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ESSAY themes of guilt, sacrifice, and redemption IN THE KITE RUNNER
Criticism of the kite runner
ESSAY themes of guilt, sacrifice, and redemption IN THE KITE RUNNER
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In Khaled Hosseini’s novel “The Kite Runner”, he illustrates how he develops the characters through their words and actions. Being the main character, Amir is faced with the challenge of gaining his father’s affection/approval because he is Baba’s son. However, how Amir obtains his father’s affection/approval was through immoral ways. Baba on the other hand, had trouble showing his fatherly affection to Amir which causes bitterness within their father/son relationship. In this novel, we will explore how the relationship between a parent and a child is shown through their yearning of affection and how it can affect how one would be in the future. Baba is the most important person to Amir because he is Amir’s role model and world. How Baba express his feelings of being a parent is shown through his interactions and speeches with Amir. In Baba’s eyes, he finds it hard to believe that Amir is his son because “if I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him … never believe he’s my son” (23). Amir cannot defend himself and is often in the position of receiving assistance from Hassan. Growing up, Baba never had to rely on someone else when he got pushed around from the neighborhood kids. He always showed them up, but with Amir, he can’t even defend himself without Hassan’s help. Baba’s disappoint towards Amir not being able to defend himself furthers their already distant relationship. While creating his name, Baba had married a highly educated woman who was regarded as one of Kabul’s most respected, beautiful and virtuous lady. For Baba, it was fine to be married to a poet, “but fathering a son who preferred burying his face in poetry books to hunting … well, that wasn’t how [he] had envisioned it,” (19-20). Baba doesn’t approve of Amir reading... ... middle of paper ... ...the issue of winning Baba’s love because he was the legitimate son. The importance of having a healthy parent/child relationship is so that the child grows up to be in the right path and not regret anything. For Amir, that did not happen because Baba was hardly ever there for Amir. Hosseini displays the two developed characters emotions through their actions and words of how they express their father/son relationship. The relationship between a parent and a child is important because it helps develops the child’s character of how they will be in the future. The more care and affection that is given, the better the child understand that he/she is being loved. For Amir and Baba’s parent/child relationship, they had started off on the wrong foot, but eventually it had gotten better as the story progress. Therefore, making the child and parents relationship better.
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’s redemption is a large part of the novel and is carried out almost entirely until the end of the story. He travels to rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from the orphanage he was placed in after the death of his parents. He promises to find him a safe home with someone but after time passes he feels like this is not enough. He then speaks to his wife and decides to take Sohrab back to the United States with him and take care of his as if he was one of his own. Earlier in the novel when Baba is speaking Amir over hears his conversation as he is referring to him stating, “A boy who won 't stand up for himself becomes a man who can 't stand up to anything” (Hosseini, 22). Thus meaning that if he is able to stand up for himself as a young boy, when he is grown he will not be able to stand up for anything that is in his future. This is true throughout the story until he stands up for himself and Sorhab when he is arguing with his life long bully, Assef. Amir lacked the courage to defend himself in the novel until he finally took charge and went against
Baba, is what Amir called his father. Amir always looked up to Baba. He never wanted to disappoint him. Amir always wanted to be the only boy in the eyes of his father. He was jealous and would do anything for Baba to look up to him or respect him, as his son. Hence, the kite and alley incident. Through all the lies and deception, Baba still viewed Amir as innocent in many ways. Though Baba always wanted Amir to be athletic, play soccer, and display a talent of kite running and flying like Hassan and himself, he still loved Amir and saw his talents as a
Fathers have a remarkable influence on their children. Every son looks up to their dad, and dreams of becoming a man just like them. In the novel Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Ali and Baba play a tremendous role in their sons lives: Hassan and Amir. Both boys strive to become the man their father is, and would go to any measures to mirror their fathers. All children need a father figure in their lives, and even though Ali and Baba raised their children differently, they were both loved unconditionally.
Baba is displayed as an immoral man while at home because he is not loving to his son and he cheated with his friends’ wife and had a child. Even some of Baba’s good qualities such as his care for Hassan and Ali, his father, seem to have a selfish motive behind them because he wants to keep his son close to him. While Baba is never the fatherly figure in the first part of the book, once they leave their home, Baba seems to care a lot more about Amir. This may happen because he does not always have Hassan around to remind him of the terrible mistakes that he made in the past. However, even when Hassan is leaving, Baba still cares about him. Even though Hassan may be a symbol of past mistakes, he is still Baba’s son in the end and family always has a strong bond. Therefore, Baba’s character shows his moral side because instead of hating his illegitimate son, he cares for him as much as he can given the cultural standards of the two opposing religions. By healing his cleft lip and remembering Hassan’s birthday every year, Baba is able to show his caring side that is seldom seen with his relationship with
His father was a role model in the way that he was always looking out for others. When they are escaping Afghanistan, Baba stands up for the lady in the truck at the possible cost of his own life. “Tell him I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place” (pg.116). Amir’s conscience travels back again to the alley way. “Some hero I had been, fretting about the kite”(pg.116). Amir would never have stood up for the lady, comparable to how he never stood up for Hassan in the alleyway. Back in the alleyway Amir had been given the perfect chance to stand up for Hassan, relatable to how Hassan had stood up for Amir innumerable times before. Instead, in a time that he could have proven to his father that he was a man, he was a boy. Not necessarily as a result of not been taught to stand up for others, but by cause that the idea of proving himself to Baba was more appealing than sacrificing the kite. “Sometimes, I too wondered if I was really Baba’s son.” (pg.116). Both Amir and Baba cannot understand how they are related. Baba fits his nickname“Toophan agha, or “Mr. Hurricane”...my father was a force of nature, a towering pushton specimen” (pg. 12) vs. Amir, a shy scrawny child who cannot stand up for himself, let alone
Throughout the story Baba is shown as brave and powerful through symbolism of the bear, while Amir is found to have no connection with the bear. In the story Amir states that, “I have imagined Baba's wrestling match countless times, even dreamed about it. And in those dreams, I can never tell Baba from the bear” (12). Amir, not being able to tell the bear from Baba shows his strength and power. The way Amir is imagining and dreaming about Baba wrestling the bear shows how he looks up to Baba and adores him. But also how Amir is unable to identify who is who shows that how Baba’s powerful characteristics also make others fear him. As Amir was reflecting he thinks, “In the end, I ran. I...
The longing for parental acceptance is often what leads to childhood downfall. At some point a child strives to make their parent proud. When a lack of attention is displayed in a parent child relationship there is a lack of communication and support. In The Kite Runner this type of relationship is shown through Baba and Amir's interactions. Throughout The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Amir and Baba’s relationship takes many turns. Their relationship affects the plot through many situations such as when Baba acts uninterested in Amir's life, When Baba fails to treat Amir the same as Hassan, and when Baba takes his guilt and anger out on Amir.
...rough his actions to save Sohrab, Amir became the man his father had always wanted him to be. Although Baba never lived up to the persona he created for himself, Amir did, and that is why his attempts to achieve atonement were more successful than his father’s. While Baba was unable to seek more than personal redemption, Amir found atonement with himself, Hassan, and God. Amir also found the courage his father lacked to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve redemption. Amir’s ability to transform into a strong character was a result of what he learned from his father’s strengths and weaknesses. While Baba was unable to achieve true redemption, he was a true role model that provided his son, Amir, with the necessary skills to achieve atonement for both of them.
instance of The Kite Runner, one of the most notable aspects of the story is the relationship between Baba and Amir. The feelings between father and son are deeply
Nobody can believe that the innocent activity of kite flying could ever lead to betrayal and eventually redemption yet, in the novel The Kite Runner, Hosseini manages to mend one man’s path through betrayal and ultimately to his redemption. Throughout this novel you will see many acts of betrayal between enemies, loved ones and strangers.
...l, where Baba was judgemental towards Amir. When Amir says, “I liked being on the receiving end of that look,” implies that after all the years of Baba being harsh to him, he happily accepts Baba’s change of mind, exemplifying how Baba and Amir’s relationship has been redeemed when in America. Khaled Hosseini intends to elaborate on how bad relationships may have a positive change, as shown with Baba and Amir’s bond.
“Like father like son” is a well known expression that holds true for many father and son relationships; yet this is not the case for Baba and Amir. The term father and son relationships, the father is a very important role model for his son, and everybody needs a fatherly figure. For one Babe isn’t there for Amir as a result that he is nothing like his father. In The Kite Runner Baba speaks to his business friend Rahim khan about his son and why aren’t they similar. “He’s always buried in those books or shuffling around the house like he’s lost in some dream I wasn’t like that”. Baba seems angry but actually isn’t, his son turned about to be a distinctive individual he just wants his son to carry his name,his business and hopefully his macismo. Babe feels very distant from his son and can’t see any connection between the two. The only hope he has that they are related is Amir coming “out of” Baba’s wife: “If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out
The trope “parent-child relationships,” encompassing both parental and mentor relationships, appears in many stories or texts. Not surprisingly, parent-child and mentor relationships run throughout all of the books examined this year in English class, most obviously in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. The two protagonists in these novels, both of whom are boys struggling to find their place in the world, have significant adult figures who try to guide them in their journeys to maturity.
In the beginning Amir is a coward who cant defend himself and through out the book this begins to change and finally he fully changes in the end of the book. Amir never was the type of boy to fight or stand up for himself. For example, Amir over hears Baba say to Rahim Khan, “You know what happens when the neighborhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fend them off…Im telling you Rahim, there is something missing in that boy” (Hosseini, 23). Baba is complaining to Rahim and he doesn't understand why Amir lacks the courage to stand up for himself. He puzzles that Hassan is the one to step in and defend Amir. He also is very confused over the fact that a hazara is more courageous than his son. Baba knows that Amir is not violent and he wishes that he would just stand up for himself. 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 contemplation jumping in and being courageous because he says, “I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide ...