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.
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...
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...he last words of the novel, suggesting that Amir has finally atoned for his sins and found his redemption. He is no longer running away from his past, but rather running towards the future and his new life with Sohrab. He will be as loyal to Sohrab as Hassan was to him.
Hosseini constructs parallels between Amir’s relationship with both Hassan and Sohrab in order to provide Amir with the chance to redeem himself. He heads Rahim Khan’s advice as he finds a way “to be good again” (226). Amir builds a new relationship with Sohrab and ultimately earns the redemption he longed for. Without the connection between Sohrab and Hassan, Amir would never have been able to make amends for his past. He not only earns Hassan’s forgiveness, but also his own, which is what truly allows Amir to move on.
Works Cited
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Penguin Group, 2013
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
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.
...by Amir in his childhood not only gravely colors his relationship with Hassan, whose innocence he failed to protect from evil and overbearing Assef, but this guilt continues to stay with Hassan as he moves to America and starts a new life. Finally Amir chooses to redeem himself by opting to protect Hassan’s son Sohrab. The guilt which estranged Amir from his childhood friend in a way manages to reunite him with Hassan, albeit in a different manner.
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.
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
To atone for his past sins, he embarks on a journey back to Afghanistan to redeem himself to Hassan for not treating him the way he was treated. He redeems himself by saving Sohrab and giving him a safer and enjoyable life in the Untied States. Amir tyres to attain redemption to baba for being the cause of his mother’s death as he believes. Gaining his fathers love and care will make him feel redeemed from all of the resentment and lack of care that his father shows to him. He must prove to Baba that he is worthy of spending time with everyday because he feels the hatred that his father shows to him. One way how he gets redemption from his father is by winning the kite running tournament to prove to him that he is worthy of being his son. Amir’s path of redemption is not only directed to other people but personal redemption for himself. He attempts to redeem himself by building an orphanage with his wife Soraya and giving Sohrab the childhood that is safer and more suitable for a young boy to grow up in. Amir has to realize that the past doesn’t define who someone is although you can’t forget the past, the actions that they decide to do to redeem themselves from the past mistakes defines who someone is. If Amir’s mother did not die at birth would he be resented from his father greatly and have to make great
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
The book’s opening chapter focuses on Amir's conversation with Rahim and Amir’s "way to be good again” (Hosseini 1). The reason Amir flies all the way to Pakistan leaving behind his wife and life in America is Rahim Khan. Amir desires to make up for what he did to Hassan, so he answers Rahim's quest to “be good again” (Hosseini 1). This meeting allows Rahim to tell Amir what he must do to make up for his past. Rahim tells him he must put his own life in danger to save Hassan’s son, Sohrab. At first, Amir wants to refuse Rahim Khan’s wish, thinking of his life back home. He also thinks about how Hassan’s life may have been different if Hassan had the same opportunities he had. Then he realizes, “ But how can I pack up and go home when my actions may have cost Hassan a chance at those very same things?” (Hosseini 226). Rahim Khan warns Amir that it cannot be anyone else; Amir must make up for his own sins. Although he knows it's dangerous, Amir agrees to get Hassan’s son for Rahim as his dying wish. Amir believes that saving Sohrab is “A way to end the cycle” (Hosseini 227). Amir’s commitment in the face of danger proves his determination to be better and finally atone for his sins. Amir realizes his mistake and knows he can't change what he’d done. Eventually, with Rahim's help, he begins to see saving Sohrab as a “way to be
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.
Amir finds him with an old childhood acquaintance of his, Assef. In their childhood, Assef is the bully of the town and often gives Amir and Hassan a hard time with everything they do and often corners them on the streets or roads while they are alone. This cornering leads to Hassan’s rape at the hands of Assef. When Amir finally comes face to face with him again after all these years, he is both terrified and fuming. He and Assef finally agree to fight for the ownership of Hassan, as they always swore they would do as children. As they fight, Assef easily has the upper hand and is at the verge of hurting him almost to the point of death. As Amir is beaten, he can’t help laughing because he realizes that “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. I laughed” (Hosseini 289). After all these years of the pain and guilt building up and finding no way to release, Amir finally feels the guilt leave him. He sees this as the payback he has wants and needs in order to move on from him life. To live without guilt for the rest of his life. Sohrad eventually stops the fight as he shoots a brass ball into Assef’s eye. Amir is hospitalized for a couple weeks as he heals from his injuries and he and Sohrab sort out the details of them going back to America together. Although there are a couple major bumps in the road, Amir adopts Sohrab and they live together with Soraya back in America. Amir seems to feel that he has redeemed himself from his childhood mistakes once he adopts Sohrab and after the fight with Hassan. The pain has left him that he has been feeling all these years and he can finally live without the cloud of guilt over his
The other source of tension in Amir’s life is his relationship with Baba, his hard-driving and demanding father. Desperate to win his father’s affection and respect, Amir turns to the sport of kite flying, and at the age of 12, with the assistance of Hassan, he wins the annual tournament in Kabul. Amir’s victory soon is tarnished when he witnesses a vicious assault against his friend, who raced through the streets of Kabul to retrieve the last kite, Amir had sliced from the sky, and fails to come to his aid. Amir’s cowardness is compounded by a later act of betrayal that causes Ali and Hassan to leave their home, and he now faces the nightmare, bearing the burden of his poor choices for the rest of his life.
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.
The main character, Amir, is not only picked on because he is a small boy who fails to stand up for himself, but also because his “best friend” is Hassan, his Hazara servant, who always seems to be coming to his rescue. In one occurrence, Hassan is cornered by a group of neighborhood bullies and is in turn raped by the “leader” Assef. Amir stumbled upon the scene when looking for Hassan and, “...turned away from the alley… [He] was weeping… In the end, [he] ran. [He] ran because [he] was a coward,” (Hosseini 77). In the moment that Amir witnesses Hassan being raped and runs, he realizes that all he’s going to be is a coward, well into the time that he is an adult. Later on in his life, Amir is contacted by Rahim Khan and is told that Hassan is really his half-brother and that he has died, leaving his son an orphan. Rahim Khan tells him that, “there is a way to be good again… A way to end the cycle. With a little boy. An orphan. Hassan’s son. Somewhere in Kabul,” (Hosseini 227). With Rahim Khan telling Amir that he can redeem himself in saving Sohrab, he finally brings himself to own up to his mistakes. By saving Hassan’s child, Amir is atoning for the mistake of running and not helping Hassan and is now finally growing up from being the coward that he was when he ran from Hassan’s
When Amir returns to Pakistan, he is asked to bring Hassan’s son, Sohrab, to an orphanage, and is told it is “a way to be good again.” At first, Amir is reluctant to go back to Afghanistan and search for Sohrab, but he believes this is a way to be redeemed for what he had done to Hassan several years before. While Amir was quick to betray Hassan and seen as a coward, he redeemed himself when he is searching for Sohrab. When he was younger, Amir was quick to run away from danger and had no signs of courage. However, when he got older, he learned to stay and protect what he believes in.
This “blackness of sorrow” that Amir was suffering from finally lifts from his mind as he gives Sohrab the chance at happiness and prosperity that he single-handedly deny Hassan, which ultimately gives him a degree of peace. For the first time, Amir learns to sacrifice for other individuals, because he wants to receive the redemption he is looking for, and seek forgiveness for his past