Amir's Quest For Redemption

Hosseini shows that it is Amirs immense guilt that drives him to want to make things right and to earn redemption. We learn the basis Amir's guilt through his memories. It is caused by a lack of response at a time when his loyal servant and close friend Hassan is in trouble. Amir makes a conscious decision to hide in the distance and just watch, not because he was afraid. He sacrifices Hassan in order to earn his fathers attention and affection. This decision results in Hassan suffering though a traumatic experience and is the root of Amir's lasting regret.

Both Hassan and Sohrab have gone through abuse at the hands of Assef, but Amir ends this cycle of abuse by rescuing Sohrab when he returns to Kabul. This shows how Amir has become nobler and made the decision to do what he feels as morally correct. When he was 12, he witnessed Hassan get raped by Assef in the alleyway and he did nothing to help Hassan. He tried

When Amir is confronted by Assef, who has possession of Hassan’s son, he challenges him to a fight. When Assef brutally abuses him, “[Amir] for the first time since the winter of 1975 felt at peace” (Hosseini 303). This portrays a pivotal moment in Amir’s life as it proves that Amir is willing to sacrifice his life for Sohrab just as Hassan sacrificed his life for him. Also, the guilt that has haunted him since his childhood is finally lifted, and his mind is at peace. On top of that, Amir has redeemed himself as he has compensated for the pain he caused Hassan. On his arrival back to America, General Sahib asks Amir, why he has brought this Hazara boy back with him. Amir responds by telling him “that he should never again refer to him as a Hazara in [his] presence” (Hosseini 380). This displays that Amir is once again redeeming himself to Hassan by finally standing up for Sohrab. For Amir, he believes that he is proving his loyalty and faithfulness to Hassan. Furthermore, this displays that Amir is once again redeeming himself to Hassan by finally standing up for

Amir a young pashtun boy born into the wealth of his father Baba, living in Afghanistan during the 1970’s. Through Amir’s early life he went through traumatic instances, which have now shaped him into who he is know. Those choices he made haunt him from that moment on, and now as a adult he wants to atone for them. I fell that Amir has atoned for his sins almost completely up to his personal standards. As a whole he still has those sins sitting on his shoulder and just because he took in Hassan's child does not compensate for his sins.

Amir regrets that he abandoned Hassan when he was attacked, and he lives with the unbearable sin. As Assef attacks Hassan, Amir realizes that he could stand up for his friend or run as a coward:

While Amir defeats his final obstacle to win Baba’s approval, he reciprocally falls down and fails to show courage in Hassan’s rape. Amir assumes that Hassan “was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” as he watches Assef sodomize Hassan, and he “actually aspired to cowardice” (77). The atonement of Amir’s sins to Baba sparks the commencement of Amir’s betrayal to Hassan. Furthermore, Amir runs away and hides from his sins in Amerca knowing that he cannot gain the courage to redeem himself and completely fulfill his quest to adulthood. Nonetheless, Rahim Khan provides Amir an opportunity to accomplish his redemption. After decades of hiding, Rahim Khan calls Amir to tell him to “come” back to Kabul since “there is a way to be good again” (192). Amir must successfully accomplish his final obligation to complete his quest to maturity. In addition, Amir must stop hiding like a boy and begin to stand up like a man. As Amir returns to Kabul to save Sohrab, and ultimately redeem himself, he must fight Assef one last time, which results in Amir’s “body being broken – just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later – but I felt healed. Healed at last” (289). Amir now receives his deserved punishment and, most importantly, he learns to stand up and finally matures into a man. Although Amir completes his quest to adulthood, readers must realize that Amir must ultimately grant Sohrab a

Amir’s misadventures begin as a boy living in an affluent Afghanistan world. On the day of his birth, his mother hemorrhages to death. Robbed of any feminine influence or comfort, he goes to his overshadowing Baba for love and acceptance. His father denies his only son the tenderness he desires, leading Amir to believe his father despises him. After all, Amir’s

Redemption is what the whole novel revolves around. Redemption occurs when Amir feels at peace when Assef tries to kill him. `What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter, of 1975 I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hook in the corner of my mind, I had been looking forward to this. (303) The quotation portrays Amir`s sorrow towards all the things he did to Hassan. He believes being killed would repay himself. For all the wrong he did to him, all throughout the novel, Amir was dishonest, and disloyal to Hassan. Amir always took Hassan for granted, and believed that he was his directly leftovers, that he could throw around and demand anything from him. Furthermore, this is also adds to Hassan standing up for Amir, by psychically fighting

    Amir had been disloyal to Hassan his whole life. He did not stand up for Hassan when he needed it most and Amir even ran away when he could have helped Hassan. Amir constantly tortured Hassan as he tried to make Hassan eat dirt, throw fruit at him, or even when he tried to get Hassan to punch him. Amir wanted Hassan to stoop to his level and beat him up, so his guilt would disappear.

From the very beginning of the novel, it is established that Amir’s life was shaped by watching his best friend Hassan be raped. It is clear that Amir struggles to come to terms with his inability to intervene, and his inaction at that moment has haunted him since. However, when an old mentor calls Amir and tells him there is a way to “make things right again,” Amir packs up his entire life in America to return to Afghanistan to save Hassan’s son, Sohrab. In this journey, Amir stands up for Sohrab in ways that he was never able to do for Hassan as a child and risks his life to make things right. His actions through this journey show the maturity he gained from confronting the memories of his childhood and making up for his past mistakes.

Right after the Hassan’s rape, Amir cannot confront Hassan due to his inability to save him: “I didn’t speak to Hassan until the middle of the next week” (Hosseini 86). It is absolutely not Amir’s fault that Hassan was raped, however it is Amir’s fault that he is ignorant to rectify the situation by judging what is right or wrong. His sense of responsibility towards his action is where guilt comes from, and it is inevitable to remain ignorant from it. Even after years moving to America, he feels hesitant whenever people mention about Hassan. Baba mentions about Hassan that he wants to share the happiness and Amir’s growth with Hassan in the United States: “I wish Hassan had been with us today” (Hosseini 131). Amir’s reaction shows how remorseful he still is, as he claims that guilt is harming him: “A pair of steel hands closed around my windpipe at the sound of Hassan’s name”(Hosseini 134). The steel hands represent the stiffness of his guilt suffocating himself every second, and whenever people brings up topic about Hassan, his guilty conscience suffocates him. Likewise, Amir is not completely feeling free about Hassan even though he is miles away from him. Lastly, he is too late to learn from mistakes when he is told that Hassan passed away, thus he adopts Hassan’s son, Sohrab. Sohrab serves a huge role in this

Not only did Amir risk his life by going back to Kabul, but he also saved Sohrab from Taliban officials and brought him back to Pakistan. After Amir went back to Kabul, he found out that Sohrab was being held at one Taliban official’s house. When he went there to get Sohrab, he found out that the Taliban official was Assef; the guy who raped Hassan. Assef agreed to let Sohrab go in exchange for a fight with Amir. While Amir gets beaten, he thinks about the day when he asked Hassan to punish him by throwing pomegranate at him. But Hassan did not and Amir felt like he wasn’t punished. After Assef beat him up, he felt that he was redeemed because he needed to be punished for his sins. On page 289, Amir narrates his fight with Assef, “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this. – My body was broken – just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later – but I felt healed. Healed at last.” Amir felt that he was healed because he finally was punished physically for what he did to Hassan. He was physically damaged but at the end he was able to recover and take Sohrab back to Pakistan.

Amir resents his choice to be a coward when Hassan is raped. His guilt is immediate and it gnaws at him. A few days after Hassan was assaulted, Amir already feels guilt and resentment inside him. “’I [Amir]

This one decision left a stain on Amir for the next thirty years. A quote on pg. 88 states “I wish someone would wake me up, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore” This quote explains how guilty Amir felt after seeing Hassan get raped as he desperately sought for anyone to find out but didn’t chose to tell anyone the actual truth. Another example from the text is when Amir tries throwing pomegranates at Hassan, as an attempt to get Hassan to fight back and punish Amir for choosing to leave Hassan. However, Hassan refused to throw any pomegranates at Amir, but instead smashed one into his face. A quote on pg.94 states “I wanted Hassan to fight me back for the way I failed him” This quote indicates that Amir wanted Hassan to fight him back, so he could have the “punishment [he] craved” (93) This demonstrates that Amir wanted to feel the act of being punished for his wrongdoing, similar to how Hassan was brutally raped due to Amir’s apparent mistake. Amir’s guilt forces him to travel across two countries to seek redemption for the mistake he made. 15 years later, Amir’s guilt led him to make the hefty decision of returning to Afghanistan “to be good again” (189) by rescuing Hassan’s orphaned son, Sohrab, from the terrible conditions he was left to face in Kabul. Amir sees this as an opportunity to redeem and free himself from

To see the goodness within ourselves we must persevere though the faults we have made in our lives and recognize that in the end they make us who we are. We must make choices that in the end may have affected people in the wrong way. As a society we must accept that we must persevere though our faults to achieve a better ending. Amir throughout his life has overcome many obstacles and through those obstacles he has had to do whatever is necessary to get past his difficulties. At points he has to sacrifice the trust between him and his wife because he feels that not telling her about Hassan's rape would protect him from being judged. Although Amir's emotions are not always clear through his journey you can feel his pain because as a human being one must hurt to become a better person. Amir's transformation takes him many years. Amir and Baba had moved to America but Amir did not start of heal until he returned to what was left over of the Afghanistan he once knew. While visiting Rahim Khan he told Amir