The Kite Runner Essay

828 Words4 Pages
Stories can tell a lot about the author and the people in his or her life. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Amir writes short stories that have direct relation to the events and characteristics of his, and his friend Hassan’s, life. Amir’s story about the man who cried pearls shows Amir’s inability to find simple solutions to solve problems. Hassan’s reaction shows his happiness with what he has, contrasting Amir, a person who always wants more. In Amir’s story, a poor man had the ability to form pearls from his tears. In order to continue crying to make the pearls, the man killed his wife, knowing that he would cry over her. When Amir reads his story to Hassan, he asks, “Why did the man kill his wife? In fact, why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn’t he have just smelled an onion?” (Hosseini 34). Amir realizes that Hassan was right; the man didn’t need to kill his wife in order to cry. There was a simple solution to the problem, which he had never even considered. Amir admits, “That particular point, so obvious it was utterly…show more content…
The man in Amir’s story was constantly looking for new reasons to feel sadness to cry, but Hassan points out that if he had simply smelled an onion, he wouldn’t have needed a reason to search for sadness. Hassan is able to point this out because he isn’t the type of person who searches for sadness; instead, he finds the light in every situation and is happy with what he has. When Hassan is an adult, he tells his family about Amir and all of the good times he had with him, where as Amir dwells on the bad that happened between them. Sohrab tells Amir, “You were the best friend he ever had” (Hosseini 306). Hassan is determined to remember the good about his childhood, and omit the bad. For Hassan, the twelve good years he had with Amir are worth much more than the one bad. He is happy with the life he has, despite the bad that
Open Document