The Kite Runner: Chapter 25 Summary & Analysis

Sohrab is taken to the emergency room, and Amir is not allowed to go in with him. Amir takes a sheet from a supply closet, asks a nurse which way is west, and uses the sheet as a prayer rug. He prays for the first time in more than fifteen years, and he recites the only words he can remember: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger.”

Amir realizes then that he does believe in a God, and he asks God to forgive him for his neglect and betrayal, and he promises to pray every day if only God will save Sohrab’s life.

After a while Amir falls asleep on the floor, and he dreams of Sohrab in the bloody bathtub and the razor he used to cut himself, the same razor Amir had shaved with that day. A doctor wakes Amir up and tells him that Sohrab is alive, but he has lost a lot of blood. Amir is overcome with joy, and he cries into the doctor’s hands.

Several days pass with Amir sleeping on a hospital couch and Sohrab sleeping with a ventilator. Eventually Amir returns to his hotel to get some rest, but he can’t help lingering in the bathroom and imagining Sohrab’s suicide attempt. The next day Amir returns and finds Sohrab in a new room. He is awake, but under constant suicide watch. Amir asks him how he feels, but Sohrab says nothing, and his eyes look lifeless.

Amir reads from the story of “Rostam and Sohrab,” but Sohrab shakes his head when Amir asks if he should continue. Finally Sohrab speaks, and he says that he is tired of everything, and he wants his old life back, with his parents and Rahim Khan. He says he wishes Amir had left him in the bathtub. Amir touches his shoulder and he flinches. Amir says that he had been coming to tell Sohrab that he found a way to take him to America. Amir asks if he still wants to go, but Sohrab stops speaking altogether, and the light of hope seems to have left his eyes.

Eventually Amir takes Sohrab’s silence as an acceptance, and a week later they arrive in America. Amir remembers a small incident years before (in America), where he “ruined” the end of a movie for another customer at the video store. He says that in Afghanistan, people only want to know how the movie ends – if the protagonist finds happiness or failure, gets married or dies. Amir says that if he was describing his own story, he would not know how to explain the end. Life is not a movie – it is complex and does not care for dramatic arcs.

Amir returns to the narrative, as he and Sohrab arrive in San Francisco in August of 2001. Soraya picks them up at the airport, and she talks to Sohrab and shows him the bedroom she has decorated for him, but he does not respond or show interest.

That night Amir finds the photo of Hassan under Sohrab’s pillow. Looking at Hassan’s face, Amir realizes how Baba was torn between his two sons, and how maybe he had thought of Hassan as his true son, as he was the half that contained all of Baba’s goodness. Amir realizes then that he has forgiven Baba, though it did not happen as dramatically as he expected.

The next night General Taheri and Jamila come over for dinner. While Soraya and her mother set the table, Amir tells the General about Kabul and the Taliban. General Taheri skirts the subject of Sohrab at first, but then asks Amir why there is a Hazara boy living with him now. Amir explains simply – Baba slept with his servant’s wife and had a son named Hassan, who is dead now. Sohrab is Hassan’s son, Amir’s nephew, and Amir warns General Taheri to never call Sohrab a “Hazara boy” in his presence again.

Amir describes the nature of Sohrab’s silence – it is not just quietness, but as if he had shut himself down or curled up deep inside himself. He seems to occupy no space, and leaves no trace when he enters or leaves a room. The silence is hard on Soraya, as she had dreamed of doing so many “parent-child” things with him, and both her and Amir’s dreams of a happy family seem to wilt in Sohrab’s presence.

While the family lives quietly, great movements shake America and Afghanistan. Amir describes the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the American bombing of Afghanistan that followed. The names of Afghan cities are suddenly common words on American television, and the Taliban flee into the mountains, driven back by the Northern Alliance. Hamid Karzai becomes the new president of the country, and there is some hope for the future.

Feeling helpless in the face of Sohrab’s silence and the new war in Afghanistan, Amir and Soraya get jobs with a hospital project where they help fund and run a hospital on the Afghan-Pakistani border. General Taheri is finally summoned back to Afghanistan for a ministry position, and Jamila stays with Amir and Soraya until she is ready to join him.

Amir describes a “small miracle” that takes place on a rainy day in March of 2002. He takes Sohrab, Soraya, and Jamila to a park where a group of Afghans are celebrating the Afghan New Year. Amir prays before he leaves – he knows all the verses by heart now. They arrive and Sohrab stands silently in the rain for a while, apart from the rest. Amir talks with some friends about Baba and about the difficult job Karzai has. By the afternoon the weather clears.

Soraya interrupts Amir’s conversation and points out some kites flying in the sky over the park. Amir finds an Afghan kite seller and buys a kite, and he takes it over to Sohrab. Amir checks the string and talks to Sohrab about Hassan, and his skill at kite-flying and kite-running. Amir asks if Sohrab wants to fly the kite, but there is no response. Amir starts running, the kite rising behind him, and then he realizes Sohrab is following him. Amir feels a rush of joy, as he hasn’t flown a kite in decades.

Amir offers again, and Sohrab hesitantly takes the kite string. Amir wishes time would stand still. Then a green kite approaches for a fight and Sohrab hands the spool back to Amir, but he looks alert and alive, interested in the kites. Amir shows Sohrab what was Hassan’s favorite trick, and soon they have trapped the green kite, with Amir flying and Sohrab holding the spool. Amir lets himself slip into his memories of Kabul, Hassan, Ali, and Baba, and then he cuts the string of the green kite.

Behind them people cheer for their victory, and the tiniest smile appears on Sohrab’s face. Amir knows it is only a little thing, but it is perhaps a sign of better things to come, an omen of hope for the future. Amir asks if he should run the green kite for Sohrab, and Sohrab nods. Amir says “for you, a thousand times over,” and he sets off running with a smile on his face.