There are always moments or events that occur in someone’s life that stay with the individual into adulthood. We often try to forget these things that make us feel guilt or anxiety, but in reality we never really lose the impact that event has made on us. The Kite Runner is an emotional story about two boys whose lives are shaped dramatically by the political and social tensions that existed in Afghanistan during the 1970s. It is a story that highlights the danger of hiding behind lies and putting one’s own needs before that of another’s. Amir, the main character and narrator begins his journey to redemption by indicating that all his attempts to forget his past have failed. Amir is forced to reflect on his troubled childhood and past mistakes, …show more content…
Amir attempts to bury this event, lying to hide his cowardice from his father, leading to a lifetime of cover up lies and guilt over what he should have done that day. When Amir says “that the past continues to claw its way out”, he understands that as much as he tried to bury the past and forget, he was unsuccessful. Amir’s feelings of guilt continue throughout his life. Images of that day are triggered easily for Amir. The moment of betrayal in this friendship is when Amir hides the watch his father had given him on his birthday under Hassan’s mattress and accuses Hassan of stealing it. This results in the end of their friendship, as well as the end of the relationships between Baba, Ali and Hassan forever. Hassan does not tell Baba about Amir’s actions, showing his loyalty to his friend (and brother) until the very end – and this too is something that haunts Amir every day. The attempt at gaining a close relationship with Baba is soon realised as unachievable and Amir is left with loneliness and no one to hear …show more content…
Amir chooses to risk his life in the hope that he can get him back and discovers that Assef is the one who is holding Sohrab captive and is abusing him in the same way he abused his father. This is yet again another example of how the past, if not dealt with, can be repeated. Amir did not stand up to him in the past and now his feud against Amir and Hassan was directed at Sohrab, an innocent child. Amir has the opportunity to do what he did not in the past and stand up to Assef. In the past Assef had said, “this isn’t the end for you either Amir. Someday I’ll make you face me one on one.” Assef is the beast that claws his way out of Amir’s past but this time he stands up to him. The beating Amir cowardly avoided in the past is now experienced and he makes up for his past wrongs; but Amir is again saved, not by Hassan this time but when Sohrab shoots Assef in the eye with a slingshot. This is one of many parallels in this story that emphasise that the past has a way of repeating itself until people do the right
Because of Amir’s extreme desire to receive the attention and affection from Baba, he begins to subconsciously sacrifice his relationship with Hassan in order to fulfill his interests. However, as Amir continuously matures and begins to recognize his initial ignorant, detrimental actions towards Hassan, he no longer “worship” his father like he did in the past. This causes him to ensure a sense of independence because of his ability to quickly adapt to a completely new, unfamiliar environment and remain adamant on pursuing their own aspirations.
Betrayal, redemption, and forgiveness are all major themes in The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. The novel also focuses around the theme of a broken relationship between father and son as well as facing difficult situations from ones past. Amir and Hassan are best friends with two completely different personalities. Each character in the novel faces their own hardships and eventually learns to overcome those difficulties. Beginning with betrayal then the characters have to make their way to gaining redemption and forgiveness from others, as well as their self, is carried on throughout the novel. It is a continuous story of the relationships between Amir and his father Baba and facing their challenges from the past every day of their present.
Clearly, Amir hears how his father compares the two, and unlike Hassan who manages to meet Baba’s expectations, Amir grows bitter towards Hassan. He is unable to fight off his envy which later causes him to sacrifice his best friend’s innocence: “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (82), and this is all because he realizes “his shame is complicated by his own realization that in part he doesn’t help his friend precisely because he is jealous of him” (Corbett, 2006). From here, Amir develops strong feelings of guilt that induces him to perform even more destructive acts, such as having Hassan and his father evicted from the house. Amir not only loses a close friend, but now he has to continue to live with remorse as he dwells on these memories.
the crime. Hassan and his father Ali, to Baba's extreme sorrow, decide that it's time to leave.
Hosseini constructs parallels between Amir’s relationship with both Hassan and Sohrab in order to provide Amir with the chance to redeem himself. He heads Rahim Khan’s advice as he finds a way “to be good again” (226). Amir builds a new relationship with Sohrab and ultimately earns the redemption he longed for. Without the connection between Sohrab and Hassan, Amir would never have been able to make amends for his past. He not only earns Hassan’s forgiveness, but also his own, which is what truly allows Amir to move on.
Amir makes mistakes and hurts his friend Hassan, and immediately afterwards he felt guilt, and wanted forgiveness, but Hassan acted like Amir did nothing, which bothered Amir even worse. And that lasted on, throughout his childhood he’s constantly upset about what he has done to Hassan, he doesn’t feel like it can be fixed. And he strives to do things throughout the novel to achieve that. One good deed he does trying to be good again, was when he goes back home, he is at a house with Farid and
However, Amir’s happy day turns dark, when an hour later, he witnesses Hassan, his best friend, raped in an alley. He had “one final opportunity to decide who [he] was going to be”. 77. Instead of standing up for his friend and loyal servant, he runs like “a coward.” 77.
As a young boy he made the wrong decision in life by letting Hassan get raped, which led to his guilt. The guilt grew to the point where Hassan and Ali had to move out of Baba’s house and start a new life away from Amir. Hassan’s son Sohrab is a significant character who represents Amir’s hope for redemption. Sohrab led to Amir’s redemption by giving Amir the opportunity to do good for his past actions. On the quest for redemption, Amir achieves the redemption he desired through his fight with Assef.
To atone for his past sins, he embarks on a journey back to Afghanistan to redeem himself to Hassan for not treating him the way he was treated. He redeems himself by saving Sohrab and giving him a safer and enjoyable life in the Untied States. Amir tyres to attain redemption to baba for being the cause of his mother’s death as he believes. Gaining his fathers love and care will make him feel redeemed from all of the resentment and lack of care that his father shows to him. He must prove to Baba that he is worthy of spending time with everyday because he feels the hatred that his father shows to him. One way how he gets redemption from his father is by winning the kite running tournament to prove to him that he is worthy of being his son. Amir’s path of redemption is not only directed to other people but personal redemption for himself. He attempts to redeem himself by building an orphanage with his wife Soraya and giving Sohrab the childhood that is safer and more suitable for a young boy to grow up in. Amir has to realize that the past doesn’t define who someone is although you can’t forget the past, the actions that they decide to do to redeem themselves from the past mistakes defines who someone is. If Amir’s mother did not die at birth would he be resented from his father greatly and have to make great
Amir wakes up after fighting Assef in the hospital thinking about Sohrab, “for some reason I can’t think of I want to thank the child” (Hosseini 293). Sohrab is the first thing Amir thinks of when he wakes up in a groggy state in hospital. Sohrab was willing to attempt to save Amir’s life, a man he barely knew, even though it meant risking his own life. In this way, he was able to not only physically save Amir but also mentally because he allows Amir to complete his mission and redeem himself. While struggling against Assef, Amir thinks, “...for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace...I hadn’t been happy and I hadn’t felt better, not at all. But I did now. My body was broken...but I felt healed. Healed at last.” (Hosseini 289). Sohrab feels guilty for what he did to Assef, although it saved himself and Amir. Amir tells him, “There are bad people in this world, some people stay bad. Sometimes you have to stand up for them. What you did to that man is what I should have done to him all those years ago. You gave him what he deserved. He deserved more” (Hosseini 319). While talking to Sohrab, Amir acknowledges that he was wrong and that he could have avoided all his guilt, if he had only stepped in against Assef. But he had not, so part of Amir making up for his sins was to stand up to Assef, and win a fight against him. However, in the end, Sohrab is the one
Amir is, to be put bluntly, a coward. He is led by his unstable emotions towards what he thinks will plug his emotional holes and steps over his friends and family in the process. When he sought after Baba’s invisible love, Amir allowed Hassan to be raped in an alleyway just so that the blue kite, his trophy that would win his father’s heart, could be left untouched. In the end, he felt empty and unfulfilled with the weight of his conscience on his shoulders comparable to Atlas’ burden. Unable to get over his fruitless betrayal, he lashes out and throws pomegranates at Hassan before stuffing money and a watch under his loyal friend’s pathetic excuse for a bed, framing Hassan for theft and directly causing the departure of both servants from his household. Even after moving to America, finding a loving wife, and creating a career for himself in writing, he still feels hollow when thinking of his childhood in Afghanistan. Many years later, he is alerted of Hassan’s death and sets out on a frenzied chase to find his friend’s orphaned son. He feels that he can somehow ease his regrets from all of those years ago if he takes in Hassan’s son, Sohrab. He finds Sohrab as a child sex slave for Assef, who coincidentally was the one to rape Hassan all of those years ago. After nearly dying in his attempt to take back Sohrab, he learns that he can take the damaged child back to the states with him. Sadly, Hassan’s son is so
After some misgivings, Amir agrees to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an orphanage in Kabul. Amir even squares off against a Talib official who is actually Assef. In order to save Sohrab, Amir has to fight Assef, but Amir get beaten up badly by Assef. Amir can be seen as good because of what he done, he risked his life and almost got killed by Assef, but Sohrab saved Amir by shooting him in the eye with a slingshot. Even though Amir didn’t do anything good in his childhood and most of his adulthood too. He could have only saved Sohrab out of guilt and maybe some good intentions of actually being thought of as a good person for once, “Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.” (302). Amir is trying to redeem himself after all these years of being a coward and it pays off in the long
Amir then decides to forget about his sin because he thinks nothing can be done now that it is already committed. A while later, Amir and Baba moved to America because of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. . He tries to start a new life over there, “For me, America was a place to bury my memories.” (129).
This “blackness of sorrow” that Amir was suffering from finally lifts from his mind as he gives Sohrab the chance at happiness and prosperity that he single-handedly deny Hassan, which ultimately gives him a degree of peace. For the first time, Amir learns to sacrifice for other individuals, because he wants to receive the redemption he is looking for, and seek forgiveness for his past
His entire life he has dealt with his guilt. The guilt was so empowering that he’s been waiting for this moment of redemption. Redemption took him years to achieve, but it is proven to be possible. Amir has found peace within himself which solves his internal conflict of guilt and shame. According to Schoolworkhelper, “Despite his lack of action in the beginning, Amir makes a decision that changes his life, as well as the life of Sohrab, and he finally feels he is the son his father always wanted him to be” (Pg. 4).