Summary: Chapter 16
Rahim Khan tells Amir the story of how he found Hassan, and the narrative
shifts so that Rahim Khan narrates in the first person. In 1986, Rahim Khan went to
Hazarajat. He went primarily because he was lonely, but also because as he aged it
became difficult for him to care for Baba’s house by himself. He found Hassan’s
home, a small mud house, and saw Hassan in the yard. The men greeted each other, and
Hassan took Rahim Khan inside to introduce him to his wife, a pregnant Hazara woman
named Farzana. As they spoke, Rahim Khan learned that Ali was killed by a land mine.
Rahim Khan then explained to Hassan that he wanted Hassan and Farzana to come to
Baba’s house with him and help him care for it. Hassan declined, saying that
Hazarajat was their home now. Hassan asked several questions about Amir. When he
learned Baba was dead, he cried. Rahim Khan stayed the night, and in the morning,
Hassan told him that he and Farzana would go back to Kabul.
Out of respect, Hassan and Farzana live in the small servants’ hut on Baba’s
property, and Hassan works diligently cleaning and repairing the house. That fall,
Farzana gives birth to a stillborn girl, whom they bury in the yard. Farzana becomes
pregnant again in 1990, and that same year Sanaubar, Hassan’s mother, appears at the
front gate, weak and with her face severely cut up. Hassan and Farzana nurse her
back to health, and she and Hassan become close. That winter it is Sanaubar who
delivers Hassan’s and Farzana’s son. Sanaubar loves and cares for the boy, who is
named Sohrab, after the character from Hassan’s and Amir’s favorite story when they
were children. She lives until he is four. By then it is 1995. The Soviets had been
pushed out of Kabul, but fighting continues between rival Afghan groups. Hassan,
meanwhile, is teaching Sohrab to read and to run kites. In 1996, the Taliban take
control of Kabul. Two weeks later they ban kite fighting.
Summary: Chapter 17
The story shifts back to Amir’s perspective. Amir sits with Rahim Khan
thinking of everything that happened between him and Hassan. Amir asks if Hassan is
still in Baba’s house, and Rahim Khan hands him an envelope. It contains a
photograph of Hassan and a letter for Amir. In it, Hassan says the Kabul they used
to know is gone. One day a man at the market hit Farzana simply because she raised
her voice so another man who was half-deaf could hear her. He talks about his love
for his son, and says Rahim Khan is very ill. If Amir ever returns, he will find his
faithful friend Hassan waiting for him. Rahim Khan says a month after arriving in
Pakistan, he received a call from a neighbor in Kabul. The Taliban had gone to
Baba’s house and found Hassan and his family there. Hassan said he was taking care
of the house for a friend, and they called him a liar like all Hazaras. They made
him kneel in the street and shot him in the head. When Farzana ran out of the house,
they shot her, too.
The Taliban moved into Baba’s house, and Sohrab was sent to an orphanage.
Rahim Khan knows an American couple in Pakistan that care for Afghan orphans, and
they have already agreed to take in Sohrab. Amir says he can’t go to Kabul. He can
pay someone else to get Sohrab. Rahim Khan says it is not about the money, and that
Amir knows why he must go. Rahim Khan says one day Baba told him he was worried that
a boy who can’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.
He tells Amir one more thing. Ali was unable to have children. Amir asks who
Hassan’s father was then, and Rahim Khan says Amir knows who it was. Hassan never
knew. They couldn’t tell anyone because it was a shameful situation. Amir shouts at
Rahim Khan and storms out of the apartment.
Analysis
The events of this section, which largely recount what happened to Hassan in
the time since Baba and Amir left for Pakistan, deftly tie together several of the
book’s thematic elements: the pain of guilt, the hatefulness of racial prejudice,
the challenge of acting against injustice, the value of loyalty, the love as well as
the discord between fathers and sons, and the role history plays in private lives.
We do not learn all the details of Hassan’s life, but we learn the basics. Most
importantly, we now know that he had a son, Sohrab. In many ways, Hassan’s
relationship with Sohrab acts as indirect proof that Hassan never forgot Amir.
Naming the boy after a character in his and Amir’s favorite story is one example.
Hassan also did with Sohrab all the things he and Amir used to enjoy, such as going
to the movies and flying kites. The relationship between Hassan and Sohrab also adds
a new dimension to the theme of fathers and sons that runs through the novel. It is
perhaps the most loving father-son relationship we see in the book, making it all
the more painful when we learn that Hassan is dead.
Hassan’s murder is important for many reasons. It plays multiple roles in the
section, and in the novel as a whole. For instance, it brings together two of the
story’s major themes. His death is presented as a combination of the political
strife ravaging Kabul and the entrenched prejudice against Hazaras that has turned
up repeatedly in the novel. Two members of the Taliban, who at this point control
Kabul without competition, shoot Hassan. Rahim Khan’s telling of the story implies
that these Taliban officials want Baba’s house, and since Hassan is a Hazara, he
essentially has no rights. Conspicuously, the men are not punished for killing
Hassan and Farzana. The suggestion is that, to these men, the lives of Hazaras have
no value, or at least not enough value to punish anyone for ending them.
Foreshadowing of Hassan’s death occurs when the Taliban first take over Kabul.
Though most of the city’s residents celebrate the event, Hassan does not cheer. “God
help the Hazaras now,” he says to Rahim Khan at the end of Chapter 16 (p. 213).
Hassan’s death also marks a turning point in Amir’s quest for redemption. To
Amir, the news of Hassan’s murder means not only that he has lost his friend
forever, but also that he can never apologize to Hassan for allowing his rape and
then lying about him stealing Amir’s birthday money. Making up for these actions was
part of the reason he traveled to Pakistan in the first place. Initially, the story
suggests that Amir will have to live with his guilt permanently, but Rahim Khan says
one way remains for him to make amends. Amir can go to Kabul, find Sohrab, and bring
him back to Pakistan where he can be taken care of. The request is not Rahim Khan’s
alone. Hassan said in his letter to Amir that the most important thing for him was
to survive so that Sohrab would not become an orphan. With Hassan and Farzana dead
and Rahim Khan ill, Amir is perhaps the only person who can make sure Sohrab is not
abandoned.
Going to Kabul becomes a test of Amir’s honor, loyalty, and manhood. Amir is
clearly afraid to go. He knows the city is extremely dangerous, and in returning
there he would risk everything he has, including his life and the welfare of his
family. Kabul will also undoubtedly recall memories of Hassan and his past that Amir
would rather not confront. Rahim Khan recognizes that the decision is a difficult
one for Amir. To convince him, he brings up the conversation he once had with Baba,
when Baba said he feared that Amir would not be able to stand up to anything as a
man if he could not stand up for himself as a boy. Amir concedes that Baba may have
been right. Then Rahim Khan reveals that Ali was not Hassan’s father, and implies
that Hassan was, in fact, Baba’s child. Hassan and Amir, then, would be
half-brothers, and Sohrab would be Amir’s nephew, obligating Amir further to find
the boy. The dilemma brings together the tensions Amir has struggled with in the
novel. By rescuing Sohrab, Amir can become the man that Baba always wanted him to
be, and he can finally atone for the ways he failed Hassan as a friend.
