Scars are normally defined as an embedded mark left upon someone’s skin. On the other hand, they can also be invisible because they are internal. These impairments can be both unintentionally and intentionally created. They impact the lives of people and significantly change their perceptions, characteristics, and way of life because they are permanent. Even though they may fade with time, the mark remains forever. Throughout The Kite Runner, Hoessini explores the scars left upon Amir through characters in the novel. The characters use various ways to portray an outlook on how a person’s actions can ultimately scar them. The scars left upon Amir, caused by his own actions inflicted upon others, made him suffer the most. His behavior towards …show more content…
In a hotel back in Peshawar, Amir falls asleep, and Sohrab runs away. This event psychologically scars him because he does not want to let his only opportunity for redemption to disappear. After finding Sohrab by the mosque he hands him a Polaroid, and tells Sohrab “’Keep it…it’s yours’. He looked at the photo again and stowed it away…” (333). This scar of losing Sohrab significantly changes Amir’s personality. He is now willing to help Sohrab in anyway way he can to keep him around. By giving up his only material memory of Hassan, he is no longer selfish but rather caring. Throughout Amir’s time spent with Sohrab, he becomes more aware of his situation, relating it to Hassan. Although he continues to be negligent to Sohrab’s perception on orphanages and says he will never have to go back to an orphanage, but he breaks his promise. The outcome scars him; Amir narrates “I pushed the door open. Stepped into the bathroom. Suddenly on his knees screaming. Screaming through his clenched teeth. Screaming until I thought my throat would rip and my chest explode” (361)” Sohrab cuts his arm with a razor and lies unconscious. After he regains consciousness, Amir and Sohrab never spoke in complete sentences and they trust was surrendered. This scar teaches Amir to be more conscious of other people’s perspectives and not just his own. Moreover, when Amir offers to take Sohrab to America, he believes it would save Sohrab from the …show more content…
The first time Amir meets Assef, Amir talked back and this creates tension among them. Luckily Hassan steps in to help and Assef concedes his lost. On the other hand Assef does not give up and tells Amir “’I’m a patient person… This isn’t the end for you... Someday, I’ll make you face me one on one’” (46). This mentally scars Amir and makes him fear the world even more and it becomes the root of his selfishness to protect himself over others. It made him apathetic in his actions to aid others such as Hassan. Throughout this event, Assef learns that Amir is fearful of Hitler. He then attends Amir’s 13th birthday knowing his presence will distress him and hands him a gift which emotionally scars him. Amir opens the gift and narrates “It was a biography of Hitler. I threw it amid a tangle of weeds. I leaned against the wall, slid down…knees to my chest” (104). Assef commends Hilter’s covets and publically advocates on his behalf, so when Amir receives the book, it shows his worry for the future of Afghanistan because it foreshadows the Taliban’s destruction. As Amir sits with his knees to his chest he is scarred by this and resorts to hide which makes Amir a cowardly figure. Further in the novel, Assef becomes the leader of the Taliban. He explains how he laughed when people beat him up in jail. As Assef conveys his epiphany, Amir becomes afraid. Assef uses this as a chance to finish his
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
He made a sweeping, grandiose gesture with his hands. " Afghanistan for Pashtuns, I say. That's my vision." (40) Assef rapes Hassan went they are children and later Hassan’s son Sohrab. He also stones people to death for fun and people see him as a hero for it.
Amir’s redemption is a large part of the novel and is carried out almost entirely until the end of the story. He travels to rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from the orphanage he was placed in after the death of his parents. He promises to find him a safe home with someone but after time passes he feels like this is not enough. He then speaks to his wife and decides to take Sohrab back to the United States with him and take care of his as if he was one of his own. Earlier in the novel when Baba is speaking Amir over hears his conversation as he is referring to him stating, “A boy who won 't stand up for himself becomes a man who can 't stand up to anything” (Hosseini, 22). Thus meaning that if he is able to stand up for himself as a young boy, when he is grown he will not be able to stand up for anything that is in his future. This is true throughout the story until he stands up for himself and Sorhab when he is arguing with his life long bully, Assef. Amir lacked the courage to defend himself in the novel until he finally took charge and went against
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
Actions made in a moment of pain, anger or simple immaturity can take anyone to make mistakes that can change their lives completely. Everyone has something in the past that is shameful, embarrassing and regrettable that is kept present daily. Whether this event happened during childhood, adolescence or early adulthood, this event could haunt and have shaped that person’s life into what he or she is today. In a similar way, in the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is shaped by a tragic and eventful past that has shaped Amir’s, Baba’s, and Hassan’s life. The four literary elements that will be used in this essay that Hosseini strategically uses in this book are: irony, simile, Metaphor, and personification.
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
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.
on helping him or not. In the end Amir was too afraid of what would happen to him so he runs away. The author states “ 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. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt" (Hosseini). Amir's fear of what would happen to him played a major role in the story. Amir became very upset with himself and was afraid of what people would think if they knew what he did. He let his fear win his childhood friendship with Hassan and win his father's lifelong friendship with Ali.
On his journey to save Sohrab, Amir discovers that a Taliban official took him from the orphanage. When meeting with that Taliban official, who turns out to be his childhood nemesis Assef, Amir is placed in a situation where he is forced to choose between fleeing from the enemy and saving Hassan’s son. The structure of this scenario is analogous to one earlier in the book when Amir had to choose between saving Hassan by standing up for him and repairing the relationship with his father by bringing the blue kite back. The author uses the similar setting with Assef and the similarities in characterization of father and son in order to provide Amir with the opportunity to make the choice to stand up for what he believes in. When Amir allowed Hass...
Amir gets more upset after this, thinking he can’t possibly fix this anymore. But he realizes he has one final chance at redemption, saving Hassan’s son, Sohrab. He needs to save Sohrab. Once he gets to where he is being held, he realizes Sohrab has been made into a sex slave for the Taliban.
... I thought I saw pleading in Sohrab’s eyes.” (Hosseini 62). By the end of the novel, the sacrifice motif had been brought up a lot to Amir, just from many different viewpoints. Though innocence can never be regained after it is lost, Amir still offers Sohrab help in his attempt to get his guilt to finally go away and his attempt to make up what he did to Sohrab's dad and his own brother, Hassan.
Amir is a man who is haunted by the demons of his past. This is first shown in the opening lines of the novel “I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.” (Hosseini pg.#) These opening lines of the novel foreshadow what is yet to come. You can see that Amir looking back at the past with an attempt to justify why he is the man he is today. In the winter of 1975 it was the final round of the Kite Running tournament when Hassan choice to run the last kite for Amir. In doing so Hassan is corner by Assef and his gang who question Hassan’s loyalty to Amir. They give Hassan the choice to give them the kite in exchange to do no harm to him or to...
Amir and Sohrab’s relationship had begun parallel to Amir and Baba’s relationship. The story indicated that awful things happen to children when ‘fatherly figure’ does not play a role in their lives. Later on, the relationship mirrored toward Hassan and Sohrab’s relationship since Amir got Sohrab to start talking.
Amir is, to be put bluntly, a coward. He is led by his unstable emotions towards what he thinks will plug his emotional holes and steps over his friends and family in the process. When he sought after Baba’s invisible love, Amir allowed Hassan to be raped in an alleyway just so that the blue kite, his trophy that would win his father’s heart, could be left untouched. In the end, he felt empty and unfulfilled with the weight of his conscience on his shoulders comparable to Atlas’ burden. Unable to get over his fruitless betrayal, he lashes out and throws pomegranates at Hassan before stuffing money and a watch under his loyal friend’s pathetic excuse for a bed, framing Hassan for theft and directly causing the departure of both servants from his household. Even after moving to America, finding a loving wife, and creating a career for himself in writing, he still feels hollow when thinking of his childhood in Afghanistan. Many years later, he is alerted of Hassan’s death and sets out on a frenzied chase to find his friend’s orphaned son. He feels that he can somehow ease his regrets from all of those years ago if he takes in Hassan’s son, Sohrab. He finds Sohrab as a child sex slave for Assef, who coincidentally was the one to rape Hassan all of those years ago. After nearly dying in his attempt to take back Sohrab, he learns that he can take the damaged child back to the states with him. Sadly, Hassan’s son is so
Once Assef handed Sohrab over to Amir, Assef told Amir they had some unfinished business to settle, so they fought. After the fight, Amir felt relieved he 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 should have been beat up a long time ago from the pomegranate incident and the 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). Twenty-six years later Amir finally received what he had wanted his whole life. After Assef delivered the brutal beating to Amir, Amir felt justice for what he had done to Hassan. Amir thinks he should have accepted the beating from Assef years ago when he had the choice to save