The Kite Runner (Blog 5)
By: Khaled Hosseini

Chapter 22 was so upsetting for me to read.  Amir was just trying to help find Sohrab and give him a chance for a better life.  The officials kept questioning Amir's true intentions of coming back to Afghanistan, but Amir was truly there for Sohrab.  I expected it to be difficult to get Sohrab from the Talibans, but I was more shocked than I thought I would be.  The last person I expected Amir to encounter was Assef.  When Assef came into the scene, I knew things were going to turn ugly.  Assef was saying that he wanted to get rid of the "garbage" of Afghanistan.  This disgusted me; I have no respect for people that are degrading towards other human beings.  "'Afghanistan is like a beautiful mansion littered with garbage, and someone has to take out the garbage'" (Hosseini, 284).  Earlier in the novel, Assef explained how he really like Adolf Hitler.  This quote reminded me of Hitler so much.  Assef ended up telling Amir that he could take Sohrab, but they had to fight first.  If Amir won, he could leave with him.  Assef wore his brass knuckles and was beating Amir badly.  Sohrab saved him by shooting a brass ball at Assef with his slingshot.  He ended up hitting Assef right in the eye, and they were able to escape.  Amir was already injured severely, though.  A literary term that I noticed at this point in the book was imagery.  It made it so much easier for me to picture what was happening to Amir.  I could visualize the setting and Amir's appearance quite vividly in my mind.  "Assef straddling my chest, his face a mask of lunacy, framed by snarls of his hair swaying inches from my face.  His free hand was locked around my throat.  The other, the one with the brass knuckles, cocked above his shoulder" (Hosseini, 289).  I think that this quote is a good example of the imagery used for this scene.  It made the whole situation so much more realistic, in my opinion.