The Kite Runner: Quarter exam
What does Amir see when he is nodding in and out of consciousness? correct answers
Sees Baba wrestling a bear. Man wrestling bear ends up being Amir
What injuries does Amir suffer from? correct answers Ruptured spleen, seven broken
ribs. Upper lip cut in two. Will have permanent scar on upper lip. Busted eye socket
What happened to Rahim Khan? correct answers Left Peshawar and no one knows
where he is
What does Rahim Khan know? correct answers Amir saw Hassan's rape
What does Rahim Khan in his letter say about Baba? correct answers Baba trapped
b/w Hassan and Amir's affections, but it was not acceptable for him to show his fatherly
emotions to Hassan, therefore he let it all out on Amir. When Baba looked at Amir he
saw guilt. Baba when hard on Amir was hard on himself.
What does Rahim Khan give Amir? correct answers Money
What dream does Amir have? correct answers Asset stands by doorway and says
"We're the same, you and I."
Chapter Twenty-Two correct answers Farid and Amir parked in front of a large house in
Wazir Akhbar Khan where the meeting would take place. Farid waited in the car while a
terrified Amir went into the house. After being frisked by armed Talibs, he was ushered
into an empty room. The Talib official entered the room and sat down opposite Amir,
who noticed he had blood on his sleeve from the executions. He ordered one of his men
to rip off Amir's false beard, then described with relish his role in the mass execution of
the Hazaras. He derided Amir for leaving Afghanistan, saying he should have him shot
for treason. Then he ordered Sohrab to come into the room. Sohrab's resemblance to
Hassan shocked Amir, who saw that the boy wore bells around his ankles and makeup
on his face. The Talib officer put on music, banned to everyone but the Taliban, and
made him dance. Then he said to Amir, "Whatever happened to the old Babalu,
anyway?" Horror filled Amir as he realized that the Talib official was Assef.
When Amir offered to pay for Sohrab, Assef explained that he did not need money; his
wealthy parents lived on an Australian beachfront. Besides, he joined the Taliban not for
money but because he felt it was his divine task. When he was in prison in the 1980s,
there was a guard who beat one prisoner each night in order to terrorize the others. One
night, when Assef had a terrible kidney stone, the guard decided to beat him. He was
wailing in pain as the guard beat him until one kick to his side dislodged the kidney
stone and made it pass so that he laughed through the rest of his beating. Assef
,believed it to be "a message from God." Years later, he found the same man injured on
the battlefield and shot him in the genitals. Ever since, he had been "on a mission" to
get rid of those he considered unworthy of living in Afghanistan.
Assef said Amir could have Soh
Analysis correct answers Chapters Twenty through Twenty-Two showcase the
devastation that reigns in Kabul under the Taliban. The theme of violence has been
central to the novel all along in the context of Hassan's rape. However, in Taliban-
controlled Kabul, Amir's personal nightmare erupts into a public reality. We already
know that a single rape has influenced Amir's life immeasurably. When Amir and Baba
were fleeing to Pakistan, they found out about a second rape, Kamal's. Now, we
discover that under the Taliban, even government officials are raping children. The
government's appetite for violence is insatiable; they not only jump on any existing
chance to enact violence, but provoke people so they can beat them. As Farid explains,
merely staring at a Talib is reason enough for him to injure someone. Both Hassan and
Rahim Khan have described beatings by the Taliban merely for talking too loud. The
Taliban have created a culture not only of violence but of humiliation.
Baba, General Taheri, and many other Aghan immigrants to America suffer humiliation
because they are in an unfamiliar environment. Their job status is taken away from
them because they are unfamiliar with American ways and the English language. He
describes how "former ambassadors, out-of-work surgeons, and university professors"
who had obviously worked hard to gain their status and wealth in Afghanistan reduced
to selling at the flea market. As Baba's incident with the Nguyens shows, even small
differences in custom can cause humiliation for an immigrant. Yet once Amir returns to
Kabul, we see how much better the difficult lives of American immigrants are compared
to those who stayed. Baba may have to sell other people's junk for money, but he is far
luckier than the amputee in Kabul who is trying to sell his artificial leg. Above all, those
who emigrated to America are aliv
I patted his arm. "You've done much more than I've paid you for. I don't expect you to
go with me." correct answers But I wished I didn't have to go in alone. Despite what I
had learned about Baba, I wished he were standing alongside me now. Baba would
have busted through the front doors and demanded to be taken to the man in charge,
piss on the beard of anyone who stood in his way. But Baba was long dead, buried in
the Afghan section of a little cemetery in Hayward. Just last month, Soraya and I had
placed a bouquet of daisies and freesias beside his headstone. I was on my own.
here was a very realistic
chance that I was going to render Soraya a biwa, a widow, at the age of correct
answers thirty-six.
This isn't you, Amir, part of me said. You're gutless. It's how you were made. And
that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to
yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it
comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is... God
,help him.
The door opened and the two armed men returned, between them the tall correct
answers Talib in white, still wearing his dark John Lennon glasses, looking like some
broad-shouldered, NewAge mystic guru.
Periodically, his free hand floated up and his thick fingers batted at something in the air.
correct answers They made slow stroking motions, up and down, side to
side, as if he were caressing an invisible pet. One of his sleeves retracted and I saw
marks on his forearm--Td seen those same tracks on homeless people living in grimy
alleys in San Francisco.
His skin was much paler than the other two men's, almost sallow, and a crop of tiny
sweat beads gleamed on his forehead just below the edge of his black turban. His
beard, chest-length like the others, was lighter in color too.
He turned his palm to one of the armed men and motioned. Rrrriiiip. correct answers
Suddenly my cheeks were stinging and the guard was tossing my beard up and down in
his hand, giggling. The Talib grinned. "One of the better ones I've seen in a while. But it
really is so much better this way, I think. Don't you?" He twirled his fingers, snapped
them, fist opening and closing. "So, _Inshallah_, you enjoyed
the show today?"
"Public justice is the greatest kind of show, my brother. Drama. Suspense. And, best of
all, correct answers education en masse." He snapped his fingers. The younger of the
two guards lit him a cigarette. The Talib laughed. Mumbled to himself. His hands
were shaking and he almost dropped the cigarette. "But you want a real show, you
should have been with me in Mazar. August 1998, that was."
He stood up, paced around the sofa once, twice. Sat down again. He spoke rapidly.
"Door to door we went, calling for the men and the boys. We'd shoot them right there in
front of their families. Let them see. Let them remember who they were, where they
belonged." He was almost panting now. "Sometimes, we broke down their doors and
went inside their homes.
And... I'd... I'd sweep the barrel of my machine gun around the room and fire and fire
until the smoke blinded me." He leaned toward me, like a man about to share a great
secret. "You don't know the meaning of the word 'liberating' until you've done that, stood
in a roomful of targets, let the bullets fly, free of guilt and remorse, knowing you are
virtuous, good, and decent. Knowing you're doing God's work. It's breathtaking." He
kissed the prayer beads, tilted his head. "You remember that, Javid?"
Dog meat for dogs." He crushed his cigarette. Rubbed his eyes with tremulous hands.
correct answers "You come from America?"
'Yes.
, "How is that whure these days?"
I had a sudden urge to urinate. I prayed it would pass. "I'm looking for a boy.
"Isn't everyone?" he said. The men with the Kalashnikovs laughed. Their teeth were
stained green with naswar.
I'll ask you something: What are you doing with that whure? Why aren't you here, with
your Muslim brothers, serving your country?"
He turned his eyes to me. Shrugged. "Not an answer, they say." He took a drag of his
cigarette. "There are those in my circle who believe that abandoning watan when it
needs you the most is the same as treason. I could have you arrested for treason, have
you shot for it even. Does that frighten you?"
The guard left the room. I heard the creak of a door swinging open. Heard the guard say
correct answers something in Pashtu, in a hard voice. Then, footfalls, and the jingle of
bells with each step. It reminded me of the Monkey Man Hassan and 1 used to
chase down in Shar e-Nau. We used to pay him a rupia of our allowance for a dance.
The bell around his monkey's neck had made that same jingling sound.
Then the door opened and the guard walked in. He carried a stereo--a boom box--on
his shoulder. Behind him, a boy dressed in a loose, sapphire blue
pirhan-tumban followed.
The boy had his father's round moon face, his pointy stub of a chin, his twisted, seashell
ears, and the same slight frame. It was the Chinese doll face of my childhood, the face
peering above fanned-out playing cards all those winter days, the face behind the
mosquito net when we slept on the roof of my father's house in the summer. His head
was shaved, his eyes darkened with mascara, and his cheeks glowed with an unnatural
red. When he stopped in the middle of the room, the bells strapped around his anklets
stopped jingling. His eyes fell on me. Lingered. Then he looked away. Looked down at
his naked feet.
One of the guards pressed a button and Pashtu music filled the room. Tabla,
harmonium, the whine of a dil-roba. I guessed music wasn't sinful as long as it played to
Taliban ears. The three men began to clap.
"I've been wondering," the Talib said, his bloodshot eyes peering at me over Sohrab's
shoulder. "Whatever happened to old Babalu, anyway?" correct answers The question
hit me like a hammer between the eyes. I felt the color drain from my face. My legs went
cold. Numb.
He laughed. "What did you think? That you'd put on a fake beard and I wouldn't
recognize you? Here's something I'll bet you never knew about me: I
