Purnima Bhagria Essay Outline Introduction: Statement: The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a famous novel which demonstrates its depiction of betrayal and redemption. Thesis: Different perspectives of Amir and how he portrays a devastating and painful attention of betrayal and redemption, throughout the novel towards the other characters, especially Hassan. Points: It shows the importance of redeeming yourself as a person, and realizing your mistakes. Paragraph 1: Topic sentence: Betrayal is a form of a sin. Its evident through the novel, Amir betrays Hassan in several ways. He silently watches Hassan get raped, while he becomes cruel, and avoids him. He does not mention it to Baba, and whenever Hassan’s name got brought up …show more content…
he would instantly try to distant himself. Proof: “I actually aspired to cowardice…Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.” (Hosseini 68) Paragraph 2: Topic sentence: The final source of betrayal was when Amir deliberately plants a watch and money underneath Hassan’s mattress.
Making him appear guilty and being accused of theft. Forcing Baba to evict Hassan and Ali from the household. Hassan then admits to the accusation against himself, to protect Amir. Proof: “Then I understood: This was Hassan's final sacrifice for me... He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again.” (Hosseini 115) Paragraph 3: Topic Sentence: Redemption is receiving forgiveness, for the commission of a sin. Amir feels a strong need to find redemption and redeem himself from betraying Hassan. He is haunted by the guilt, after his wrong doings even after he gets married and starts a successful career. He tries to find closure and sympathy as he sacrifices himself towards Hassan. Proof: “Baba stunned me by saying, "I forgive you." Forgive? But theft was the one unforgivable sin, the common denominator of all sins” (Hosseini 111) Purnima Bhagria Conclusion: Points: Amir realizes his mistakes from right to wrong. He always felt jealous of Hassan because he was a lot closer to Baba than he was. He felt the need to redeem himself, because he felt guilty of what he did to Hassan, and is trying to make it up to
him. Restate thesis: How different perspectives of everyday life is demonstrated, of betrayal and redemption. Relevance: This novel shows the importance of how to not treat others with the disrespect that they do not deserve. As well as not blame others for their mistakes, this interprets the problem as a lesson to be learned and to think about how other feel. http://www.academia.edu/16775641/The_Kite_Runner_An_intimate_account_of_betrayal_and_salvationy
Although Hassan is his best friend, there are many instances where Amir reveals his jealousy, most notable when Baba sees Hassan as the stronger boy, "self-defense has nothing to do with meanness. You know what always happens when the neighbourhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fends them off. I 've seen it with my own eyes…” (Hosseini 24). Clearly, Amir hears how his father compares the two, and unlike Hassan who manages to meet Baba’s expectations, Amir grows bitter towards Hassan. He is unable to fight off his envy which later causes him to sacrifice his best friend’s innocence: “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (82), and this is all because he realizes “his shame is complicated by his own realization that in part he doesn’t help his friend precisely because he is jealous of him” (Corbett, 2006). From here, Amir develops strong feelings of guilt that induces him to perform even more destructive acts, such as having Hassan and his father evicted from the house. Amir not only loses a close friend, but now he has to continue to live with remorse as he dwells on these memories. The only way for Amir to redeem himself of his repercussions is through a challenging process of sacrifice and self-discovery. Although one is unsure at this point whether Amir succeeds at his endeavors, it is clear that this story
His mistakes disgust us, especially after Hassan has been by his side the entire book. As the reader gets deeper into the book, they start to develop feelings of anger but sometimes sympathy, towards Amir. By the end, we are not as angry as Amir, the reader to begin with. Amir has grown into a better person and has tried to fix his past mistakes.
It is not often that Amir’s love for Baba is returned. Baba feels guilty treating Amir well when he can’t acknowledge Hassan as his son. Baba discriminates against his son Amir by constantly making him feel weak and unworthy of his father. Baba once said to Rahim Kahn, “If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son” (Hosseini 23). Amir doesn’t feel like a son towards Baba since he seems like such a weakling. This neglect towards Amir causes him to feel a need to be accepted by Baba to end the constant discrimination from his father and he will do anything for it. “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (Hosseini 77). Amir did not stop the rape of his good friend for one sole purpose. Amir felt that he had to betray his own half-brother to gain th...
Amir makes mistakes and hurts his friend Hassan, and immediately afterwards he felt guilt, and wanted forgiveness, but Hassan acted like Amir did nothing, which bothered Amir even worse. And that lasted on, throughout his childhood he’s constantly upset about what he has done to Hassan, he doesn’t feel like it can be fixed. And he strives to do things throughout the novel to achieve that. One good deed he does trying to be good again, was when he goes back home, he is at a house with Farid and
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.”
Hosseini exemplifies the importance of redemption through the wisdom of Rahim Khan. Rahim Khan’s wisdom shows that the past is a constant reminder of guilt, but the guilt may be remedied with active attempts to amend past mistakes. He repeats, “there is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 2, 192, 226). Another significant
Hassan would do anything for his friends and treat everyone, even bullies, with respect because his respectful dad, Ali, taught him to always be loyal to all, and never hurt anyone. Ali was Baba’s servant and long-time friend, and stayed close to him throughout their childhood and adulthood. 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.
“For you, a thousand times over.” In The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini, there is a recurring theme of redemption that is portrayed by various literary devices. Kahled excellently juxtaposes devices such as irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing to show redemption within his first novel.
This embarrasses and frustrates Amir. This frustration is one reason for Amir to slowly but surely push Hassan out of his life. Although it is not the most obvious reason, it is an underlying one. This is a mistake on Amir’s part because Hassan does so much for Amir, being the loyal friend that he is, and for Amir to push someone of such good moral and character out of his life, is a tremendous mistake on his behalf. It is quite obvious that Hassan would give his life for Amir, but, because of where Hassan comes from, Amir struggles throughout his childhood, to find a way to accept the friendship Hassan gives him.
When Amir decides to plant his own watch and money under Hassan’s mattress he planned on getting Hassan in trouble from Baba. When Hassan is asked if he stole the watch and money he said yes. “I flinched, like I’d been slapped” (105). In this quote Amir shows that he was not expecting Hassan to respond in the way that he did. Right here is where Amir should have seen that Hassan cares about him and acted loyal like a real friend should have. Instead Amir Betrays Hassan again by not saying a word and letting Hassan take the blame for something he did not do. Amir continuously shows that he is Hassan’s betrayer by more actions that he
The themes of the loss of innocence and redemption is used throughout the novel The Kite Runner to make a point that one can lose innocence but never redeem it. Once innocence is lost it takes a part of oneself that can never be brought back from oblivion. One can try an entire life to redeem oneself but the part that is loss is permanently gone although the ache of it can be dampened with the passing of time and acts of attempted redemption. Khaled Hosseini uses characters, situations, and many different archetypes to make this point.
Amir contemplates: “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” (Hosseini 77). Amir was too scared to stand up for himself let alone stand up for someone else. He made a life changing decision that will haunt him forever. Guilt ridden, Amir makes another horrendous decision: to get rid of Hassan. Hassan’s loyalty is contrasted by the disloyalty Amir shows him when he frames Hassan for theft (Hosseini 104). Amir could not face Hassan after what he had done, it was depressing to think about it. Amir has always looked down on Hassan and looked up to Baba. He ponders this: “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 77). Amir tries to justify his actions by telling himself that Hassan was just a Hazara and nothing more. He does this to feel better and less guilty about letting Hassan get raped. Amir’s betrayals are his selfish attempts to gain the love and attention of his
After seeing Hassan be raped Amir can’t live with his guilt of not doing anything. He sees Hassan and it brings back the memory of Hassan being raped and him standing there, doing nothing to help his most loyal friend. In order for Amir to stop feeling guilty, “one of [them] had to go” (86). Amir continues the theme of betrayal by setting up Hassan, in order to get him and his father Ali, removed from their job as servants. Amir carefully plans our his biggest act of betrayal “[waiting] until Ali and Hassan went grocery shopping to the bazaar” (87). Amir “[takes] a couple of envelopes of cash from the pile of gifts and [his] watch” (87) and “[lifts] Hassan's mattress and [plants his] new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it” (87). Amir informs his father Baba, that his watch is missing and suspects that Hassan might have taken it. They find the ‘stolen’ items under Hassan’s mattress and the four of them gather together to settle the ordeal. Baba simply asks Hassan if he was the one who stole the items and Hassan says that he did. Amir “flinched, like [he’d been slapped]” (88) in response to what Hassan says. This truly shows the level of forgiveness that Hassan would to in order to be loyal to Amir. Amir acknowledges that he isn’t “worthy of this sacrifice” ( 89), that he’s “a liar, a cheat, and a thief” (89), but Hassan doesn’t care. The ultimate act of betrayal is
Betrayal is probably the most devastating loss someone can experience. To get betrayed, one has to place their trust on someone else and it hurts considerable when the person they trusted put their self-interests first and tore their trust. It not only breaks people’s hearts but also their trust. Betrayals also have unintended effects because everyone reacts with different levels of emotion when someone they trusted and loved broke their implicit trust of always being there for them. It also changes the deceiver because guilt drives them to change in order to redeem themselves. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, there are many betrayals found in the book and it affects the characters differently.
The first stage in achieving redemption is committing a sin which Hosseini captivates with the use of metaphors. As Amir retells his life story, he compares every event against his sin, his betrayal of Hassan when he left him to be raped by Assef. Amir introduces the story by telling us about sin’s prevalence with the use of a metaphor. “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 1). In order for someone to be redeemed they must have committed some type of sin. Amir’s first sin of betraying Hassan is the first of many, as he was living in a constant cycle of sin since. The first major sin he committed is literally what keeps the story going. It is this sin that causes Amir’s guilt and affects the rest of his life. As a child, Amir never felt a sense of acceptance or affection from Baba. As a result of the lack of love Baba showed towards his son, Amir is very desperate to do anything to win his father’s adoration. “Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba...