  • Amir does not understand his love for Hassan and lets social status confuse it

  • He is unhappier in the friendship because he cannot accept it for what it is

  • Hassan understands and accepts imperfection, while Amir cannot

• The author also shows us how social status can impact friendship:

  • Rahim is the only one comfortable pushing back against Amir and Hassan because his status matches theirs

  • Amir is unhappier in his friendship because he sees himself as above Hassan, so cannot accept situations where he is not better:

    • This is shown in more than just the jealousy Amir feels, but also the idea of betrayal

    • Hosseini could be suggesting that because Amir thinks himself the better person, he cannot accept failing Hassan

• The novel may also highlight how male expectations, and an inability to open up to each other, can hurt relationships:

  • Baba and Amir have a tension throughout their lives because Baba struggles to show affection to his son

• Hosseini shows us different levels of friendship:

  • We see the fear that stems from Assef’s power

  • Baba’s social status means he is treated like he is superior to others, including by Ali

  • We see both how Amir doesn’t completely accept his friendship with Hassan, while Hassan is happier in it because he loves his friend

Racism and ethnicity

The dynamics of different ethnicities and Afghan society are shown in The Kite Runner. Hosseini manages to show the reader how racial tensions affect the history of modern Afghanistan, and how racism is shown in both an overt and a more subtle way. 

Knowledge and evidence

• Hassan is mocked by soldiers, Assef, and even at times looked down on by Amir as Hassan is Hazara:

  • Assef justifies raping Hassan because he is “just a Hazara” and later revels in killing Hazaras as he believes they are “garbage” in Afghanistan

• When the Taliban take over and begin their violence, it is Hazaras like Hassan who are punished, and he is executed because they cannot accept a Hazara living in Baba’s nice house

• Amir even tries to justify his distance from Hassan and not helping him against Assef:

  • He feels they cannot be completely friends as Hassan is Hazara, and clearly Amir feels he is superior to him in some way because of this

• Later, Amir rejects General Taheri’s racism against Sohrab, threatening him if he is to ever call Sohrab a “Hazara boy” again

• There is also the dynamic of Ali and Hassan being Baba’s servants:

  • While the upper classes think nothing of it, and in fact feel they are doing good by giving them work and a home, the hierarchy comes from Afghanistan's class systems that are based on race 

What is Hosseini’s intention?

• Hosseini could be using his focus on hierarchies among ethnic groups to highlight to unaware readers that there are problems with racism in many countries and in ways we don’t understand as outsiders:

  • The audience may assume that people in Afghanistan are all similar and the same race, so won’t have these tensions:

    • Society is often ignorant to the intricacies and social nuances of other cultures

  • While Hosseini is showing us the reality of Afghanistan, he may also be exposing our racial prejudices in how we assume racism will be different in other places

• The novel also highlights how racism continues to limit the social mobility of people:

  • Hassan does not go to school and works as a servant, which gives him little chance of growing up to be something different

  • This also limits what his future family can be, so it perpetuates a cycle where some ethnicities are kept in a lower social and economic status over generations

• This is also a reflection of Afghanistan and their history:

  • All of this is giving a realistic snapshot to readers about life in Afghanistan and the social rules that impact the lives of people there

• Including these themes in the novel also gives Hosseini a chance to show how different regimes, like the Taliban, use racism to enforce their view on people:

  • The Kite Runner was published around two years after the start of the war in Afghanistan involving American and British forces

  • The author may well be using this novel to highlight to British and American audiences what the Taliban were doing to Afghans

  • At a time where there was tension about what foreign groups had done in America with 9/11, and also tension with those who protested the war, the book could be used as a reminder to both groups:

    • First, in that the Taliban is not the same thing as Afghanistan and have oppressed the Afghan people

    • Secondly, to show people that the Taliban regime is one that Afghanistan needs and deserves to be freed from

Sources

Hosseini, K. (2003), The Kite Runner, Riverhead Books