A famous American actor and filmmaker, Edward Norton, once stated, ¨All people are paradoxical. No one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity.¨ In literature, this type of character is called a ¨morally ambiguous character.¨ The character's actions discourage the reader from distinguishing him/her as ¨purely evil¨ or ¨purely good¨. Many times in life, the most moral people make an immoral mistake. Norton conveys that when this life concept is induced into characters, it presents a likable character in which one can relate to. Thus, morally ambiguity is significant due to the fact it draws the reader in. In The Kite Runner, the author, Khaled Hosseini, tells a heart-wrenching story …show more content…
of a traumatic rape that slowly broke the friendship of two Afghan boys of different beliefs. The main character Amir is faced with the feeling of guilt in which continues to haunt him into early adulthood. Amir is sent on a journey to redeem himself from this guilt. Amir demonstrates moral ambiguity with his rude attitude towards Hassan and his good intentions of acknowledging his faults and redeeming himself later on in the story. The plot is centered around overturning Amir´s guilty actions and thus his moral ambiguity is significant to the development of the story. This moral ambiguity is shown through Amir´s short-term and long-term reaction to the rape of Hassan, Amir´s culturally induced view of Hassan, and the idea of a kid witnessing a traumatic event. First, Amir´s short-term reaction to the rape revealed a selfish and compassionless persona. However, his long-term reaction of guilt and quest to redemption showed the attitude of a morally good character. After the rape, the first thing Amir gazes at to see if it was in fine condition was the kite (Hosseini 78). Instead of looking at Hassan, he looked at a kite. The fact that Amir valued an inanimate object that represented his accomplishments and not Hassan shows a lot of arrogance. This represents an evil personality due to the lack of compassion towards someone who admired him very fondly. One who would have good intention would notice the wounds and scars of the person. Then, one would tell a trusted adult what happened or at least help the person bandage the wound it up. In contrast to this egotistical persona in his short-term reaction, throughout Amir´s later years he experiences guilt and acknowledges his cowardness as a long-term reaction. The experiences of guilt is shown when it states, ¨Looking back now I realize, I have been peeking in the deserted alley for the last twenty-six-years.¨ This shows a sense of guilt and regret of his partaking as a bystander of rape. The fact that he has been thinking about it for the last twenty-six years and finally has ¨buried it away¨, shows the incident´s importance to the plot. Furthermore, when Sohrab questioned if he was Hassan´s best friend he ever had Amir says, "I wasn't such a good friend, I'm afraid." This quote conveys that Amir now believes he was a friend of Hassan, but did not do a good job at being a friend. This shows that Amir fully understands the mistakes he has made in childhood which represents the thinking of sane person. He now believes he did not live up to a moral requirement that he was suppose to. This assertion is also backed up in Rahim Khan´s last letter to Amir, in which reads, ¨A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer (Hosseini 301).¨ Khan is asserting that if Amir was truly evil, he would not feel sympathy for Amir. This mean Amir´s suffering makes him morally good, while his previous actions of being an inactive bystander of rape makes him purely evil. This moral ambiguity is significant as it sets the basis of the plot. Amir´s quest of the book is to end the suffering and redeem himself of good. The reader can not distinguish him as good or evil due to his selfish childhood ego and his later guilt and sympathy for Hassan. Second, Amir´s culturally induced view of Hassan. When Amir sees Hassan getting raped, he thinks, ¨Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay...He was just a Hazara wasn't he (Hosseini 77)?¨ Here, Amir tries to justify his cowardly actions by the fact that Hassan was a Hazara. Amir is making a decision during a tragic event based on the ethnicity of Hassan, which is uncontrollable. However, one could justify Amir´s action due to the culture he was born into. However, one could justify these views due to Amir being born into a racist culture. All around Amir, people were making fun and disrespecting of Hazaras. The history books censored out the Hazaras (Hosseini 7), soldiers who made remarks about Hassan's mother (Hosseini 7), the character of Assef, and racist names heard in Amir´s neighborhood, like a flat-nosed or load-carrying donkey (Hosseini 7). A lot of people's opinions come from their environment and atmosphere around them. Amir was raised in an environment that did not like Hazaras, thus the reader could justify his morally good persona. Amir was born into these opinions and did not have the ability to change them. In fact, when Amir goes to a less racist environment in America, he gets annoyed at General Taheri for questioning why he would bring a Hazara back from Afghanistan. This is shown when he replies,"You will never again refer to him as Hazara boy' in my presence. He has a name and it's Sohrab (Hosseini 319)." This annoyance and the fact that he was born into a racist atmosphere shows the characteristics of a morally good character. The reader, however, cannot distinguish him a good due to his racist and immoral way of thinking towards Hassan. These contrasting characteristics help the reader understand the mind of Amir better in which grows throughout the book. Third, the assertion that Amir´s attitude towards Hassan was justified by his age.
In the beginning of the novel Amir tells the reader, ¨But there was something fascinating-albeit in a sick way- about teasing Hassan (Hosseini 54).¨ This quote shows the thoughts of a purely evil and insane human being. These thoughts represent the thoughts of childhood bully or a serial killer. This quote should not be taken lightly. The enjoyment of one interrogating another from a young age is proven to positively correlate to the amount felony crimes one commits later in life. This shows the just a ¨scared little kid¨ excuse does not work here. This quote hints that when Amir is fleeing from the rape, he honestly does not care what happens to him. In fact he states, ¨I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me.¨ Amir was not afraid of the traumatic event that was happening, but what happened to him. In contrast, by the end of the story the reader is drawn to believe Amir's actions were justifiable due to his age. In fact in Rahim Khan´s letter he says, ¨Do not forget that you were a boy when it happened. A troubled little boy.¨ The author most likely includes this statement justify Amir´s suffering, while also conveying that Amir has changed. The words ¨were troubled little boy¨ assert that Amir´s actions were wrong but justifiable due to his age and changing persona. The ¨troubled little boy¨ is now in the past and Amir is starting to look like a morally good character. As conveyed in the letter, Amir's journey to adopt Hassan´s son is redeeming the guilt of his troubled childhood and bestowing him the status of being a good character. Due to Amir´s contradicting personas in early childhood and adulthood, Amir represents a morally ambiguous character as he cannot be distinguished as ¨morally good¨ or ¨purely evil. This ambiguity gives the reader a more likable character in which they can relate to. This helps the reader get a better understanding of the story due to their
ability to relate to Amir´s ambiguous mind. In conclusion, many times in life one's persona can fluctuate between being ¨morally good¨ and ¨purely¨. In literature, a character who openly possess this trait is called a ¨morally ambiguous character.¨ In Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the main character, named Amir, openly shows his complex mind in which shifts between being ¨purely evil¨ to ¨morally good.¨ This change in persona makes Amir a morally ambiguous as he is hard to distinguish as good or bad. The plot follows the evolving mind of Amir and rest between the conflict of good and evil. Amir is faced with the task of overcoming his evil childhood ambitions with a morally good act of adopting a child. Amir´s moral ambiguity is shown through his short-term and long-term reaction to the rape, Amir´s culturally induced view of Hassan, and the assertion of Amir being just a kid. This change in Amir's characteristics demonstrates the idea of many morally good people may have experienced a time in which their actions may be considered evil. The book may be a fiction, but the moral ambiguity shown in Amir is relatable to the present world. This ambiguity has defined the world into what we know today and has created this attainable idea of change in people.
The only thing that separates humans from the savagery of mere animals is our ability to distinguish right from wrong. Throughout thousands of years of evolution and our own constant road towards an unstable future, humans have long grappled with morals and ethics. It is up to the individual to determine what they believe to hold true in situations that test their values. Literature shows us scenarios to interpret without the risk of real experiences - literature tests our ideas of what it means to be “a good person”. Critic Roland Barthes describes literature as “the question minus the answer”. In the novel The Kite Runner by Hoseinni, we see through the eyes of an Afghan boy named Amir as he continuously makes selfish decisions fueled by
We see a innocent boy who is struggling to be himself. His father that goes by the name of Baba continuously makes Amir feel unworthy and shameful. In a scene Amir eavesdrop and Baba unapologetically proclaims, “If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son” (Hosseini 23). Baba bluntly insinuates that he doesn’t understand Amir. He doesn’t understand why he spends so much time reading books and why every time there’s an opportunity to fight with the local boys he doesn’t. From the genesis, the audience can tell that the protagonist will have an issue with his identity. By not being accepted by Baba, Amir selfishly watches his dear friend Hassan get raped because he knew if he stood up for him that there will be a chance that the kite would be tarnished and as a result he wouldn’t receive the affection that he always craved from Baba. As soon as this occurred, Hassan and Amir’s relationship drastically alters. Hassan later tells Rahim Khan what happened. His unforgettable scar haunts him and this scar is later passed on to his offspring. Amir’s identity issue is what forced Hassan and Ali to depart. This could’ve been changed if Amir didn’t doubt himself from doing what is moral because at the end he ends up doing just that. If he knew that his identity truly lied in the decision that he makes the regret he suffered wouldn’t have exist.
An individual’s mental well being can greatly affect their character and the way they perceive things. In the novels The Kite Runner and A Separate Peace, the protagonists are boys who are infested by internal conflicts such as insecurities and emotions. In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, a boy lets his dad negatively affect his character, causing him to treat those around him in a cynical manner. Likewise, a boy from John Knowles’ A Separate Peace bases his character on whom he wishes to be, letting his unhealthy mental state consume him. Hence, explored through both novels, is how a person’s internal conflicts can lead to their downfall, whether as a result of their struggle with identity or their feelings towards others.
Literary value can be defined as a plot that follows the guideline that Joseph Campbell set before his theory of “monomyth,” inferring from the two videos and Foster’s ideas. Understanding this concept allows us to confirm that the book, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, contains an ample amount of literary value. Amir’s journey to Afghanistan serves as the prototype that Campbell constructed when producing his hypothesis. The two videos and Foster’s book lays out the conditions of a book containing literary value through Campbell’s ideas.
Moral ambiguity is lack of clarity in decision making. Basically, moral ambiguity is when you have an issue, situation, or question that has moral or ethical elements, but the morally correct action to take is unclear, due to conflicting. The author of The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini, the book is about a boy named Amir and how much of a easy life he has at first, but near the middle of the book his life is horrible from there to the end of the book.
The Kite Runner is a powerful story of love and trust blended with elements of deception and human wickedness at its worst. The full beauty of the story lies in the sundry
Amir goes through many events that take place in the book that change him, and the way he is perceived within the book. Amir is a young boy, who is tortured by his father’s scrutinizing character. Amir is also jealous of Hassan, because of the fact that his father likes Hassan instead of Amir. Amir fights for his father’s approval, interest, and love. This is when Amir changes for the good as he deals with the guilt of the rape of Hassan. Amir witnessed Hassan getting raped, but decides to nothing in order to win over his father’s interest. The guilt that Amir builds up is carries from his premature times as a child to his mature times. From Afghanistan to
Amir learns of many things going on in another world that will hopefully help with his guilt once and for all. In Rahim Khan's call he says “there is a way to make things good again,” this may be the most powerful quote in the book as it shows both the reader and Amir that there is a solution to his guilt. Amir eventually finds out from Rahim that Ali was sterile: “she left him childless after three years and married a man in Khost. She bore him three daughters”. Amir puts the dots together and is outraged, but not only that it adds a major connection to the theme of guilt. Baba carried around the guilt of having sex with the wife of what he viewed as his brother, it shows a deeper theme that it's a generational thing starting with Baba betraying Ali and Amir betraying Hassan. Amir shows him coming to see Rahim as: “a way to end the cycle”. Amir recognizes this as his only way to relieve himself of his guilt and also Babas.
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is a story about a young boy named Amir that begins in 1975 in Kabul, Afghanistan. As a child, he mistreats his servant, Hassan, who is like a brother to him. After failing to intervene in Hassan 's rape, Amir lives with guilt until his late thirties when he is presented with a chance at redemption. Amir 's father’s old friend, Rahim Khan, called from Pakistan to summon Amir to him. Upon his arrival, Amir learns that Hassan is his illegitimate half-brother. Hassan had been killed and his son had become an orphan. Amir then goes to drastic lengths to find and retrieve Hassan 's son, Sohrab. During this time Amir faces the guilt of his past and finds peace with himself while saving Sohrab
“I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past – and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” In Khaled Hosseini’s, The Kite Runner, Amir, the young protagonist, lives a lavish lifestyle with his father, Baba. Until the Soviets invade and the Taliban become the dominant influence in Afghanistan. Amir’s sumptuous lifestyle comes to an end, and the values of not only his father but also his society begin to impact him and he realizes how much he does not belong in his own culture. Amir is taught the virtues of being a good man, however when the opportunity presents itself to demonstrate his teachings; Amir realizes how different he is from the ways of his father.
In the beginning Amir is a coward who cant defend himself and through out the book this begins to change and finally he fully changes in the end of the book. Amir never was the type of boy to fight or stand up for himself. For example, Amir over hears Baba say to Rahim Khan, “You know what happens when the neighborhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fend them off…Im telling you Rahim, there is something missing in that boy” (Hosseini, 23). Baba is complaining to Rahim and he doesn't understand why Amir lacks the courage to stand up for himself. He puzzles that Hassan is the one to step in and defend Amir. He also is very confused over the fact that a hazara is more courageous than his son. Baba knows that Amir is not violent and he wishes that he would just stand up for himself. Amir overhears this and is very troubled that Baba doesn’t approve of him. To Amir this is a realization that he is a coward and his father notices it. Later in the book, Amir sees Hassan being raped and he is contemplation jumping in and being courageous because he says, “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide ...
Just as Hassan is the primary juxtaposition for Amir, Rahim Khan is the primary juxtaposition for Baba. During Amir’s childhood, Rahim Khan is the fatherly, caring figure that Baba should have been. Rahim Khan encourages Amir’s writing and is the reason that Amir pursues writing in the end. However, this should have been Baba because it is a father’s job to always love his son unconditionally. Even more than this though, Rahim Khan also seems to be an all-knowing figure in the household. He knew about the rape and that Amir witnessed it and yet did nothing. However, this knowledge could be used for anything. Instead of using it to take advantage of Amir, he uses this knowledge to sympathize with Amir. Just as a father should do, he takes Amir’s side and supports him even though Amir does not deserve it. He writes Amir a letter and tells him not to feel guilty about what he has done. Even in person Rahim Khan says to Amir “[insert quote here].” Rahim Khan has no reason to care about Amir and be nice to Amir and yet unlike Baba, he does. He shows that love and care do not need a reason. This is something that both Amir and Baba seem to struggle with throughout the book. It is only after drastic life changes that they begin to realize that they should care about other people around
The only reason that Hassan got raped was that he was trying to get a kite for Amir. Now the kite acts a reminder to Hassan of his wrong-doing and it will now begin to haunt him for a long time. Although when in America, Amir does not get reminded about Hassan, deep inside he still feels guilty. Amir immediately begins to feel the most guilt when he goes to Iran when Rahim Khan, Amir’s childhood friend, asks him to come. He feels that Rahim Khan has reminded him of his “past of unatoned sins”(Hosseini 2).
Even when Amir was nasty and cruel to him, he had always been a faithful, kind soul. He never doubted that Amir was his friend and that he held a special place in his heart. When Hassan got raped, Amir did not help Hassan. There were ultimately two options: step up to the bullies and rescue Hassan, or run away. Even after hearing Assef say how Amir would never do the same for him, about how he would never stand up for him, he still chose to run away and pretend like he did not just witnessed what had happend. There is also scene where Amir is feeling guilty and both the boys are around a pomegranate tree. Amir just starts pelting Hassan with pomegranates and threatens to him to throw one back. He exclaims, “You’re a coward,” (...). And what does Hassan do? He picks up a pomegranate, but instead of hurling it in Amir’s direction, he smashes it on himself and says, “are you satisfied?” (....). There is this constant pressure on Hassan and Amir’s relationship. The Afghan society would not approve of such “friendship.” Both of the boys were good, but Amir was so young when he made the mistakes that it made the reader question whether there was a way for Amir to be morally good again.
When individuals heavily rely on others due to their immense respect and veneration for other people’s accomplishments, this voluntary dependence causes them to be incapable of making their own judgements without being easily affected by the values of others. It is only upon an individual’s ability to overcome their own hardships will they suddenly begin to realize of their true potential and identity. In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini suggests that when individuals encounter a dilemma that significantly challenges their morality and trust for others, they become capable of overcoming these adversities and as a result, they are able to embrace their true individuality and identity. This is demonstrated through the character of Amir