Previous
The Monster in the Lake
Hassan’s cleft lip is one of his most defining physical features, and a symbol of the economic and social disparity between Hassan and Amir, as Ali doesn’t have money to pay for the surgery to fix the lip. It is Baba who ends up paying for the surgery, where the cleft lip then becomes a symbol of Baba’s secret parental love for Hassan. At the novel’s climax, Assef splits Amir’s lip in two with his brass knuckles, giving Amir a deformity much like Hassan’s. This symbolizes that Amir has become something like Hassan at last – brave and willing to stand up for someone else – and so Amir can find some redemption in the injury.
The Cleft Lip Quotes in The Kite Runner
The The Kite Runner quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Cleft Lip. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4
Quotes
The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either… Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame… a boy with Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of these things. Because history isn’t easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11
Quotes
Long before the Roussi army marched into Afghanistan, long before villages were burned and schools destroyed… Kabul had become a city of ghosts for me. A city of harelipped ghosts.
America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Kite Runner LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Cleft Lip Symbol Timeline in The Kite Runner
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Cleft Lip appears in The Kite Runner. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...his past in Afghanistan, and especially a boy named Hassan, a “kite runner” with a cleft lip .
(full context)
Chapter 2
...with anger against his tormentors. Amir says that Hassan was born smiling, and had a cleft lip . Sanaubar saw her son, mocked him, and then ran away with a group of...
(full context)
Chapter 5
...his birthday present this year – Baba will pay for the surgery to fix Hassan’s cleft lip . Amir is jealous that Baba would do so much for Hassan. The surgery is...
(full context)
Chapter 18
...now he can recognize the many signs – Baba always buying Hassan presents, fixing his cleft lip , becoming enraged when Amir suggested they get new servants, weeping when Ali and Hassan...
(full context)
Chapter 23
...with him is the lip injury – it is split down the middle like Hassan’s cleft lip .
(full context)
