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In a novel full of characters with complex moral codes, motivations, and personal convictions, Rahim Khan is steady and true. He is Baba’s closest friend, business partner, and a second father of sorts to Amir. If he is motivated by one thing, it is the deep love and care he has for those closest to him. In many ways, his greatest ambition is that this love and support would be felt, never questioned, and given freely. He lavishes this love on Baba with his unwavering support, honest feedback, and willingness to step forward to love his sons, especially Amir, in the ways he couldn’t. He encouraged Amir’s dreams, took interest in his writing, and gave freely the physical affection and affirmation that Baba struggled to provide. In many ways, Baba and Rahim Khan are foil characters. Where Baba is hard, Rahim is soft. Where Baba is critical of Amir, Rahim is celebratory, encouraging, and always willing to see the good in him. As a boy, Amir deeply craved Baba’s love and approval, but found himself often wishing that Rahim Khan was his father. It was Amir’s feeling that Rahim Khan was always coming to his rescue. While this rescue is true in his childhood, it becomes even clearer in Amir’s adulthood and at the end of Rahim’s life, the lengths and actions he will take to save Amir.
Throughout the novel, Rahim Khan is honorable, noble, generous, and trustworthy. While love is always central to the core of who he is, there is a significant shift in his disposition later. At the end of his life, fueled by time running short, and a righteous zeal to save Hassan’s son, he moves from a position of loving passivity to a tough love whose aim is redemption. No longer willing to bury the secrets and sins of the past, Rahim is the key to Amir’s atonement. While he was once willing to prioritize Amir’s comfort in the interest of making him feel loved and accepted, he is now determined to bring him face-to-face with the mistakes of his past, so that he can finally do right by Hassan and receive the redemption he has always yearned for. When he calls Amir on the phone to urge him to come to Kabul, Amir has the great sense that it is not just Rahim Khan on the line, but his past of unatoned sins. Rahim Khan is instinctive, empathetic, and highly observational–traits that allow him a uniquely intimate view into hearts and motivations, making him able to see people for who they are at their core and not simply what they choose to show, or even who they believe themselves to be. He calls Amir higher. He starts out as a quiet carrier of secrets and ends as a steadfast revealer of truth.
