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Character development broad point
Character development introduction
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Power is a major influence throughout all of history. Wars, love, and countries all began with the same concept: power. Sometimes, power is used responsibly; other times the platform of authority is used in a manipulative way. Power can stem from an individual, but it can also be rooted in memories that haunt people forever. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini writes an impactful novel, showing the brutality Afghanistan goes through as power is corrupted in the country. However, Hosseini also probes the theme of authority that family has over others and how dark feelings can rule people’s lives. Power is depicted in three different manners in the novel: the Taliban’s rule over Afghanistan, Baba’s pull on Amir, and the guilt Amir feels over …show more content…
“Because the truth of it was, I always felt like Baba hated me a little . . . 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). Amir, unfortunately, doesn’t feel loved by his father, so Baba has power over his son and the decisions Amir makes in his life. Amir only wanted the kite after the competition so badly for one thing: to please Baba. “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). Baba’s power forced Amir to become cold, so he could be the son he believed his father wanted. As Amir becomes older, he starts to be more influential in his own life and taking management of his own decisions. In America, he has found home; however, Baba’s rule still makes him feel bad and believe that Baba should be the one who is happy. “For me, America was a place to bury my memories. For Baba, a place to mourn his” (Hosseini 129). Even as Amir becomes his own person, he wants to give Baba the power and make him feel in control and content. Eventually though, Amir realizes that his father does love him and doesn't let the authority drag him …show more content…
This began all began in his childhood, after he witnessed Hassan being raped. Amir’s guilt ate him alive, he couldn’t even stand to see him, so he came up with a plan to get rid of Hassan. “Then I took a couple of the envelopes of cash from the pile of gifts and my watch, and tiptoed out . . . I went downstairs, crossed the yard, and entered Ali and Hassan’s living quarters by the loquat tree. I lifted Hassan’s mattress and planted my new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it. I waited another thirty minutes. Then I knocked on Baba’s door and told what I hoped would be the last in a long line of shameful lies” (Hosseini 104). It is evident that Amir’s intense remorse drove him to make ungraceful decisions. In the end, this only made his guilt worse. As the guilt seems to subside with time and his life in America goes on, Amir one day receives a call from Rahim Khan: “Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up. Said it in passing, almost as an afterthought. A way to be good again” (Hossseini 192). Khan's phone call makes Amir realize that the guilty feelings have only been living deep inside of him all along. Now, he wants to go and visit Khan, to see how he can be good again. Eventually, after rescuing Hassan’s son and becoming more of himself once again, Amir comes to the conclusion
Despite living majority of his life with the guilt of not helping Hassan, Amir’s nemesis is yet to come. Destiny plays a huge game with Amir and reveals to him that Hassan is his illegitimate brother during his visit with Rahim Khan. Reacting with various emotions, Amir first decides to head back about to America, but in the end makes the first brave decision in his life by going back to Kabul “…to atone not just for [his] sins, but…Baba’s too” (198). Amir tries to compensate for his sin by rescuing Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from the brutality occurring in Kabul. Amir puts his entire life in jeopardy by facing the oppression in Kabul so he could make a genuine effort in eliminating his sins. In an ideal world, when one truly makes an effort to redeem themselves for their wrongdoings, they are usually gifted with forgiveness. However, in reality, Amir’s heroic act of saving Sohrab, did not free him of sorrow because he still has to live with his nemesis for the rest of his life. By taking Sohrab to America with him, Amir constantly is reminded of his hamartia by envisioning Hassan through Sohrab. This shows how the guilt from a cowardly act leads one into a lifelong feeling of
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
Whenever Amir would ask Hassan to do something he was reluctant to do, Hassan would still agree if he begged because “[he] never denied [Amir] anything” (Hosseini, 4). Hassan loves Amir an extraordinary amount, so much that he would commit an action that he otherwise would never have wanted to commit. Even when Hassan figures out that Amir has betrayed him, he still sacrifices himself for the safety of Amir. When Hassan lies and tells Baba he stole the watch Amir had framed him for stealing, Amir says Hassan’s lie stung “like [he’d] been slapped… [Hassan] knew [he] had betrayed [him] and yet he was rescuing [him] once again” (Hosseini, 111). Hassan knew what would happen to Amir if Baba caught him trying to get rid of his servants, so he lied to protect Amir, even when Amir had wronged him. Baba and Amir flee to America, yet Hassan remains loyal to them while still in Afghanistan. Rahim Khan asks Hassan and his family to move into Amir’s old house, as he can not maintain the house by himself, but instead they move into the mud hut Hassan used to live in. Hassan’s reasoning is “’what will [Amir agha] think when he comes back to Kabul after the war and finds that I have assumed his place in the house?’” (Hosseini, 219). Not even during the war, when he does not expect Amir to come back, does he temporarily take residence in Amir’s old house. Out of loyalty and respect, he lives where he always had, even when Rahim Khan is
And he strives to do things throughout the novel to achieve that. One good deed he does trying to be good again, was when he goes back home, he is at a house with Farid and three scraggly boys were looking at Amir. Amir thought they were looking at his watch, but when he gave it to them they ignored it. He later realizes they are looking at his food, not his watch. That they are just hungry. So the next morning he puts money under a mattress. “Earlier that morning, when I was certain no one was looking I did something I had done twenty-six years earlier: I planted a fistful of crumpled money under a mattress.” (Hosseini 242) He also tries to find Hassan himself. But upon arriving Rahim Khan tells him that Hassan and his wife have been murdered by the Taliban. “Hassan protested. So they took him out to the street.” “No,” I breathed. “And order him to kneel” “No. God, no.” “And shot him in the back of the head.” “No.” “Farzana came screaming and attacked them” “No.” “Shot her too. Self-defense, they claimed later” “But all I could manage was to whimper “No. “ (Hosseini 219) Amir gets more upset after this, thinking he can’t possibly fix this anymore. But he realizes he has one final chance at redemption, saving Hassan’s son,
In The Kite Runner, Amir and his father, Baba, display lives of contradictions while Hassan and Rahim Khan live lives of purity. Baba is displayed as an immoral man while at home because he is not loving 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 father figure in the first part of the book, once they leave their home, Baba seems to care a lot more about Amir.
In Khaled Hosseini’s novel “The Kite Runner,” he illustrates a fine line between what is defined as morally good and evil. During their lives as kids, Amir and Hassan had always been close, but there had always been one problem. Amir was the son of a rich and powerful Pashtun man who was almost always given everything he wanted, while Hassan was a Hazara boy who had spent his life serving Amir and his family with his father. Although the two of them seemed to always be inseparable when they played games or flew kites, there was always the defining factor of who they really are, a servant and his master.
Baba was happier in Pakistan, but he moves to America knowing it is the right move to keep Amir and himself safe. When Amir questions Baba’s motives by saying “You were happier there, Baba,” Baba retorts with “Peshawar was good for me. Not good for you” further displaying Baba’s sacrifice to keep Amir happy (Hosseini 129). Even though Baba would be much happier back in Pakistan, he sacrifices his own desires for the most important person in his life, his son. If Amir and Baba had stayed in Pakistan, they would eventually have to face the Taliban and be required to move out anyways, or worse, be injured or killed. After Amir is in America for a while, he feels great remorse for the wrong he had done to Hassan and is determined to make things right. In the process, Amir sacrifices his higher class in an attempt to please Sohrab, a low class Hazara. When Amir cut the opposing kite with Sohrab, he asks Sohrab if he can run the kite and says “For you, a thousand times over” (Hosseini 391). Instead of acting like he is above Sohrab because he is a Hazara, he embraces the class difference and uses the famous quote from Sohrab’s Dad who Amir had done wrong several years
Throughout Amir’s journey to absolve himself from the internal and distressing pain he has felt ever since witnessing the devastating altercation in the alley, trying to reach a standard his father, Baba, would approve of also took a toll on his childhood. Baba often speaks of how he cannot fathom the fact that Amir is a part of his bloodline. (quotes quotes quotes) Trying to achieve the perfect son status that Baba wanted Amir to be clouded his mind so greatly that, during the moment, Amir did not show compassion towards Hassan’s troubling moment of need. What matter most was retrieving the last fallen kite to his father to prove he was not a mistake that Baba made Amir believe he was. Even after Baba’s death, his actions brought more despair and uncertainty to Amir’s complicated life. The secrets and lies that were kept from Amir and even Hassan could have altered the fate of both men. (quote quote quote) Throughout the novel, Amir could arguably be considered as selfish, rude and mean toward his half-brother Hassan. However, since Baba never told the two about their true relationship Amir grew up disliking Hassan because he did not know that they shared blood. Knowing their true identities possibly could
Throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, Hosseini depicts a character unlike any other, Baba. Baba is portrayed throughout the novel as a tough man who is always willing to help someone in need. Baba seems to love and care for everyone in the novel except his son, Amir. Amir is always trying to pursue eminence in Baba’s eye and give Baba a reason not to loathe him. Amir thought Baba hated him because when Amir was born, it killed his mother, Baba’s “princess.” Baba’s transformation throughout the novel is very clear as he transforms from a father who despises his son, to accepting his son and finally being a true father to Amir.
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,
Amir always yearned for his father's affection. So the relationship between Baba and Hassan made Amir jealous. Although, Amir knew that his chance to win his father’s affection would be by winning the local kite-flying
Other people’s approval is very obviously important to Amir, Baba’s approval being the main one. Amir has everything, the only thing he feels like he doesn’t have is his father’s love and approval. Amir believes Baba wants him to be more like him, like wanting to be good at sports instead of reading and writing and blames him for his mother’s death. With this in mind, Amir acts out in jealousy towards anyone who has Baba’s attention, like Hassan. In the book, it states, “the resolution that I would win that winter's tournament. I was going to win. There was no other viable option. I was going to win, and I was going to run that last kite. Then I'd bring it home and show it to Baba. Show him once and for all that his son was worthy”. In that instance, Amir sacrifices Hassan in order to get the blue kite because he thinks as long as he can bring the blue kite back to Baba it will earn him his approval. All that Amir could think of was making Baba proud, resulting in Amir making a cowardice choice that he regrets all his
Guilt prompts Amir to go back to Afghanistan and drives Baba to care for Hassan. In the beginning of the book, Amir expresses that “it’s wrong what they say about the past… about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out(Hosseini 1).” Amir realizes this when the guilt never goes away from when he ignored Hassan when Hassan needed help. Amir constantly tries to forget about the past and how the rape impacted his relationship with Hassan and Ali. However, even with Amir’s efforts to obliterate the memory of the event, it resurfaces with Rahim Khan’s request to find Sohrab. Initially, Amir is reluctant to go to Kabul to look for Sohrab, but he remembers Rahim Khan saying, “There is a way to be good again(Hosseini 226).” Desperate for the chance to redeem himself, Amir returns to Kabul with the intention of transporting Sohrab to a better place. Amir understands that the only way for him to stop feeling guilty about the winter of 1975 is that he finds Sohrab and verifies that he lives a more secure life. In Baba’s case, he was able to care for Hassan as an uncle and the guilt he has inclined him to help others by building an orphanage. Also, with Ali’s permission, Baba is able to “[hire] Dr. Kumar to fix Hassan’s harelip(Hosseini 225)” and give Hassan birthday presents to show his affection. Caring for Hassan helps Baba get rid of the guilt he feels from the affair. Even though Baba could only show his love as a friend and not as a father, he embraces the opportunity with open arms. The guilt that both Amir and Baba experiences motivate them to do whatever they can to make up for their
In the “Kite Runner” power was abused when Assef raped Hassan. Assef used his status and strength to show Hassan that he has more power than a “Hazara”. Assef acted vehemently towards Hassan, for Hassan was hurt very bad after this incident. For as aloof Assef and his friends acted, they needed to show Hassan that he has no power over them. Aseef and people like him use rape as a sign of power, yet Assef’s friends were uncomfortable with the situation. Something else could've been done to show Hassan his “place” like threatening him, or just a punch or two. Rape shows more power than beating someone up, but this kind of act hurts someone and can change them. Amir is hurt by this rape. He can’t live with himself for not standing up for Hassan,