Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner Essay

Throughout the novel, Amir attempts to find redemption after failing to stop his half-brother Amir 's rape.

Hassan is raped by Assef and Amir witnessed what happened but Amir didn’t help Hassan. Assef raped Hassan because he wanted to humiliate Hassan.

It is often human imagination that illustrates the scene to be more than written which deters adults from the significance and impact of the occurrence. Though the rape is significant because it is an accurate depiction of sexual harassment and is an issue suffered by millions, the importance is not only the rape itself, but the effects it has on Amir and Hassan. After this scene, readers see the inner turmoil Amir goes through as he knew that he could have “stepp[ed] into that alley, [stood] up for Hassan, … and accept[ed] whatever would happen to [him] or [he] could run” (77) and ends up choosing to run. Amir explains his decision by revealing that he was “afraid of Assef and what he would do to [him]” and that he “actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason [he] was running, was that … nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price [he] had to pay, the lamb [he] had to slay, to win Baba” (77).

Amir, the protagonist of the novel, is a man who grew up in Afghanistan but made a life in America. He is a successful writer who is married but unable to have children. However, he struggles with guilt from his past. He mistreated his loyal companion, Hassan, and did not prevent the brutal rape Hassan endured to keep the kite he retrieved for Amir. Guilt over his selfishness never leaves the Afghan man, and he searches for a way to atone for his wrongdoing. Although he realizes depth of his selfish negligence, it is too late to repair the damage done. However, as Amir grows, he matures into a much more noble character. His life-threatening rescue of Hassan’s son Sohrab serves as a form of penance and redemption for Amir. He finds some deliverance from his crushing guilt by doing for Sohrab what he had failed to do for Hassan. Throughout the novel, Amir progresses from a selfish, jealous child into a self-sacrificing, mature adult.

The motifs that are being presented in this story are rape, irony and flashbacks. A recurring event that is crucial to this novel is the rape incidents of Hassan and later his son, Sohrab. From the beginning, Assef’s rape of Hassan is the primary source of Amir’s guilt. "I've changed my mind. I’m letting you keep the kite, Hazara. I'll let you keep it so it will always remind you of what I'm about to do” (Hosseini 73). To further elaborate, Amir being aware of the situation didn’t help the case due to his cowardliness. Because of this incident, Amir becomes emotionally distraught leaving him no choice but to set Hassan up for a ploy so that both of them would be separated. Going in hand with rape, irony plays a huge role. Amir realizes he is a cowards for the decisions he makes and only makes these decisions to get Baba’s approval, only to result in overwhelming guilt. To

Amir’s character represents a development of the human spirit. He is inherently good in his thoughts and actions early on in the story, but the reader can see him begin to evolve. The actions of others, more specifically his father and Hassan cause him to become plagued with aforementioned themes of evil. He sees himself largely influenced by greed and an ability to abuse his power over Hassan. The evil metamorphoses Amir into a character driven by self interest at the deprivation of others. Amir feels challenged for his father’s love by Hassan and uses his social status and educated ability to impose himself over Hassan when they read together. This abuse of power shows the corruption within Amir that develops into greed as Baba continues to distance himself from Amir. This selfishness climaxes when Hassan is defiled by Assef and Amir says

At some point in a every person’s life personal battles dealing with the guilt of a committed sin or discretion will be faced, some larger or smaller than others. Though, through the process of redemption people can find a peaceful state of mind helping to make up for that cause of guilt in the first place. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the quest to seek redemption from major guilt in the past is very evident for one of the books main characters, Amir. Amir has been living in guilt and throughout his whole life has been continually seeking redemption of his childhood when he betrayed his best friend, Hassan. One day, many years late he has the chance to go to Afghanistan to seek back that redemption and find peace for his life.

In the book, “Kite Runner” by BLANK the main character's name is Amir and his change in character sets a important role in the story. Amir overall is a sensitive, intelligent, and creative person but he also grew up with a sense of entitlement. He was born into a rich and successful family in Afghanistan. Amir loved his father so much but he felt his father never loved him and blamed him for his mother's death; she died during childbirth. Following his mother's death he got into poetry, writing and storytelling.

egarded as a brilliant portrayal of painfully honest deception of identity, betrayal, deception and atonement. “The Kite Runner” is considered to be Khaled Hosseini finest novel. It is cleverly narrated through Amir eyes, as he tells the the journey of his past, escaping from his taunted childhood while torturing himself with his own remorse. Disloyalty and redemption play a decisive role throughout the novel to highlight key ideas and further our understanding of the novel as a whole.

This enhances the theme of regret as Amir’s suffering shapes his identity when he believes that “I became what I am today at the age of twelve” (Hosseini, 1). When Amir did not help Hassan when he was being raped, his guilt and regrets made him unable to move on, until Rahim Khan tells him how he can resolve his sin. Amir wanted to make Hassan angry with him, so he “hurled the pomegranate at [Hassan] […] ’Hit me back!’ [Amir] spat. ‘Hit me back, goddamn you!’

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is a remarkable coming-of-age novel describing and revealing the thoughts and actions of Amir, a compunctious adult in the United States and his memories of his affluent childhood in the unstable political environment of Afghanistan. The novel showcases the simplistic yet powerful ability of guilt to influence decisions and cause conflict which arises between Amir’s childhood friend and half-brother, Hassan; Amir’s father, Baba; and importantly, himself. Difference in class The quest to become “good again” causes a reflection in Amir to atone for his sins and transform into the person of which he chooses to be.

The Winter of 1975 everybody’s life took a turn at some point and all the secrets came out soon. “I STOPPED WATCHING, turned away from the alley. Something warm was running down my wrist. I blinked, saw I was still biting down on my fist, hard enough to draw blood from the knuckles.” (Hosseini 77). Amir was in shock, he had just witnessed his longtime friend, his half brother, his best friend get rapped and he didn’t do anything he just ran away like a coward, and that is when the guilt kicked in with Amir. instead of helping or at least going to get help like tell his father or Ali he just ran. Hassan knew that Amir had witnessed it but he

On the day, when Amir won the local tournament and praise from his father, he sends Hassan to run for the last cut kite, for a trophy. As Hassan is making his way back with the kite, he runs into Assef and his two henchmen. Assef gave Hassan the choice to hand over the kite or face his wrath. However, Hassan was too stubborn and loyal to hand over the kite, so Assef beat and raped him. Amir witnessed this all happen, because he was searching for Hassan at the time but he was too cowardly to stop it.

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

Irony is cleverly used within this narrative and aids Hosseini to position the audience to ponder about the messages being conveyed. The novel’s most extreme irony and greatest tragic point is Amir’s selfish decision of not preventing Hassan’s rape. Amir does not intervene during Hassan’s rape due to his fear of losing the blue kite, the key to Baba’s heart (p.67). However by choosing the decision not to stop Assef, Hosseini displays Amir as the coward Baba dreaded he would become, “A boy who cannot stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” (p.22) as he unwittingly allows his best friend to experience such abuse due to the narcissistic desire of pleasing his father. Through this irony, Hosseini confronts the audience to question whether Amir is deserving of redemption and to dislike Amir’s character due to his cowardice behaviour. Moreover, Assef, the antagonist, who had raped Hassan and the reason behind Amir’s guilt, becomes the path for Amir to obtain redemption nearing the end of the novel. As the novel progressed, Amir returns to Afghanistan to adopt Sohrab, Hassan’s son. However, Amir ends up rescuing Sohrab from being raped by Assef and feels emotionally restored when he accepts the beating from Assef when rescuing Sohrab, “Healed at last…” (p.266). By successfully conveying the irony of Amir facing Assef again but as