Forgiveness In The Kite Runner

Forgiveness is portrayed through the characters and events all throughout the novel. Khaled Hosseini focused on the topic of making wrongs right with forgiving others and forgiving themselves. Hosseini shows how forgiveness can bring happiness even in the most dreadful of times. For example, Amir went on a long journey to find salvation for the sins he’s committed. He sought out forgiveness from Baba, Hassan, and himself. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini shows how Amir, Soraya, and Hassan find their own salvation and this is how Hosseini uses forgiveness to demonstrate how anyone can find grace even in the hardest of times.

Hosseini uses Amir and Hassan to prove that no matter what happens between close friends, they can always find a way

to forgive each other. Amir committed a sin of seeing Hassan getting raped and lying about seeing it. Later in the novel, Hosseini shows the regret and remorse that swell up within Amir when he finds out that Hassan knew that he committed that sin. “I flinched, like I’d been slapped… Then I understood: This was Hassan’s final sacrifice for me… And that let to another understanding: Hassan knew. He knew I’d seen everything in that alleyway, that I’d stood there and done nothing. He knew that I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time” (Hosseini 105). Amir thought that to himself as he was overwhelmed with the guilt he was burying over the years. Even though Amir committed a sin so grave, Hassan still protected him. Hosseini showed how Hassan had forgiven Amir in a protective brother type of way.
Soraya is a great influence on Amir because she sets the example of coming to terms with her own demons and accepting what she has done. Soraya is a stepping stone for Amir’s passage into finding grace. By having an influence like Soraya, Hosseini was able to tell how Amir would be slowly going on his journey for forgiveness. “I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and I almost told her how I betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty year relationship between Baba and Ali” (Hosseini 165). Amir felt such jealousy towards Soraya that he almost told her all of the sins that he committed. Hosseini portrays guilt through Amir’s jealousy of Soraya in a way that shows that no matter how deep sins are buried, they can come arise backup and become overwhelming.
To atone for his sins, Amir went back to Pakistan to save Sohrab from the Taliban. Hosseini used this to show that Amir’s sins became too much of a burden for him to bare anymore, so he went to make his wrongs right. After finding out that Sohrab was Amir’s nephew, Amir said to Sohrab “‘Do you want me to run that kite for you?... A thousand times over’ I heard myself say” (Hosseini 371). Hosseini portrayed Amir’s forgiveness with his role being reversed. Amir became the kite runner instead of waiting for someone else to run the kite for him.
Each character in The Kite Runner had to forgive someone at some point in the novel. Baba had to forgive himself, Hassan had to forgive Amir, Soraya’s father had to forgive her, and much more. Hosseini uses brotherly, fatherly, and daughterly love as a catalyst for the character’s forgiveness processes. Hosseini has taught the reader that if you acknowledge and accept what you’ve done, people will be understanding and forgiving. No matter how brutal, sadistic, or wrong the sin, if you truly wish for atonement and salvation, you will find grace.