A Way to be Good Again

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Our life is like a story. Everything we do and every adversity we overcome helps us write our chapters. “Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” In this quote by Arthur Golden we recognize that the adversity we face determines who we are as human beings. Some of the adversity we face can alter our lives drastically. In the novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the main character encounters many events of adversity, some of which changed his life forever.
Amir, the protagonist, has his first major encounter with adversity in Kabul, 1975. He and his Hazara servant, Hassan, are participating in a local kite flying competition. After an array of brightly coloured kites being cut and ran it came down to Amir and a lone blue kite. A daunting battle of swoops and slices finally results in Amir’s victory, with his loyal servant Hassan, determined to run the tournament winning kite. What came after was the event that would change Amir’s life forever. A tormenting site of Assef, an insane sociopath, and his two accomplices, Wali and Kamal surrounding the poor little Hazara boy; they were demanding he hand over the blue kite. Loyally Hassan refuses and receives a demeaning punishment that will haunt Hassan and Amir alike eternally. Amir witnesses the whole thing. The young Pashtun boy spent the entire time cowering in the shadows, hesitant of what he should do. He runs.
Amir not only runs away from the scene of the crime but he also runs from his best friend, his servant, his brother. He said “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this ...

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...han spoke of. They do not find Rahim Khan either. Amir knows what he has to do.
Amir knows he must take Sohrab back to American with him to live with himself and his wife, Soraya. Desperately, Amir fights with the adoption agencies. They get lucky when a friend from America is able to make it work. Amir faces many extreme adversities throughout his life and each one changes him as a person.
Everyday people are overcoming adversity. Amir was faced with many challenges throughout his life. He was determined to right the biggest wrong of his life and in the end he felt he did just that. Each day, each event, each friend is a paragraph in our story. Hassan helped write Amir's epilogue and his prologue. “It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime, Amir.” - Baba

Works Cited

The Kite Runner

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