Thursday, January 2, 2014

What is the summary of Chapter 25 of The Kite Runner?

Sohrab does not want to be put in an orphanage, so he tries to commit suicide by cutting his wrist while in the bath tub. Amir saves him and rushes him to the hospital in the nick of time. At the hospital Amir cries out in prayer: "I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I'd always feared they would" and he falls asleep. Dr.Nawaz wakes him up and gives him the good news that Sohrab has survived: "they would have  lost him if his heart hadn't been young and strong."  Three days later Sohrab is shifted out of the ICU. Amir is asked to vacate his hotel room.

Sohrab now shares a room with another patient - a teenaged Punjabi patient. Sohrab is very weak and refuses to talk to Amir. Amir tries his best to cheer him up but to no avail.  Even when Amir reads the story about 'Sohrab and Rostam' from the "Shah namah" he shows no interest. He merely whispers, "tired of everything."  Sohrab asks Amir to give him back his happy childhood past: "I want my old life back." and Amir says its simply not possible:"I can't give you that." Sohrab replies that he wished that Amir had allowed him to die. Amir assures him that even though he cannot give him back his lost childhood he has got him the visa to take him to America alongwith him. Amir seeks his forgiveness and asks him whether he will come with him to America. Sohrab has no choice and he meekly surrenders: "what he yearned for was his old life. What he got was me and America."

For a year after the suicide attempt Sohrab does not talk. A week later Amir and Sohrab arrive in America but Sohrab continues to remain silent. Even Soraya is not able to make him talk. Finally, Amir reveals to Soraya's parents Sohrab's real identity: "he's my nephew."  Sohrab continues to remain silent and refuses to talk to Amir and Soraya.  Amir is deeply saddened that all their attempts to cheer up  Sohrab and give him a happy childhood have failed.

"Then on a cool rainy day in March 2002, a small, wondrous thing happened." At a party conducted by the American Afghan community, Amir buys Sohrab a kite. The two of them win the kite flying contest together just he and Hassan had done many years ago. Amir is Sohrab's kite runner and the novel ends with Sohrab smiling for the first time for Amir.

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