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Critically analyse Amir character in the kite runner
The kite runner critical analysis
The kite runner critical analysis
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“There is a way to be Good Again”: Past Actions and Redemption in Hosseini’s The Kite Runner
In The Kite Runner Amir, Baba and Sanaubar’s past actions all negatively affect those that are close to them, yet it is not their past that defines them, rather it is how they decide to amend their wrongdoings that reflects more on their character. After Hassan’s rape, Amir spends the rest of his life trying to redeem himself for his betrayal of his loyal friend and does so after saving Hassan’s son Sohrab. On the other hand, Baba betrays Ali and Hassan through his adultery and tries to redeem himself through his strong principles and acts of charity. Finally, Sanaubar ultimately hurts Hassan, as she abandons him at birth, but returns years later to
He dishonours Ali in “the worst way an Afghan man can be dishonoured”(Hosseini, 238), by sleeping with his wife. Furthermore, due to his sense of pride and honour, he also becomes torn between Amir, who was the socially legitimate half and Hassan, the illigitimate half. He is a “tortured soul”, as he could not love Hassan openly and therefore neglects Amir of the affection and fatherly connection Amir is yearning for. Ironically, during Amir’s childhood, he tells him that, “there is only one sin. And that is theft…When you lie you steal someone’s right to the truth,” (Hosseini, 237), yet he stole from his children the right to know they were siblings, as well as Hassan’s identity. When he sees Amir, he is reminded of his feeling of guilt each time, which puts a huge strain on their relationship. Nevertheless, he uses those feelings of remorse as motivation to do good, as when he was feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, saving the woman from being raped, giving money to friends in need and subtly doing acts of kindness towards Hassan, he slowly redeems
In examining each of their journeys, Hosseini introduces readers to a more optimistic outlook on sin and redemption, proving that there is always “a way to be good again”(Hosseini,
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
While Amir is a Sunni, his childhood friend Hassan is Shi’a, an inferior division of Islam. Simultaneously, Amir and Hassan belong to different ethnic groups-Amir is Pashtun while Hassan is Hazara. During his childhood, Amir would constantly mock Hassan’s illiteracy and poke fun at him. But, the pivotal demonstration of pressure from his surroundings that makes Amir commit his own act of cruelty is when he watches Assef rape Hassan for refusing to give him the kite that Hassan caught for Amir. To this, Amir describes the look of Hassan’s face to “a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb” (76). Throughout his upbringing, Amir constantly believed that his father blamed him for killing his mother in childbirth. To Amir, Hassan’s rape is a sacrifice that Hassan has to pay the price, the lamb to kill, in order to win his father over. To justify his refusal to intervene, Amir reminds himself that “[Hassan] was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (77). Amir’s surroundings cause him to have a negative outlook on people that his society deem lower. Amir knows he is morally wrong for not helping Hassan, but his need for his father’s love overpowers his friendship. Adding to his pressures, Amir believes that Baba prefers Hassan over him, a belief that further drives him to be cruel to Hassan. As a result, Amir’s motivation for validation and love from his father
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, follows the maturation of Amir, a boy from Afghanistan, as he discovers what it means to stand up for what he believes in. His quest to redeem himself after betraying his friend and brother, Hassan, makes up the heart of the novel. For most of the book, Amir attempts to deal with his guilt by avoiding it and refusing to own up to his mistakes. Because of his past, Amir is incapable of moving forward. His entire life is shaped by his disloyalty to Hassan and his desire to please his father over helping his friends. Throughout the novel, his attempts to atone for his sins end in failure, as neither physical punishment nor rescuing Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from Assef prove to be enough for Amir to redeem himself. Only when he decides to take Sohrab to the United States and provide his nephew with a chance at happiness and prosperity that was denied to his half-brother does Amir take the necessary steps toward atonement and redemption. Khaled Hosseini uses a series of symbols to reinforce the message that atoning for one’s sins means making up for past mistakes, rather than simply relying on forgiveness from either the person one betrays or from a higher power.
Despite living majority of his life with the guilt of not helping Hassan, Amir’s nemesis is yet to come. Destiny plays a huge game with Amir and reveals to him that Hassan is his illegitimate brother during his visit with Rahim Khan. Reacting with various emotions, Amir first decides to head back about to America, but in the end makes the first brave decision in his life by going back to Kabul “…to atone not just for [his] sins, but…Baba’s too” (198). Amir tries to compensate for his sin by rescuing Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from the brutality occurring in Kabul. Amir puts his entire life in jeopardy by facing the oppression in Kabul so he could make a genuine effort in eliminating his sins. In an ideal world, when one truly makes an effort to redeem themselves for their wrongdoings, they are usually gifted with forgiveness. However, in reality, Amir’s heroic act of saving Sohrab, did not free him of sorrow because he still has to live with his nemesis for the rest of his life. By taking Sohrab to America with him, Amir constantly is reminded of his hamartia by envisioning Hassan through Sohrab. This shows how the guilt from a cowardly act leads one into a lifelong feeling of
The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, shows how lying and deceit is a counterproductive route when trying to live with a dreadful past, exhibited through the actions of Amir. Amir’s decision to withhold the truth and blatantly lie in several situations due to jealousy and his desire for Baba to be proud of him amounts to further pain and misery for himself and those he deceives. Because of Amir’s deceit towards Baba and Hassan, his guilt from his past manifests itself into deeply-rooted torment, not allowing him to live his life in peace. The guilt from Amir’s past is only alleviated when he redeems his sins by taking in Sohrab, contributing to the theme that the only way “to be good again” is through redemption, not shunning the past.
Baba is a very high standing man in Kabul, but seems to be extremely harsh to Amir when he was a child. He is a very large, tough man who was very well known in the town and as Amir stated in the novel, “Lore has it my father once wrestled a black bear in Baluchistan with his bare hands” (Hosseini 12). This small detail of Baba makes it known to the reader that Baba is a man of great courage and strength. Some may think that an honorable man is one with no flaws, but many disagree. Every human being makes mistakes, including Baba. When Amir grows up and goes back to visit Rahim Khan in Afghanistan, he finds out that his father lied to him his entire life about Hassan being his half-brother. He also finds out from Rahim Khan that all Baba had back then “was his honor, his name” (Hosseini 223). He did not tell Amir and Hassan that they were brothers because they had a different mother and that would have made their entire family be looked down upon in the town. He did it for their own good, and wanted for them both to grow up as honorable men, like himself. There is a difference in making mistakes and trying to do what’s best to fix them, rather than making the same mistakes over and over again, which is what Amir seemed to do in the novel. Amir was the exact opposite of his father, which made it very hard for them to have a
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
Much like Amir has a friend who is as loyal as Hassan, Baba actually has a friend who is just as loyal to him and his name is Rahim Khan. Rahim Khan is Baba’s best friend and has been with Baba for as long as he can remember and one can see that he values their friendship through his loyalty to Baba through his word. One example is when Rahim Khan finally tells Amir the truth about the relationship between Hassan and Baba where we see Rahim’s Khans true loyalty. Rahim states, “Please think, Ami Jan. It was a shameful situation people would talk. All that a man had back then, all that he was, was his honour, his name, if people talked… we couldn’t tell anyone, surely you can see that” (Hosseini 233). Rahim Khan shows his loyalty to Baba by not proclaiming Baba’s misfortunate actions to the public. Rahim knew that if people were to find out about what Baba had done, all that he has worked for would be of no use anymore. The Orphanage, Baba’s name and the respect he receives from the people of Afghanistan would be worthless. A second example to present Rahim Khan’s loyalty is when Baba “sells” the house to Rahim Khan before him and Amir leave for Pakistan and eventually to America. Here Amir narrates, “Baba had ‘sold’ the house to Rahim Khan shortly before he and I fled Kabul… So he’d given the house to Rahim Khan to keep watch over until that day”
At the beginning of The Kite Runner, young Amir wins a kite fighting tournament. He feels like he has finally redeemed himself for his father. 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...
Baba is first depicted as an unreachable man who was well respected in the community. Amir recalls his birthday party where he was “scanning over the invitation list a week before my birthday party and not recognizing at least three-quarters of the four hundred [. . .] Then I realized they weren’t really coming for me. It was my birthday, but I knew who the real star of the show was” (94). Amir did not know it at the time, but Baba had sins he was trying to absolve. Through his actions toward redemption, Baba touched the lives of many. Regardless of their social status, Baba would lend a he Amir recalls how Baba “always carried an extra handful of Afghani bills in his pocket just for them; I’d never seen him deny a peddler” (245). Baba would offer his wealth to every beggar he came across. Along with this, he also built an orphanage with his own money, planning, and time. Baba did everything in his power to redeem himself and eradicate himself of the guilt in his heart. Some say he was redeemed; others disagree. Rahim Khan tells Amir of Baba’s dilemma:
To begin, the first instance of redemption is found and portrayed through irony. As Amir's mother died giving birth to him, he has always felt guilty. Leading up to the annual kite-fighting tournament, Amir feels as if winning will redeem her death, and solidify his relationship with Baba. When he comes upon Hassan who is cornered by Assef, Amir feels as if his rape might be justified: “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay to win Baba. Or was it a fair price?” (Hosseini, 82) If Amir gains the kite, he wins Baba's heart. Ironically, the sacrifice of Hassan is the catalyst to Amir's need for redemption. Instead of redeemi...
The story The Kite Runner is centered around learning “to be good again.” Both the movie and the book share the idea that the sins of the past must be paid for or atoned for in the present. In the book, Amir can be seen as a troubled young boy who is struggling with a tremendous amount of guilt. It is easy to blame Amir’s actions on his guilt and his father’s lack of love for him.
...rough his actions to save Sohrab, Amir became the man his father had always wanted him to be. Although Baba never lived up to the persona he created for himself, Amir did, and that is why his attempts to achieve atonement were more successful than his father’s. While Baba was unable to seek more than personal redemption, Amir found atonement with himself, Hassan, and God. Amir also found the courage his father lacked to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve redemption. Amir’s ability to transform into a strong character was a result of what he learned from his father’s strengths and weaknesses. While Baba was unable to achieve true redemption, he was a true role model that provided his son, Amir, with the necessary skills to achieve atonement for both of them.
The Kite Runner focuses on the relationship between two Afghan boys Amir and Hassan. Amir is a Pashtun and Sunni Muslim, while Hassan is a Hazara and a Shi’a. Despite their ethnic and religious differences, Amir and Hassan grow to be friends, although Amir is troubled by Hassan, and his relationship with his companion, one year his junior, is complex. Amir and Hassan seem to have a "best friend" type relationship. The two boys, Hassan and Amir, are main characters in the book titled, The Kite Runner. The two boys have a relationship that is significantly different compared to most. There are many different facets that distinguish the relationship the boys possess. The boys do write their names in a pomegranate tree as the "sultans of Kabul" (Kite Runner 27) but, their friendship is not strong and it is one sided. Hassan has love for Amir. He loves him like a brother. Hassan is exceedingly loyal to Amir. The relationship between the two boys is emotionally wearing and rather gloomy for the most part. The main reason for their complicated relationship is the fact that Amir is Pashtun, and Hassan is Hazara. The Afghan society places Hassan lower than Amir. Hassan is Amir's servant. The placement of Hassan in the Afghan society disenables Amir from becoming Hassan's true friend. Amir sees Hassan as lower than human. Amir ruins the chance for friendship between himself and Hassan because he is jealous of Hassan, he thinks of Hassan as a lower human, and because Amir possesses such extreme guilt for what he has done to Hassan. Amir is an unforgivable person overall.