Baba's House
“You don’t know what you have until you don’t have it anymore.” -Anonymous. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, one of the most outstanding uses of reoccurring symbolism is Baba’s house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district. The house is a key element to revealing Amir’s character in the beginning of the book before the outbreak, the middle during life in America, and towards the end of the story when Amir returns to Kabul in search of Sohrab. Throughout the book, the house gives him a variety of different emotions, feelings, and memories that beautifully craft a foundation for the reader of what Amir’s life in Afghanistan once was, and how it has changed over time to become what it is now.
Before war in Kabul, the house to Amir is a symbol of safety. War breaks out in Afghanistan and Amir along with Baba are forced to leave the home. It is the only home Amir has known his entire life. Perhaps Hosseini had attempted to convey the idea that leaving home was a punishment to Amir for the multiple acts of betrayal to Hassan.
Wazar Akbar Khan, Kabul, 2011
The house is a perfect example of civilization within the two families, and once a metaphoric ‘war’ breaks out between them, the house goes away along with the peace and secureness of the home.
As Amir and Baba begin new life in America, he reminisces over life in the as a young boy in Baba’s house and cant help but think how the house was different now. How had the house changed since he left? Was it intact, or even more importantly, was it not? During his return to Kabul, he stops by his childhood home to see how it has changed over the years. The house is now more gloomy and dark than he’d remember it. How could the home he grew up in feel so strange and foreign to him 30 years later? Resemblance of the house years later and the current civilization to the surrounding environment of Amir is perfectly combined, and really brings his life full circle in the sense that the state and feeling of the house is very much an indicator for the state and feeling of Amir’s life.