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How is the theme of redemption built into the kite runner
ESSAY themes of guilt, sacrifice, and redemption IN THE KITE RUNNER
ESSAY themes of guilt, sacrifice, and redemption IN THE KITE RUNNER
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Life is not a fairy tale and there are not always happy endings. These chapters serve as a climax of the novel. Amir finally redeems himself for his sins by fighting with Assef. When Amir finds out that the Taliban official from whom he must rescue Sohrab is Assef, the person who raped Hassan all those years ago. “His name escaped my lips: Assef” (Hosseini 295). The use of irony here signifies that no matter where you run, your past will catch up to you. The way Assef touches Sohrab clearly proves that he has been sexually abusing him like he did with Hassan, “the man’s hand slid up and down the boy’s belly. Up and down, Slowly, gently” (Hosseini 294) This shows us that Assef is still raping Hassan through Sohrab but this time, Amir is in a position to stop him and finally do what is right and what Baba expected him to do all those years. When Amir sacrificed himself for Sohrab like Hassan did all those years ago; he finally redeems himself and when he gets the cut on his upper lip “blood from my split upper lip” (Hosseini 302), it symbolizes sacrifice and through this incident Hosseini portrays his feelings about Afghanistan, that if Afghanistan is to pay for its mistakes and rise up again, it must …show more content…
We get the impression that the character will probably not get what they want and to make things worse, Sohrab has new wounds that will heal but will leave scars for him to remember what the Talibans did to him. He is struggling with moving on from his past as when Amir tried to comfort him. “I touched his arm. He drew back” (Hosseini 335). Besides that Sohrab is also struggling with his decisions as he asks Amir “Will God…Will God put me in hell for what I did to that man?” (Hosseini 334). This shows us that like Hassan, Sohrab is kind at heart and feels guilty for shooting Assef even though he had sexually abused him multiple
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
Because he was ashamed of what he did. This quote explains how he ruins their trust between Hassan and Amir, “I went into Hassan's living quarters. I lifted the Hassan's pillow and placed the watch under it and a handful of afghan dollar bills”(91). Amir was brought into his father's office after this event with Hassan and Ali crying in the room. Shortly after ali made Baba take them to a bus station leaving Amir with guilt because of what he did. Another example is when Amir had promised Sohrab that he would never be taken back but he lied about his promise: “Sohrab it's only for a short period of time but you have to be placed in an orphanage until we get this sorted out”(342). This event lead to Sohrab losing all trust in Amir, making them lose the little connection the had.
After some misgivings, Amir agrees to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an orphanage in Kabul. Amir even squares off against a Talib official who is actually Assef. In order to save Sohrab, Amir has to fight Assef, but Amir get beaten up badly by Assef. Amir can be seen as good because of what he done, he risked his life and almost got killed by Assef, but Sohrab saved Amir by shooting him in the eye with a slingshot. Even though Amir didn’t do anything good in his childhood and most of his adulthood too. He could have only saved Sohrab out of guilt and maybe some good intentions of actually being thought of as a good person for once, “Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.” (302). Amir is trying to redeem himself after all these years of being a coward and it pays off in the long
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
In the way that the Taliban had destroyed Kabul and killed many citizens, Amir was destroyed by Assef and the experience of seeing Sohrab attempting suicide. Amir eventually recovered and he want back to his stable life in America. He recovers from his injuries and makes progress towards helping Sohrab feel better. Present-day Afghanistan and Amir both have a history which continue to negatively affect them in the modern
Sohrab is a Hazara who endured many painful experiences throughout his life, regarding his position in society and family events. Sohrab has been raped and tortured throughout his life with the witnessing the death of his parents and living in an orphanage for the duration of his life. He still lives through every day of the pain and suffering he endures, “I want my old life back”(373). Sohrab displays courage because he still lives his life without the guidance and love from his parents. It has been seen though Amir that Sohrab and attained some of Hassan's traits, such as his eyes, personality and the way he carries himself. Sohrab shows Hassan's traits in him when he stands up to Assef, who is now the leader of the Taliban, “No more, Agha please” (304). Sohrab has the courage to stand up to Assef and save Amir who is a stranger at the time. He has been following the same values Hassan has always had which is to be kind, thoughtful and to always follow what’s right. Even though Sohrab has changed as a person through all the events he has been through, he has shown he never lost the ability to care or the ability to stand up for values that go against teaching. Sohrab established he was courageous in the novel, but one way he is brave is for going to America to live with Amir and Soraya. This is an example of true bravery for showing he is strong enough to start a new life in a
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
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 main theme or message Hosseini gives the reader is honor and pride motivate and guide people’s actions. Also, the the cultural divide between Hazaras and Pashtuns creates a black and white perception where Pashtuns are full of honor and pride and Hazaras lack one or sometimes both. In the form of a conversation, irony presents itself in chapter 12 when Amir and Baba talk about General Taheri’s ethnic background and expectations “The man is a Pashtun to the root. He has nang and namoos… Honor and pride. The tenets of Pashtun men”(157). In Hassan’s greatest hour of need, Amir, a Pashtun, catastrophically fails to reveal his “nangs and namoos” by not even attempting to save Hassan from Assef. On the other hand, Hassan, a Hazara, protects and shields Amir from the torment of bullies every single time. This ironic scene furthers the reader’s knowledge about the theme and the cultural divide in Afghanistan because Amir’s honor and pride represent more of a Hazara, whereas, Hassan’s honor and pride depicts that of a
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. And, as if that wasn’t shocking enough, he realizes the leader of it all, the same man who executed the people at the soccer game earlier that day, is Assef. The same man who started this all in the first place. “His name rose from the deep and I didn’t want to say it, as if uttering it might conjure him. But he was already here, in the flesh, sitting less than ten feet from me, after all these years. His name escaped my lips.” “Assef.” (Hosseini 281) Amir is shocked, and angered about what he has just realized. Him and Assef have a conversation which eventually leads into Assef challenging Amir to a fight, over Sohrab. Assef beat up Amir very bad, and once the fight was over Sohrab confronts Assef, and tells him to stop. And Assef doesn’t listen, and yells at Sohrab to put it down. Sohrab then lets the slingshot shoot, aimed at Assef’s face, and it takes out his eye. While he’s hurt they all escape, this doesn’t prove to be the last trial though, as they are told by a man named Raymond Andrews that they can’t take him to America. But after awhile Soraya calls from California and says that they can take Sohrab back to America. But, once again, a problem gets in the way of Amir’s redemption. This time a rather serious one, when Amir goes to
However there are some characters that become better people and change becoming a better, stronger, more loyal individual in the end. The individual that demonstrates this development within this novel is Amir himself. All of the guilt Amir holds with him as a child allow him to realize his duty to be loyal to his brother Hassan ion the end. An example of this is when Amir goes back to Kabul, Afghanistan to retrieve his nephew Sohrab. Amir says, “I remembered Wahid’s boys and… I realized something. I would not leave Afghanistan without finding Sohrab.’ tell me where he is,’ I said” (Hosseini 255). Here, Amir is at the orphanage waiting to find out where Taliban has taken his nephew. Amir remembers the three young starving sons of Wahid, a man whose home he had been in earlier, and realized that Afghanistan is not a safe place for Sohrab. Amir is finally aware of one thing, Hassan has always been there to protect Amir like a loyal friend and brother would and now Amir knows that it is his turn to return that loyalty to Hassan by protecting Hassan’s flesh and blood. A second example of Amir’s loyalty to Hassan near the ending of the book is during Amir’s confrontation with General Sahib and the dinner table after Sohrab is safe in America with him. Amir proclaims to General Sahib, “…That boy sleeping on the couch
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...
Throughout his childhood, Amir conforms to society and treats his Hazara servants poorly, but he questions the morality of such treatment. When Amir’s childhood bully, Assef, confronts him, Amir thinks to himself that Hassan works only as a servant for him, and that they have no friendship. Afterward, he thinks, “Why did I only play with Hassan when no one else was around?” (41). Hosseini uses a series of rhetorical questions to accentuate how Amir questions his beliefs about his relationship with Hassan....
Redemption occurs over many years of struggling and determination. It takes an entire year for Sohrab to speak to anyone once he moves to America with Amir. Soraya and Amir both try relentlessly to get him to open up to them but minimal progress is made. They try to give Sohrab the best life he can possibly have. Amir finally succeeds when they fly a kite together. A little smile appears on Sohrab’s face and Amir exclaims, “’For you, a thousand times over’” (Hosseini 371). This quote shows how much the small gesture means to Amir. He understands now the loyalty Hassan felt towards him because that is the same way he feels towards Sohrab. In that moment, he finally feels like he has redeemed himself. In his article, The Servant, Edward Hower explains that “[I]n the end, we're won over by Amir's compassion and his determination to atone for his youthful cowardice" (2). The development of Amir shows how he becomes someone who can make up for all the wrong he has done in the past. Sohrab brings out the compassion and determination that Amir was missing. Afghanistan misses that one piece of itself that will allow it to contain the same qualities as Amir finds with
When Amir finally arrives in Kabul to retrieve Sohrab, he discovers that a Taliban official is holding Sohrab captive. He later learns that the identity of the official is Assef, the person who committed the egregious act of sexual harassment against Hassan when they were younger. Assef agrees to release Sohrab to Amir if he is able to beat him in a fight. Amir, although frightened, decides to battle with Assef for Sohrab because he realizes that it is the ethically correct response to the situation. While Amir is fighting Assef, he observes, “My body [is] broken-just how badly I [will not] find out until later-but I [feel] healed. Healed at last” (303). Amir is unable to stand up to Assef during their childhood when Hassan needs him to, and by fighting for Sohrab, Hassan’s son, he appeases his disgraceful past and feels internally triumphant. Combatting Assef enables Amir to heal himself from within and to gain closure, as he finally gets a chance to battle the origin of his lifelong, disabling guilt. Moreover, following his return to America with Sohrab, it becomes obvious that General Taheri does not approve of adoption, especially of a Hazara since they are deemed to be lower class. The general questions the motives behind Amir’s choice to bring Sohrab to America, not referring to him by his name but