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One moment can shape the rest of someone’s life in a positive or in a negative way. According to Aristotle, “a man cannot become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall.” In the book “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini you follow a story of a male from Afghanistan named Amir that grew up around the time of the Russian invasion into Afghanistan. Amir eventually moves to Fremont, California in the United States with his father, Baba, for safety from the war. During this book Amir’s is explaining about his childhood relationships around 1975 through flashbacks and what he does to deal with these relationships. Specifically the relationship with his closest friend, Hassan. Hassan was a boy that Amir grew up with because Hassan was a servant in their household. Amir explains that what he is today has come from what had happened when he was twelve. A tragic hero is a character that makes an error in judgment that’s leads to a tragedy in their life. Amir is a …show more content…
tragic hero. He commits to having a flaw that leads to a downfall. He has excessive pride that makes him do things he regrets, and lastly has his own recognition of ignorance for his mistakes. In this story, there are many challenges that Amir goes through and to be a tragic hero he has to have hamartia, which is a flaw. Amir’s tragic flaw was his selfishness. Amir proved this by saying “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 82). Growing up Amir was jealous of the relationship between Baba and Hassan, he thought that Baba admired Hassan more than himself. This quote is explaining how Amir himself thinks that he betrayed Hassan by watching him get raped and by not doing anything to stop Asseff (a teenage neighborhood bully) or anything to help out Hassan. Amir was scared that Assef would hurt him if he tried to stop the rape. Amir also thought that if he sacrificed Hassan like a lamb in a Muslim festival, he would then have all of Baba’s affection to himself because he would be able to bring the blue kite back home, thus showing his selfishness. This makes Amir a tragic hero because his flaw is responsible for his downfall. By not helping Hassan while he was being raped, Amir unknowingly went down a road that would ultimately change his life forever. Secondly throughout Amir’s childhood he and Hassan are always together either flying kites, playing games, or reading stories. Even though they act like best friends Amir could never confirm their friendship. For Amir to be a tragic hero he needs to have hubris, which is excessive pride over what he thinks is right. As a child Amir never treated Hassan as an equal even though Hassan would do any thing for Amir. Amir was embarrassed of how Ali and Hassan were in a lower class than himself and Baba. Amir couldn’t get over the fact that he was a Pashtu while Hassan was a Hazara. Amir proved this by saying “The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either.” This quote is explaining how Amir never truly believed in himself and Hassan’s friendship. Amir instead believes that Hassan was a boy that he hung around just because he was his servant. After Amir watches Hassan get raped by Assesf he starts to push Hassan away. Amir is disgusted about what he did and what he saw, so he cuts Hassan out of his life by putting money and his watch under Hassan’s mattress in order to get him in trouble. When the watch and money are found Hassan is accused of stealing, but ultimately Baba forgives Hassan. Ali felt that Amir planted the watch and money and even though Baba forgave them they felt uncomfortable staying in the house, so they move out. This makes Hassan very happy but ultimately it becomes one of his biggest regrets. This makes Amir a tragic hero because as an alternative of accepting the difference of Hassan and owning up to what he did, Amir's pride forces him to make hasty decisions that concoct a path to his downfall. Lastly as Amir grew older he lived with his guilt and regret. Amir starts to realize that the mistakes he has made in his childhood are affecting his life as an adult. Amir eventually meets and marries Soraya. They begin their life together and plan to have a family of their own, but Sorya for unknown reasons cannot conceive. Amir is his guilt about the past feels that God is punishing him by not allowing him to have a child. After Amir gets a call from Rahim Khan and is asked to come back home to Afghanistan, he decides to leave because he might be able to make up to Hassan for his mistakes. For Amir to be a tragic hero he has to have anagnorisis, which is the recognition of ignorance. Amir proved his awareness of his mistakes by saying “Hassan had loved me once, loved me in a way that no one ever had or ever would again. He was gone now, but a little part of him lived on. It was in Kabul. Waiting.” (Hosseini 239) This quote was said when Amir found out Hassan was his actually his half brother. Amir also found out that Hassan was married and had a child named Sohrab but Hassan and his wife were shot and killed by the Taliban because Hassan stood up for what he believed in and would not allow them to force him out of his home. This left Sohrab an orphan. This makes Amir realize that he needs to make up for his mistakes by saving Hassan’s son. He learns that everything he has done was trouble he brought unto himself. This makes him a tragic hero because he now knows that in order for him to be able to forgive himself, he needs to save Sohrab. In conclusion everyone in life must strive to be a better person in their daily life because every action has consequences and or a reaction.
Which has a cascading effect to our lives and everyone around us. In the book ‘The Kite Runner’ Amir is a tragic hero. Amir meets all of the criteria of a tragic hero. He has excessive pride. He has a tragic flaw that leads to his downfall, and he has recognition of his own ignorance. Amir grew up with guilt on how he betrayed Hassan. His downfall begins when he witnesses his friend Hassan being raped and does nothing to stop it. As Amir gets older he finds out that Hassan was really his half brother and that he has been killed. This makes Amir decide to save Hassan’s son Sohrab because he believes it will make up for all the mistakes he has made in the past. For these reasons Amir can be considered a tragic hero because he performs actions that ultimately destroy him and his friendship but motivates him to save Hassan’s son, Sohrab in
Afghanistan.
As he grows into a man and pushes his regrets to the side - though not ever completely out of his mind - he learns to live through and accept the pain he caused both himself and his best friend, Hassan. Towards the end of the novel, Amir goes to great lengths to earn the redemption he feels he needs in order to finally be at peace. The Kite Runner asks the audience what it truly means to be a good person - do we need to be born with goodness in our hearts, do we live the way that is comfortable and right according to ourselves, or do we have to constantly fail and prove that we are good?
In the novel The Kite Runner, author Khaled Hosseini writes about Amir a young Afghan child who is a coward and who later as an adult seeks redemption from past mistakes. These characteristic effects Amir’s live throughout the novel from childhood to present. However, these are just words on a paper without some proof and the novel happily supports this either through the events or the behavior of other characters. Now let’s start with Amir’s past childhood.
Literary value can be defined as a plot that follows the guideline that Joseph Campbell set before his theory of “monomyth,” inferring from the two videos and Foster’s ideas. Understanding this concept allows us to confirm that the book, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, contains an ample amount of literary value. Amir’s journey to Afghanistan serves as the prototype that Campbell constructed when producing his hypothesis. The two videos and Foster’s book lays out the conditions of a book containing literary value through Campbell’s ideas.
Moral ambiguity is lack of clarity in decision making. Basically, moral ambiguity is when you have an issue, situation, or question that has moral or ethical elements, but the morally correct action to take is unclear, due to conflicting. The author of The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini, the book is about a boy named Amir and how much of a easy life he has at first, but near the middle of the book his life is horrible from there to the end of the book.
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.
In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini the, main Protagonist is a man that goes by the name Amir. Some argue that he is an anti-hero, or not a hero. No. Amir is a hero. Amir is just another person who was lost at one point and needed direction and needed clear the guilty feelings he had. Through these actions he creates a heroic journey, he follows a hero’s path.
People need redemption from our continual sin, otherwise, we just wallow in the shallowness of that aspect of our lives. Sin stays with an individual and effects the way their lives are lived. Unless they confront their past the sin will always be present. For example, Khaled Hossei’s , The Kite Runner explains how Amir- one of the main characters in the novel redeems himself because he undergoes strong guilt from his past sins. By examining Amir’s sins in his childhood, in his teenage years and in adulthood, his attainment of atonement is revealed. Particularly Amir atones for his past sins of being an eyewitness of Hassan rape who is his most loyal and devoted servant. He is influenced by this moment because he realizes that Hassan always
Though some may rise from the shame they acquire in their lives, many become trapped in its vicious cycle. Written by Khlaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner describes the struggles of Amir, his father Baba, and his nephew Sohrab as they each fall victim to this shameful desolation. One repercussion of Baba hiding his sinful adultery from Amir is that Amir betrays Hassan for his father’s stringent approval. Sohrab’s dirty childhood also traumatizes him through his transition to America. Consequently, shame is a destructive force in The Kite Runner. Throughout the course of the novel, Baba’s shameful affair, Amir’s selfish betrayal, and Sohrab’s graphic childhood destroy their lives.
The story The Kite Runner is centered around learning “to be good again.” Both the movie and the book share the idea that the sins of the past must be paid for or atoned for in the present. In the book, Amir can be seen as a troubled young boy who is struggling with a tremendous amount of guilt. It is easy to blame Amir’s actions on his guilt and his father’s lack of love for him.
Perfect heroes are unrealistic in literature because even though they seem ideal, the characters become flat and unrelatable. Therefore, authors often add other dimensions to characters that reveal their personality flaws and mistakes. Authors are able to use these dimensions to both relate the characters but also teach the readers life lessons from the characters mistakes. For example, in The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini crafts multiple ambiguous characters who are good people that make major mistakes. By contrasting these characters to the more pure characters, Hosseini is able to show both the ideal life to live and the ways to do that. In The Kite Runner, Amir and his father, Baba, display lives of contradictions while Hassan and Rahim
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.