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Explore the significance of the way in which betrayal is presented in the kite runner
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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, focuses on the character Amir who fails to help his friend Hassan in an alley when they are both children. This incident occurs because of the simple reason that Amir is a coward even when he knows deep down that Hassan would do anything for Amir. This betrayal towards Hassan turns out to cause Amir a lifetime guilt throughout the rest of the novel. Later on when Amir moves to America, gets married, and becomes a successful writer, Amir is still incapable of forgetting the incident. Amir’s actions as an adult stem from his desire for redemption and start forgiving himself for the mistakes of his past. Amir is an accurate portrayal of a tragic hero based on his inherent guilt, well deserved punishments, and …show more content…
search for redemption. Amir as the tragic hero is doing wrong actions which lead him to suffer guilt based on betrayal to himself and others. In the beginning of the novel, Amir is reading Hassan a Mullah Nasruddin story, as Hassan stops him to ask what imbecile means. Amir tells him it means smart or intelligent and uses it in a sentence which says how Hassan is imbecile when it comes to words. Afterwards, Amir always feels guilty for it and ends up giving him an old shirt or a broken. As it says, ““Let's see. ‘Imbecile.’ It means smart, intelligent. I’ll use it in a sentence for you. ‘When it comes to words, Hassan is an imbecile.’”... I would always feel guilty about it later. So I'd try to make up for it by giving him one of my old shirts or a broken toy.” (Hosseini, 31) Amir teases Hassan for not knowing how to read and feels guilty for calling him a stupid person so he tries to make up for it by giving him old shirts or broken toys. In addition, Amir writes a story, and wants Baba to read it, but he shows no interest in reading it and quickly gets away to get ready. Rahim Khan comes along as he happily offers to read it and leaves him a note which encourages him to keep writing. When they leave, Amir suddenly wishes Rahim Khan was his father, but then feels guilty for it and remembers all the good things about Baba. As it states, “When they left, I sat on my bed and wished Rahim Khan had been my father. Then I thought about Baba and his great chest and how good it felt when he held me against it, how he smelled of Brut in the morning, and how his beard tickled my face.
I was overcome with such sudden guilt that I bolted to the bathroom and vomited in the sink.” (Hosseini, 34-35) Amir suffers from guilt based on betrayal to Baba since he wishes Rahim Khan was his father as he suddenly remembers Baba’s great big chest and he feels guilty for thinking that way and vomits. Later on in the novel, Amir turns away from the alley when he sees Hassan being raped by Assef. Then Amir decides that he has one last opportunity to decide if he is going to stand up for Hassan like all the times he stood up for him or run away, but in the end he runs away as it says, “I has one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into the 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.” (Hosseini, 82) Amir suffers from guilt based on betrayal to Hassan. Amir is scared to go to the alley and help Hassan like he helped him in the past, but decides to run away because of his fear which results in him feeling guilty for
betraying him. Many times the feeling of guilt follows up by a feeling of regret. As Amir turns thirteen, things are cooling off again between him and Baba. Amir starts it again by making a stupid comment about getting new servants because he feels guilty for what he has done and cannot face Hassan. Baba gets mad which makes Amir regret saying it as it says, “Things between me and Baba were already cooling off again. I think what started it was the stupid comment I'd made the day we were planting tulips, about getting new servants. I regretted saying it - I really did ….” (Hosseini, 99) Amir having a deep painful regret for asking Baba if he ever thought about getting new servants. Baba gets mad and which causes them to not be in as good of a relationship as before. For every wrong doing done by Amir, comes a well deserved punishment to make him suffer. Amir can’t sleep and says,“I watched Hassan get raped” but everyone is asleep so no one heard it. Amir understands that his new punishment is that he is going to get away with it as it states, “But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.” (Hosseini, 91) Amir receives a deserved punishment for not helping Hassan in the alley. Amir’s punishment is that he was going to live with it and get away with it without anyone hearing or knowing. In addition, Amir and Soraya are trying to have a kid but there are complications. The general and Soraya have their reasons for not adopting but Amir thinks that someone somehow is denying him fatherhood for the things he had done and in fact this is all a punishment. “... that perhaps something, someone, somewhere, had decided to deny me fatherhood for the things I have done. Maybe this was my punishment, and perhaps justly so.” (Hosseini, 198) A deserved punishment to Amir that caused him to not be able to have kids of his own because of his betrayal towards Hassan. Further on in the novel, Amir meets up with a man who has Sohrab, and the man turns out to be Assef. For Amir to take Sohrab, Assef decides that they would have to fight and at the end only one of them will walk out alive with Sohrab. Amir’s memory of the fight is very vague as he describes what Assef has done to to him. “Mostly I remember this: His brass knuckles flashing in the afternoon light; how cold they felt with the few blows and how quickly they warmed with my blood. Getting thrown against the wall, a nail where framed picture may have hung once jabbing at my back…. Getting hurled against the wall. The knuckles shattering my jaw. Choking on my own teeth, swallowing them, …, blood from my split lip staining the mauve carpet, pain ripping through my belly, and wondering when I'd be able to breathe again. The sounds of my ribs snapping ….” (Hosseini, 302) The punishment Amir is receiving is from his enemy, Assef. Amir sacrifices his life and gets his bones and teeth broken, and bleeds from being scratched and punched all for Sohrab. Amir’s last punishment is when Rahim Khan calls him from Pakistan and says that he has to come back to be good again as Amir explains, “One day last summer, my friend Rahim Khan called from Pakistan. He asked me to come see him. Standing in the kitchen with the receiver to my ear, I knew it wasn’t just Rahim Khan on the line. It was my past of unatoned sins.” (Hosseini, 1) Amir going back to Afghanistan to be good again is his last deserved punishment because Rahim Khan asks him to come and he knows that he has no other choice but to do what he says. After Amir receives his deserved punishments, he is on the search for redemption because he wants to be saved from all the sins he has done in the past and start fresh. Amir’s first redemption is when he begins his search for Sohrab and he realizes he will never leave Afghanistan without Sohrab as he states, “…I realized something: I would not leave Afghanistan without finding Sohrab.” (Hosseini, 268) Amir wants to find and save Sohrab who is Hassan’s son therefore Amir set a goal to find Sohrab because he is not going to leave his nephew alone. After Amire finds Sohrab, he asks Sohrab if he would like to come to America with him and his wife. Sohrab is scared to move to a new country and that he would be left all alone again. Amir reassures and promises him that he will never get tired of him or leave him behind as Amir asks, ““Would you like to come live in America with me and my wife?”” (Hosseini, 336) and explains, ““I won’t ever get tired of you Sohrab”, I said. “Not ever. That’s a promise. You’re my nephew, remember?”” (Hosseini, 340) Amir is begining to care about Sohrab and is not leave him alone or let him go to an orphanage ever again which is his way to becoming better by helping Hassan’s son.
The Kite Runner is a book about a young boy, Amir, who faces many struggles as he grows up in Kabul and later moves to America to flee from the Taliban. His best friend and brother , Hassan, was a big part of his life, but also a big part of guilt he held onto for many years. The book describes Amir’s attempt to make up for the past and resolve his sins so he can clear his conscious. Amir is worthy of forgiveness because although he was selfish, he was very brave and faced his past.
Kite Runner depicts the story of Amir, a boy living in Afghanistan, and his journey throughout life. He experiences periods of happiness, sorrow, and confusion as he matures. Amir is shocked by atrocities and blessed by beneficial relationships both in his homeland and the United States. Reviewers have chosen sides and waged a war of words against one another over the notoriety of the book. Many critics of Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, argue that the novel would not have reached a lofty level of success if the U.S. had not had recent dealings with the Middle East, yet other critics accurately relate the novel’s success to its internal aspects.
We all are heroes of our own story, and it is a quality seen in many movies and books. The hero's journey is about progress and passage. This journey involves a separation from the unknown, known world, and a series of phases the hero must go through . Each stage of the journey must be passed successfully if the person is to become a hero. In “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir faces a series of trials and goes through obstacles where the concept of his childhood dies. Amir's mother passes away during his birth, and his left with the suspicion that his father blames him for her death. Amir longes for his father's attention and approval, but does not receive any affection as a son. He grows up with his Hazara best friend, Hassan. In Afghanistan culture, Hazaras are considered lower class and inferiors in society. Amir describes his friendship with Hassan saying, “then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break." (20). Amir first refuses the call of action due to being afraid of the adventure ahead of him. Call to action is the very first step of the hero's journey, where the hero is disrupted and the
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.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, focuses on the character Amir who fails to help his friend Hassan in an alley when they are both children. This incident occurs because of the simple reason that Amir is a coward even when he knows deep down that Hassan would do anything for Amir. This betrayal towards Hassan turns out to cause Amir a lifetime guilt throughout the rest of the novel. Later on when Amir moves to America, gets married, and becomes a successful writer, Amir is still incapable of forgetting the incident. Amir’s actions as an adult stem from his desire for redemption and start forgiving himself for the mistakes of his past. Amir is an accurate portrayal of a tragic hero based on his inherent guilt, well deserved punishments, and
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.
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.
The Kite Runner, is the first novel written by Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner is set in Afghanistan before the war in the city of Kabul, and then eventually in America. The novel relays the struggles of Amir (A young Shi’ boy), Hassan (a young Hazera servant boy) and Baba (Amir’s father) as they are growing up in an ever-changing Afghanistan. The young boys face difficult challenges most adults will never have to experience. Amir, Hassan, and even Baba must overcome cruelty in every aspect of their lives.
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
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. When Amir hears that his father’s old business partner, Rahim Khan, is sick and dying, he travels to Pakistan to say his goodbyes. Rahim Khan tells Amir about Hassan’s life and eventual death; the Taliban murdered Hassan while he was living in Amir’s childhood home. As his dying wish, Rahim Khan asks Amir to rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from an orphanage in Afghanistan. Although Amir refuses at first, he thinks about what Rahim Khan had always told him: “There is a way to be good again…” (226), which gives him the incentive he needs to return to Afghanistan and find Sohrab. Hosseini draws parallels between Amir’s relationship with Hassan and Amir’s relationship with Sohrab in order to demonstrate the potential of redemption.
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 contemplating jumping in and being courageous because he says, “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be” (Hosseini, 77). Amir realizes that he has to decide “who I am”....
It is difficult to face anything in the world when you cannot even face your own reality. In his book The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses kites to bring out the major themes of the novel in order to create a truly captivating story of a young boy’s quest to redeem his past mistakes. Amir is the narrator and protagonist of the story and throughout the entire novel, he faces enormous guilt following the horrible incident that happened to his closest friend, Hassan. This incident grows on Amir and fuels his quest for redemption, struggling to do whatever it takes to make up for his mistakes. In Hosseini’s novel, kites highlight aspects of Afghanistan’s ethnic caste system and emphasizes the story’s major themes of guilt, redemption and freedom.
Betrayal, redemption, and forgiveness are all major themes in The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. The novel also focuses around the theme of a broken relationship between father and son as well as facing difficult situations from ones past. Amir and Hassan are best friends with two completely different personalities. Each character in the novel faces their own hardships and eventually learns to overcome those difficulties. Beginning with betrayal then the characters have to make their way to gaining redemption and forgiveness from others, as well as their self, is carried on throughout the novel. It is a continuous story of the relationships between Amir and his father Baba and facing their challenges from the past every day of their present.
In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the author follows the development of protagonist Amir through a life filled with sorrow, regret, and violence. Amir encounters numerous obstacles on his path to adulthood, facing a new test at every twist and turn. Amir embarks on the long journey known as life as a cowardly, weak young man with a twisted set of ideals, slowly but surely evolving into a man worthy of the name. Amir is one of the lucky few who can go through such a shattered life and come out the other side a better man, a man who stands up for himself and those who cannot, willing to put his life on the line for the people he loves.
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