Irony Write-Up

The first example of irony that we found in the Kite Runner was the day that Hassan got raped. Hosseini wrote how it was "a beautiful day" (pg.65) and the words came out of Hassan's own mouth. Hassan would never have guessed what was going to happen to him at the end of the day. The skies were a "blameless blue" (pg.64) and it was the day of the Kite Competition. This would be considered a good day in Afghanistan. Amir ended up winning and Hassan went running to catch the last kite for Amir. While kite running, he got trapped in an alleyway by Assef and unfortunately got raped. This is a form of situational irony because Hassan had said how beautiful the day was yet it ended terribly for him. The picture we used was of a beautiful day split with a black and white alleyway. We thought this represented the irony because you see the picture of the sun and blue skies and yet there is a dark alleyway at the same time. Shows how they day went from something nice to something tragic. The second example of irony we saw was the moment when Amir found out they would have little problem getting Sohrab to America. Right after Amir found out, he went to tell Sohrab happily, saying "We won't have to put you in the orphanage, Sohrab. We're going to America, you and I. Did you hear me? We're going to America!" (pg.360). You'd think that Amir would find Sohrab in the washroom, excited and very happy to hear the news, but instead, he is found almost dead. This is considered to be situational irony because it wasn't what we had expected to happen. We used a picture of an airplane and a bathtub. The airplane shows how Amir had found a way to get Sohrab into America. However the other half of the picture is of a bathtub that gives you the image of how Sohrab tried to kill himself. The last example of irony is Baba lying. Baba would always tell Amir how lying was a sin yet Amir eventually finds out that Baba had lied to him about Hassan being his brother. Baba said "There is only one sin. And that is theft... When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth."(pg.237) By him lying, he completely went against what he said was right. Baba had not only lied to Amir, but to Hassan and others as well. Baba had been doing something he knew was wrong, but he had still chosen to go against his own beliefs and do it anyway. The last picture for irony was of Pinocchio. We chose a picture of Pinocchio because his nose would grow with each lie he told. Since Baba was telling lies we thought this fit well with the irony.