Sin In The Kite Runner

Baba is one of the few muslims in Afghanistan that believes there is only one sin, theft. He states to Amir with a great sense of sterness, ''When you kill a man, you steal a life . . . [you] steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness” (18). Although Baba tries to teach this lesson to Amir, he himself is a thief; he stole the “right to the truth” by retaining the truth of Hassan (18). Along with Baba’s betrayal to his son, he also betrays his beloved servants, Ali and Hassan through adultery. Sanaubar, Hassan's mother was potentially driven away by guilt; leaving Hassan without a mother and Ali without a wife.

The illegitimate son of Baba and Amir’s half-brother (which he didn’t knew until after Hassan’s death), Hassan was a truly good and beautiful person even though he's had his fair share of hard times. In my opinion, Hassan has it tougher than Amir from the beginning. Not only did Hassan lose his mother (like Amir), his mother flat-out rejected him But Hassan, unlike Amir, is a selfless and joy-filled creature. They spent most their childhood together playing games, reading books and flying kites until that fateful day where he was deprived of his pride. Hassan had a very good relation with Baba as it would later prove out to be his father as well. After the war stricken years, Rahim Khan asked him to come back to the house in Kabul and agrees after thinking about it. He felt that he was near Amir by living in that house and that he’s loyal. His loyalty and integrity are the essence of his character. He and his wife were slaughtered by the Talibans in the earlier part of 2000, thus ending the life on an inspiring individual.

19). Since Amir thought that he had killed his mother, he always believed that his father, Baba, hated him for it. Amir uses this perceived reason as explanation for why Baba stayed distant from him, and never addressed this issue, keeping the shame for something that he should not feel guilty for. Adding on, Amir also felt guilty for allowing Hassan to get attacked by Assef and not saving his best friend. After the attack occurred near the beginning of the book, Hosseini continuously mentions the event and how terrible Amir feels, even years after. This shame motivated Amir to go back to Afghanistan and find Hassan’s son, as well as bringing him back to America (Hosseini, 2003). Finally, Baba also had guilt to bear in the novel. Baba was Hassan’s biological father. “How had Baba brought himself to

Baba is a giving man; he will try to help friends and poor beggars. Baba’s guilt comes from the fact that he cannot show the same affection to Hassan that he shows Amir. He cannot be a father to Hassan because of the affair he had with Sanubar, she is a Hazara making Hassan a Hazara. If others knew of Baba’s affair then it would ruin his reputation. As said in Rahim Khan’s letter to Amir: “But your father was a man torn between two halves, Amir jan: you and Hassan. He loved you both, but he could not love Hassan the way he longed to, openly, and as a father” (Housseini 301). The inevitable fact that Baba

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do,” Voltaire once said. Every choice in life comes with a consequence that follows. A common consequence is guilt, a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something wrong. Amir, the main character in The Kite Runner, discovers the consequence of guilt after making decisions throughout his childhood that were destructive. Khaled Hosseini describes the destructive ability of guilt to consume one’s life through the the relationships of Amir and Hassan, Baba and Ali, and Amir and Sohrab.

Baba raised his son alone after Amir’s mom died in childbirth and Baba also helped raise Hassan. Early in the novel Hassan and Amir were best friends and did everything, including taking trips together. Baba was loyal to Hassan and never forgot either one of the boy’s birthdays. Baba gave Hassan the amazing gift of having Hassan’s hair lip repaired. “It’s an unusual present, I know,” Baba said. “And probably not what you had in mind, but this present will last you forever.” (Hosseini 67). Family loyalty taught us that you should always respect your family and do the right thing. It is not until late in The Kite Runner that we found out, and Amir found out, that Hassan was really Baba’s son. This was so important in the story because Amir realizes he betrayed his own brother, he was jealous of all the times Baba gave attention to Hassan, and he was the one responsible for making Hassan and Ali leave their home. Amir betrayed Hassan when they played as kids and Amir egged him on to use his slingshot. When the boys would get into trouble Hassan always took the blame even though it was Amir who initiated the trouble. The worst time Amir betrayed Hassan was when Assef assaulted Hassan. Amir did nothing to stop it, nor did he acknowledge that it happened, he ignored Hassan and tried to get him to leave their home so he would not be reminded of his betrayal. Amir betrayed Hassan by placing money and a watch under Hassan’s mattress so Baba would think Hassan and Ali were thieves. “He knew I had betrayed him and yet he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time” (Hosseini 132). Hassan continued to protect Amir, and in his own way he showed his family loyalty, no matter how Amir betrayed him. Hassan was the loyal friend and brother. Amir could never get over his guilt for betraying Hassan and that is why it was so important for Amir to

Throughout the whole book, Amir has been vying for love from his father, often against Hassan, and feels powerless when he does not get it; this causes him to attempt to assert power in other aspects of his life, usually over Hassan. Amir feels as if Baba does not love him, and feels powerless to fix it; he says, “I always felt like Baba hated me a little, And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could have done was to have the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him. Not at all” (Hosseini 19). He believes there is nothing he can do to make his father love him; after all, he cannot change the past, and he cannot change himself substantially. This feeling of powerlessness affects him in such a way that he feels the need to compensate for this loss of power elsewhere in his life. He would exploit the kindness and forgiveness Hassan always showed him, and would try and prove his superiority and worth in that relationship. Amir once asked if Hassan would eat dirt if he asked him to, and afterwards said, “I knew I was being cruel, like when I’d taunt him if he didn’t know some big word. But there was something fascinating--albeit in a sick way--about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play insect torture. Except now he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass,” (Hosseini 54). Amir is filling the power gap he feels in his life with power over Hassan, and is trying to show Hassan how much control he has over him. Hassan, Amir’s servant and a genuinely kind person, is in a vulnerable position against Amir,

Hassan’s inferior character is presented by the way he serves Amir, ‘While I ate and complained about homework, Hassan made my bed’, which implies that no matter how close they may be, Hassan remains the servant which he accepts and is content with, ‘I’d hear him singing to himself in the foyer as he ironed’. Also, Hassan addresses Amir as ‘Amir agha’ which highlights his respect to Amir. However, despite their divisions, when they are alone together they consider themselves equal, ‘”Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul”’, creating irony as they are both aspiring the same hopes and dreams but we know that it is unattainable.

One day Asseff rapes Hassan as an act of power, and Amir witnesses the actions but acts in a cowardly matter and simply avoids the matter by ignoring it. Amir then proceeds to cut off the relationships between himself and Hassan, “I actually aspired to cowardice, but the real reason I was running, was that Asseff 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. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara. Wasn’t he?” Amir did it because the traditional and historical beliefs were more important than friendship. This action displays how being born in a different social class can outweigh all feelings of love and friendship with one of a different social group.

To begin with, one of the most horrific ways that Amir abused their friendship was using Hassan in his own selfish ways to attain what he desires. Despite the fact that running away from the scene where Hassan was being raped was wrong in itself, Amir is thinking to himself, “Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay […] to win Baba” (77). Amir within those few short seconds had made up his final decision; Hassan was going to be the price he paid to uncover his own selfish pleasures while including winning the love of his father, Baba. In addition, he believed that the only way he would achieve what he wanted, the blue kite, was to sacrifice Hassan to any destruction that could possibly come his way. Without a

In Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, mistakes and their confrontation is a major theme. The Kite Runner takes us on the journey of life as an immigrant through the eyes of refugee Amir. It is through the mistakes of Amir and his family and friends that the novel develops. The most significant and central mistake in the novel is of Amir not standing up for Hassan whilst he is being raped. Although this mistake is the most significant and central one, I will also look into two others; Baba cheating with Ali’s wife and Soraya and her previous marriage. To confront our mistakes we may try to ‘redeem ourselves’ by doing good that we believe may make up for this mistake or even just getting this mistake out in the open and talking about it. The

In the book The Kite Runner Amir feels guilty about the things that he has done to Hassan. What he let Assef do to him in the winter of 1975, and the way he let Hassan cover for him through everything he did so he wouldn’t get in trouble, no matter how little or small. In the book Hosseini shows Amir’s guilt in the book when Amir tried to fault Hassan with stealing his presents. Hosseini states,“Baba came right out and asked. “Did you steal that money ? Did you steal the Amir’s watch, Hassan?” Hassan’s reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: “Yes.” I flinched, like I’d been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the truth. Then I

Amir and Baba never got along, which caused Amir to believe that all father-son relationships are like his. Amir does not understand that parents are supposed to unconditionally love their children, like the love Hassan receives from Ali. Showing the differences in Amir and Hassan’s reactions to this story due to their relationships with their fathers explains the significance of having a bond between father and son.

Forgiveness is essential to daily life. An important person does the unthinkable, and finally that person earns forgiveness. It is important to forgive oneself, so one can forgive others, too. In The Kite Runner, novelist Khaled Hosseini tells about the past of the Afghan refugee, Amir, and about the importance of forgiveness regarding to what happens in Afghanistan a long time before Amir arrives in America. Amir grows up in Kabul with his prosperous father, Baba, who has two servants, Ali, and his son, Hassan. Amir and Hassan are best friends until Hassan is raped, and Amir doesn’t help him. Amir can’t get over his guilt, so he takes it out on Hassan and treats him very badly. Thus, Hassan and Ali leave

Their happy-go-lucky relationship works out very well in the beginning of the book, and, even though Hassan does not play with Amir when his other friends come over, the duo still form a very deep relationship with each other. I would say the peak of this portion of their relationship is displayed when Hassan stands up for and protects Amir from Assef and his deadly brass knuckles by threatening to shoot Assef's left eye out with a rock. When Hassan threatens to permanently cripple another human's eyesight in order to save Amir from being beaten, I think it is pretty clear that he made a very risky decision purely out of concern for his closest and only friend's safety. Assef had two friends who I believe could have easily beaten both Hassan and Amir if Hassan shot Assef. In fact, the author even writes that Hassan "was scared, he was scared plenty," showing that Hassan did understand the danger he was in if Assef made a move. This is significant and shows how much the two boys really did understand each other because, after Assef let them go home without injury, Amir says that "Neither one of us said much of anything as we walked home." Can you believe that?! Hassan just saved Amir from certain serious physical injury or worse, and Amir says absolutely nothing to him about it! It is as if the two understand each other in such a profound way that they do not need