A Trip to Redemption in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

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Author: Khaled Hosseini published The Kite Runner in 2003. By 2005 it became the number one New York Times Bestseller. Although this book was his first novel, people still couldn’t get enough of his story about the troubled friendship between two boys. Sylvester Stallone, an American actor, once said, “Most action is based on redemption and revenge, and that's a formula. Moby Dick was formula. It is how you get to the conclusion that makes it interesting”. From time to time mistakes are made every day, and however the story ends will describe your mistakes. In The Kite Runner, the kite is the most important symbol that represents Amir’s past; just like a kite flying in the sky full of soars and dives, Amir's life was the same way as a kite flies. The novel The Kite Runner, teaches a lot of possessions about redemption. It starts out with Amir receiving a phone call from his old friend Graham Khan. His friend Rahim says, “There is a way to be good again” (2). This implies that Rahim knows of Amir’s shameful past, and that he wants Amir to redeem himself. Since this quote comes from the beginning of the book, we do not know what Amir did that is worthy of redemption, or even why Rahim Khan is calling Amir. But, later in that chapter, it is revealed that something very dark and life-changing is lurking in Amir’s past; something that he will forever regret. “I thought about Hassan. Thought about Baba. Ali. Kabul. I thought of the life I had lived until the winter of 1975 came along and changed everything. And made me what I am today” (2). This is what Amir thinks to himself as he is debating on whether or not to go back to Afghanistan. His initial reaction is not to go. Kabul, Afghanistan was Amir’s former home, but was also one p... ... middle of paper ... ..., the dependence of one on the other. Although the kite "spins, dips, and steadies", it stays in the sky with free, natural movements (122). Verbal interaction is not required to keep the kite flying because their communication through the kite speaks volumes louder than sound itself. Decades later, when Amir Flies a kite with Hassan's son, Sohrab, the paper toy's flight expresses more than anything Amir could say. "Then I blinked and, for just a moment, the hands holding the spool were the chipped-nailed, calloused hands of a hare lipped boy" (369-370). By watching this kite and seeing Hassan in its ascent, Amir begins to feel redemption and atonement for his painful past. The flight of the kite at the end of this novel does not close the door on Amir's past of guilt and burdens, but rather reestablishes his memory of Hassan and offers hope for a redemptive future.

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