In Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, the theme, “true redemption is when guilt leads to good” (302) had a major affect on Amir. Feeling endless guilt is tiring; it clings to a person and drags him or her down constantly. Amir felt endless remorse for the way he treated Hassan and tried to find redemption his whole life, but did not succeed until he went back to Kabul to find Sohrab. Throughout the story, Hosseini uses Amir to develop the theme through three different stages, including, cowardice, personality change, and redemption. Acting like a coward during his childhood led Amir to feel guilty, which is why he searched for redemption the rest of his life. Amir felt most guilty after he watched Assef rape Hassan, and it mentally tore …show more content…
him apart. “I ran because I was a coward” (77). Amir had the chance to help Hassan, but instead he stood behind a wall on the corner of the alley and watched. After the rape, Amir and Hassan hardly talked and did not play with each other again. “For a week, I barely saw Hassan” (80). Hassan sets the rape incident aside in an effort to fix his relationship with Amir, but Amir does not. Twenty-six years later when Amir found out Hassan is his brother, it sent him over the edge. “You bastards… You goddamn bastards… All of you, you bunch of lying goddamn bastards” (222). They did everything together as kids, even though Amir was Pashtun and Hassan was Hazara. Amir felt even more guilty now, for Hassan is deceased and he cannot redeem himself by doing good to him. Amir’s guiltiness started after Hassan's rape and lingered until his confrontation with Assef when he returned to Kabul for Sohrab. During Amir’s childhood, Baba stated one of Amir’s major flaws, his cowardice, “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” (22). Baba is the opposite and shows how much he values standing up for what is right. He is reluctant to praise Amir; he feels Amir lacks courage to stand up for himself, which left Amir constantly craving Baba’s approval. Amir is ashamed of not being the child Baba wanted, which led him to feel guilty. ¨After all, I had killed his beloved wife... The least I could have done was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him. Not at all¨ (19). Amir is weak and a coward, whereas Baba is strong and will stand up for anybody. Amir’s fear shows again when Baba stands up for a woman who was threatened to be raped. “Do you always have to be the hero?... Can’t you just let it go for once?” (115). Amir mumbles this to himself, wishing Baba would have stayed out of the situation. Amir watched everything, and when he tried to pull Baba away, Baba snapped, “Haven’t I taught you anything?” (116). Amir felt angry after this; he almost witnessed his father die and could not do a thing about it. As Amir’s personality changed throughout the book, his guilt led to good.
In the beginning, Amir acted very immature when he wanted Hassan to hit him with the pomegranates. “Hit me back!...Get up! Hit me!” (92). Amir did not do it for fun or to harass Hassan. He hoped Hassan would retaliate back so Amir could feel justice for the way he treated Hassan. “Maybe then things could return to how they used to be between us” (92). Instead of Hassan throwing a pomegranate at Amir, he smashed it against his head. He tried to hurt Hassan so Hassan would retaliate and hurt him back. However, Hassan did not give into Amir’s childish actions or give him the satisfaction he wanted. Towards the end, though, Amir’s personality changed drastically. He not only grew into the person Baba wanted him to be, but also the man he wanted to be. Amir finally felt good about himself and had the courage to stand up for himself and other people. When Amir said “for you, a thousand times over” (371), he ran down a kite for Sohrab. Amir sacrificed his life for Sohrab, just as Hassan made many sacrifices for Amir. Rahim Khan says, “Come. There is a way to be good again” (192), and it fits the theme well by showing Amir is trying to fix his mistakes and, essentially, find
redemption. Amir’s guilt grew larger every day he did not find happiness. Sick of living a guilty life, Amir set out on a quest for redemption and made the dangerous trip back to Kabul to recover Sohrab. After the fight with Assef, Amir felt relieved he had finally received the punishment he deserved. “Another rib snapped... and for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace” (289). Amir felt he should have been punished a long time ago from the pomegranate incident and rape scene. The physical pain allowed him to feel mentally healed, which is why during Assef’s beating, he laughed. “I hadn’t been happy and I hadn’t felt better, not at all. But I did now. My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last” (289). Healed from when he failed to come to Hassan’s assistance when he was raped by Assef’s gang. Healed from when he acted immature to Hassan. Healed from not being the man Baba wanted him to be from day one. Twenty-six years later, Amir finally received what he had wanted his whole life, “peace” (289). Amir is a great example of how living a guilty life is horrible, but without it, he would not have changed. Feeling remorse all the time just made Amir strive harder to be the man Baba wanted. “True redemption is when guilt leads to good” (302), and Amir definitely found it when he traveled back to Kabul to save Sohrab. Throughout the story, Hosseini uses Amir to develop the theme through three different stages, including, cowardice, personality change, and redemption.
Amir believes that Baba wants his son to be just like him, but when Amir doesn’t turn out exactly the way Baba wants, he rejects and neglects him. Amir notices this, and looks at Hassan, who embodies what Baba wants in a son. As a result, Amir takes his anger built in from his father disregarding him out and exerts it at Hassan. After every instance that Amir’s father shows Hassan any type of affection or attention, Amir becomes angry. He takes a pomegranate and “struck [Hassan] in the chest, exploded in a spray of red pulp. Hassan’s cry was pregnant with surprise and pain” (92). Amir repeatedly hits Hassan and asks him to hit in back so he doesn’t feel guilty for his actions. To Amir, in order for his cruelty for hurting Hassan to be forgiven, Hassan must hurt him
Throughout The Kite Runner this theme is shown many times without this aspect and understanding of this part of the book it would be incomprehensible. Amir eventually learns how to cope with his own guilt and his
In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, there are several major themes. One of the themes that stands out the most is redemption. This theme is shown through the thoughts and actions from the protagonist of the novel, Amir. He is seeking redemption for betraying his childhood best friend and half-brother Hassan. Due to Amir’s cowardice during Hassan’s rape, he feels guilty for committing the vilest sin in Afghan culture. “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. I ran because I was a coward” (Hosseini 77). Deep down, Amir feels as if he should have done something, and because of his nagging guilt he is not able to lead a peaceful life. He
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.
Redemption of Guilt Guilt is a result of sin, and sin is a result of misaction. In the novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the protagonist, Amir, goes on a journey to redeem himself for his sins. When Amir was 12, he witnessed his best friend, Hassan, get raped in an alley. Instead of standing up for his friend, Amir ran away in selfishness and cowardice. The guilt of his choice plagues Amir for the rest of his life, until one day, he gets a call from an old uncle, who tells him that “there is a way to be good again.”
Going through all these different motifs, it taught Amir many different lessons, good and bad. But in the end, Amir finally is able to let go of his guilt and make his awful choice to not help Hassan in his time of need, have somewhat of a better outcome. In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s repeated the use of rape, sickness, and sacrifice to represent many different things throughout the novel.
Over the course of the novel, Baba implies that he is not proud of Amir and the only reason he knows Amir is his son, is because he witnessed Amir 's birth. He states to Rahim Khan that he thinks Amir needs to stand up for himself more often. Countless times during the novel, Amir feels like he has to fight for his affection, that he has to earn Baba’s love. In order to prove himself worthy of affection and to redeem himself for not being a son Baba could be proud of, Amir yearns to win the kite runner competition. He reminisces on a memory, when all “I saw was the blue kite. All I smelled was victory. Salvation. Redemption” (65). In the aftermath of Hassan’s rape, Amir got rid of Hassan so he would not have to face the cause of his guilt on a daily basis. Amir buries the secret of the rape deep within him, where he hopes that it will not come back to haunt him, which is not the case. “We had both sinned and betrayed. But Baba had found a way to create good out of his remorse. What had I done, other than take my guilt out on the very same people I had betrayed, and then try to forget it all? What had I done, other than become an insomniac? What had I ever done to right things?” (303). As mentioned earlier, Amir is not one who stands up for himself. In order for Amir to redeem himself for betraying Hassan, and not standing up for him earlier,
Amir's actions showed how much of a coward he was. Amir suffered his whole life living with the guilt of knowing that Hassan was raped, much like Baba lived his whole life in guilt knowing that he stole the truth from Ali by committing adultery. Baba ran from the truth, and so did Amir to protect the family name, even if that meant betraying the people closest to him. Baba was a man more worried about his image than anything, and that is what he taught his son as well. Slowly that is all Amir knew how to do: protect his family and himself, leading him into a life of guilt, and running from people when situations were challenging, instead of making the admirable decision and help a
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...
In the book Amir can be seen as a troubled young boy who is struggling with a tremendous amount of guilty. It is easy to blame Amir’s actions on his guilty and his father’s lack of love for him. The movie does not allow this. The movie characterizes Amir as a young boy who is to blind by his owns needs to be a decent and noble friend. The movie does not do a good job of showing that Amir felt horribly guilty about what he did to Hassan. It portrays Amir as uncaring and selfish. The movie also changes the depiction of Amir as an adult. While the book shows Amir as a man who has not yet learned to stand for what is right until he comes face to face with his past all over again, the movie jumps the gun and shows the change earlier with the change of a scene. The scene that is changed is when Amir and Farid visit the orphanage where Sohrab is supposed to be. In the scene Amir is the one to try and kill the orphanage owner instead of Farid which takes away from Amir’s cowardice persona that is portrayed in the book. The movie makes Amir seem stronger before his time while the book keeps up his weakling persona until he is faced with a situation he cannot help but stand up to. Similarly the characterization of Hassan is just as lacking as Amir’s in the movie. In the book, Hassan is shown as being selfless beyond a doubt and loyal to a fault.
Some people believe they can escape their past, but if one does not atone for their sins, the guilt will engulf them and stay with them forever. In The Kite Runner, Amir, the main protagonist, tries to forget about his past and move on. Hassan, his best friend and Amir’s foil, is loyal and brave while Amir is weak and a coward. Amir’s father, Baba, is also an honorable man, however, who keeps the secret about Hassan being his son to everyone, including him. Amir betrays Hassan because he believes Hassan is a sacrifice he has to make to win his father’s affection.
...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.
Guilt is a strong emotion that affects many people around the world. It can either lead people into a deep and dark abyss that can slowly deteriorate people or it can inspire them to achieve redemption. Guilt and redemption are two interrelated subjects that can show the development of the character throughout a novel. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, are two literary works that convey the connections between guilt and redemption and show the development of the character by using theme and symbolism that are present in the novels.
Guilt is the emotion that a person feels when they are responsible for an action that has violated some set of standards. Khaled Hosseini conveys this through his novel, The Kite Runner, by following a young Afghan boy and the events that surround him with the build up of guilt that continue to follow him as he ages.The consequence of guilt is that it stays with the person for the rest of their life, but one way of getting rid of its weight is to use the past to make the future better by acting upon it in the present. As seen in both Baba's and Amir's actions throughout the novel, guilt can propel actions in order to ease the burden the person had experienced.
Throughout the beginning of “The kite Runner” and towards the midway there is a reoccurring theme of redemption. The main character Amir, during the middle of the novel struggles with the guilt of breaking the best friendship he had ever had with the only person who had always been there for him. The horrible memory he had created as a young boy still haunt him throughout his adulthood in the United States. The theme of redemption is most prominent when his friend, Rahim Khan calls Amir telling him, “there is a way to be good again.” (Chapter 14). This is the initiating incident driving Amir back to Afghanistan to finds Hassan’s son and the introduction to one of the main themes of redemption. Amir finally gaining the courage to do the right thing by saving Hassan’s son at the cost, he