Apart from being a Hazara, Amir has grown up with a rich and lavished childhood. Amir’s father, Baba, was a rich and respected man, however he was cold-hearted towards Amir. Part of the reason is because he sees no similarities between him and Amir, and had even said “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 p.23). Baba was also not the same person as he was when his wife was alive. She had passed away while she was giving birth to Amir, and this caused Amir to grow up without a mother. Not knowing it feels like to have a mother, Amir only had Baba to look up to. Amir is always seeking approval from Baba, but he never gets it. Baba is never interested in what he does. This …show more content…
One of the decisions that Amir made was to enter the kite tournament since that was the one thing Baba and him had in common. Amir was the best kite runner in his town, but he did not usually win the tournaments. However, one day Amir’s kite was the last one in the sky, and he had won the competition. When Amir looks back up at Baba, “Standing on the edge of the balcony, pumping both of his fists. Hollering and clapping” (Hosseini p.71).Seeing Baba jumping with joy was the best moment of Amir’s life, since he had finally made him happy. Following this Hassan runs after the kite to catch it for Amir, but hours pass and he does not return home. Amir goes searching for him and finds him surrounded by Assef and his two friends. Assef tells Hassan that he is willing to forgive him if he gives him the kite; otherwise he will do something to him. While all of this was happening, Amir was watching from afar. “ I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step I into that alley, stand up for Hassan --- the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past --- and accept whatever would happen to me,” (Hosseini p.82) said Amir. Knowing what was happening was wrong, Amir decided to run. Amir admits to himself being a coward. He was scared of what Assef would do if he stood up to him. Besides the fact that he left Hassan alone with Assef, Amir lied to Baba and Ali when they asked if he knew what was wrong with Hassan. Amir felt guilty every time he saw Hassan and just wanted to get rid of him. After the Hassan incident, Amir is never able to see himself as a good person and always feels guilty. Things begin to slightly change once Baba and Amir move to the United States. After years of sacrificing for Baba, Amir makes decisions on what is best for him. Despite Baba’s approval, Amir decides to become a writer. On the course of his
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...
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
One of the most tragic and tear-jerking moments in the entire novel surrounds the moment when Amir decides to not help Hassan while he is getting raped. Reading this part, it is very hard not to get furious with Amir because obviously what he did was wrong, but he did have reasoning behind not helping his brother. Amir stands there for a few reasons; one of the reasons being his desire for his father approval, which he knows he can receive by coming home with the kite. When Assef says this, “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.
Amir's actions showed how much of a coward he was. Amir suffered his whole life living with the guilt of knowing that Hassan was raped, much like Baba lived his whole life in guilt knowing that he stole the truth from Ali by committing adultery. Baba ran from the truth, and so did Amir to protect the family name, even if that meant betraying the people closest to him. Baba was a man more worried about his image than anything, and that is what he taught his son as well. Slowly that is all Amir knew how to do: protect his family and himself, leading him into a life of guilt, and running from people when situations were challenging, instead of making the admirable decision and help a
In The Kite Runner, Hassan is a servant in Amir’s family, but Amir initially sees him as a friend, and the two are inseparable. Hassan is extremely loyal to Amir, and proves time and time again to be a valuable companion, but over time their friendship deteriorates. The social differences between Hassan, who is a Hazara, and Amir, who is a privileged Pashtun, create a source of conflict within their friendship as the two can never be truly equal. Due to this inequality, Amir expects Hassan to sacrifice for him, and it is this expectation that leads Hassan to much misery. After Amir wins the kite tournament, he asks Hassan to run for him the blue kite, which Hassan does so, telling Amir “For you a thousand times over!” (Hosseini 67). Hassan, being a loyal friend of Amir’s, goes out to find
In the beginning of The Kite Runner, Amir seems to live a normal life. Him and Hassan are friends and do a lot of things together like flying kites, reading stories, and playing games. Hassan really values his friendship with Amir and always stood up for him, just as any good friend would. As Amir’s life seems normal now, it later takes a huge turn that changes his life forever. One day after a kite-flying tournament, Amir goes looking for Hassan. After some looking he sees Hassan in an alley with Assef and two...
As a lover of poetry, a boy who avoids sports because of physical weakness, and a young man who demonstrates the inability to stand up for himself, Amir does not fit his father’s mold of a perfect son. In contrast, Hassan is athletic, brave, resourceful; Baba feels a strong connection to this servant-boy who must rely on respect earned from his actions, which is difficult to attain due to his social status. Amir, on the other hand, has friends and people who want to be close to him due to his family's wealth. His sense of powerlessness results from his own personal characteristics not being up to the standards his well renowned father wants them to be. When Amir’s father Baba was talking to Rahim Khan
Besides, later in the novel, Hassan portrays his love and loyalty towards his Amir by promising to bring back his blue kite after the kite tournament and not handing it over to Assef, when he was cornered by them. He shows courage by saying, “Amir agha won the tournament and I ran this kite for him. I ran it fairly well. This is his kite” (Hosseini 77). As a result, he gets raped by Assef for his courage and bravery.
To atone for his past sins, he embarks on a journey back to Afghanistan to redeem himself to Hassan for not treating him the way he was treated. He redeems himself by saving Sohrab and giving him a safer and enjoyable life in the Untied States. Amir tyres to attain redemption to baba for being the cause of his mother’s death as he believes. Gaining his fathers love and care will make him feel redeemed from all of the resentment and lack of care that his father shows to him. He must prove to Baba that he is worthy of spending time with everyday because he feels the hatred that his father shows to him. One way how he gets redemption from his father is by winning the kite running tournament to prove to him that he is worthy of being his son. Amir’s path of redemption is not only directed to other people but personal redemption for himself. He attempts to redeem himself by building an orphanage with his wife Soraya and giving Sohrab the childhood that is safer and more suitable for a young boy to grow up in. Amir has to realize that the past doesn’t define who someone is although you can’t forget the past, the actions that they decide to do to redeem themselves from the past mistakes defines who someone is. If Amir’s mother did not die at birth would he be resented from his father greatly and have to make great
Happiness is everyone’s main goal in life; however, one cannot define happiness, nor how it is achieved. Happiness plays a pivotal role in the novel “Kite Runner”, written by Khaled Hosseini. The main character, Amir, is on a quest for happiness and strives for it throughout his entire life; however, it is not without struggle and hardship. Amir achieves many accomplishments in this novel which ultimately lead up to him becoming truly happy. One of Amir’s accomplishments that contributed in his quest for happiness is his marriage with his love, Soraya. Another one of Amir’s accomplishments that also contributed in his quest for happiness is the discovery of his father’s flaws. Furthermore, Amir also gained happiness by giving his orphaned nephew,
He was also very skilled in physical activities to the point where he expects his son to be like him. However, Amir was not physical skilled, therefore he struggled throughout his whole childhood. To make it even worse for him, he was so weak that he wasn’t able to protect his best friend from bad people like Assef. In fact when his best friend Hassan was attacked by Assef, Amir just ran away while Hassan got raped by Assef. That day was a day he regretted throughout his entire life. This pain got stronger when Amir expected to get hit by Hassan, but only heard him saying, “Are you satisfied?”(289). Later on, Amir starts becoming more mature, becoming the head of his head as he wanted to pursue his dreams regardless of his father’s expectation by becoming an author instead of a doctor. “He was my half-brother… illegitimate.”(Hosseini pg. 237). After hearing that Hassan was indeed his brother, he felt more guilty than the time Hassan was attacked. Amir felt very ashamed of his old self when he threw pomegranates at him, calling him a coward. Later, when he goes to Afghanistan to save his half-nephew, he faces Assef and stands up to him, taking every hit Assef gave him, and keep moving on to save his half-nephew. The “I would not leave Afghanistan without finding Sohrab.”(255), proves how much courage he gained as an adult. In the end, he becomes somewhat like Hassan and promised Sohrab that he will be
Amir’s childhood is quite unusual compared to most children in Afghan. Amir’s father, Baba, is a very rich and successful individual in his lifetime. This success allows Amir to live a wealthy lifestyle with access to western commodity as well as servants. In novel, Amir is risen mostly by his servants Hassan and Ali, as well
As we get to know Amir’s characteristics at the beginning of the novel, we see his drive to become like his father: a respectable and wealthy man. But as he grows more knowledgeable about his frailty and vulnerability, he becomes obsessed with the idea of being perfect—just like his “Baba”. For instance, as Amir witnesses Hassan’s assault, he does nothing in his power to aid him, but instead ignores him in order to erase the default, blemish, flaw in him. Thus leading to his Father’s acceptance along the way as he becomes a respectable man in is father’s eyes. Until Amir comes to realize that his father failed to tell him Hassan was his half-brother. His idea of his perfect father becaume neutralized and his mere troubles became an aching reminder of his wrongdoings— resulting in the acknowledgement of his father’s
Over the course of the novel, Baba implies that he is not proud of Amir and the only reason he knows Amir is his son, is because he witnessed Amir 's birth. He states to Rahim Khan that he thinks Amir needs to stand up for himself more often. Countless times during the novel, Amir feels like he has to fight for his affection, that he has to earn Baba’s love. In order to prove himself worthy of affection and to redeem himself for not being a son Baba could be proud of, Amir yearns to win the kite runner competition. He reminisces on a memory, when all “I saw was the blue kite. All I smelled was victory. Salvation. Redemption” (65). In the aftermath of Hassan’s rape, Amir got rid of Hassan so he would not have to face the cause of his guilt on a daily basis. Amir buries the secret of the rape deep within him, where he hopes that it will not come back to haunt him, which is not the case. “We had both sinned and betrayed. But Baba had found a way to create good out of his remorse. What had I done, other than take my guilt out on the very same people I had betrayed, and then try to forget it all? What had I done, other than become an insomniac? What had I ever done to right things?” (303). As mentioned earlier, Amir is not one who stands up for himself. In order for Amir to redeem himself for betraying Hassan, and not standing up for him earlier,
Escaping his father’s aloofness in his mother’s books was the only thing keeping some connection with his father. His father was distant towards Amir. Amir thought that his father hated him because his mother died while giving birth to him. Amir feels responsible for his mother’s death. “Without me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little” (Hosseini 15). This tells the reader that they did not have a close relationship, but there was a lot of respect. Baba was a powerful man and got whatever he wanted. Amir was intimidated by this. It shows that Amir and his father weren’t close in Amir’s early childhood.