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Now and then character analysis
Now and then character analysis
Now and then character analysis
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Repay evil with good, this the lesson Hassan teaches his son(Housseini 276), but is this always the right way, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Throughout The Kite Runner Hassan is seen as a moral compass smiling even in the worst of times. On the other hand, Amir the protagonist, struggles with who he is as a person and his past actions. Hassan is the person that Amir wants to be as Hassan is Amir’s idea of a good person. The example Hassan sets for Amir changes him from a bad person to a good person. From the start of the novel Hassan is loyal to Amir, no matter what Amir does to him. For example, Hassan would say"For you a thousand times over,"(Housseini 55) to Amir, demonstrating his loyalty to his friend. The greatest example of …show more content…
At first Hassan is one of Amir’s joys in life from all the times that they play together. Unfortunately, after Hassan is raped by Assef, all that had changes. Amir feels extremely guilty about not doing anything to save Hassan from Assef. Out of guilt, Amir resolves to get rid of Hassan in an attempt to remove his guilt, Amir goes on to say “One of us had to go,”(Housseini 86). Afterwards Amir would live with the guilt of what he had done for a large portion of his life, he would regret his actions to the point of having insomnia and nightmares. It is not until the day Rahim Khan called Amir and tells him “a way to be good again,”(Housseini 166) that Amir takes his first steps to redemption. In order to make things up to Hassan, Amir goes to Kabul in order to rescue Hassan’s son Sohrab. It is not until Assef had begins beating up Amir, Amir admits that he feels healed(Housseini 248). After Amir takes Sohrab back to the U.S, when Amir is flying kites with Hassan’s son Sohrab, Amir finally feels free of the guilt that had been tormenting him for many years. Amir then makes a personal oath to make things better for Sohrab”For you, a thousand times over,”(Housseini 328). Amir had finally forgiven himself and becomes a new
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
Betrayal, redemption, and forgiveness are all major themes in The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. The novel also focuses around the theme of a broken relationship between father and son as well as facing difficult situations from ones past. Amir and Hassan are best friends with two completely different personalities. Each character in the novel faces their own hardships and eventually learns to overcome those difficulties. Beginning with betrayal then the characters have to make their way to gaining redemption and forgiveness from others, as well as their self, is carried on throughout the novel. It is a continuous story of the relationships between Amir and his father Baba and facing their challenges from the past every day of their present.
At times Amir had trouble realizing that they were best friends because Hassan was a Hazara, he was of Asian descent and of the Shiite tribe, he resembles his ancestors, the Mongols. Amir is a Pashtun, of the Sunni tribe, a majority group in Afghanistan. Hassan was loyal and showed endless amounts of respect and praise to Amir. Though Hassan knew what Amir had witnessed and done to him, he covered up for him. He did not ever let Amir get into trouble with Baba, his father. Hassan was also the half brother of Amir, neither knew until Rahim Khan, a friend of Baba’s informed Amir. He and Hassan had a connection, both as friends but also as brothers.
In the end, I ran.” ( ) This section of The Kite Runner was astonishing and unfathomable, but nevertheless sets the scene for Amir’s journey to redemption. Subsequently Amir began to develop guilt and believed the only way to be free from it was to push Hassan into leaving, which he achieved but soon realized that wasn’t what he had wanted. Years later, Amir had gotten the chance to redeem himself and become good again by rescuing Hassan’s son from the war ridden Afghanistan and bring him back to America.
Redemption is gaining honor and self-forgiveness through a selfless act that reflects off of one’s regretful actions of their past. In the novel, The Kite Runner, Amir is the main character who goes through many life struggles and mistakes, then finds himself on a road to redemption. Amir and Hassan were best friends throughout their childhood and Hassan was the honorable, trusting best friend, the one to always take a stand for what he believed was right. Amir’s lack of courage caused him to stay silent in the worst of times, letting Hassan get tortured for the things he did not deserve. The themes of sacrifice, honor and redemption are carried out in many ways throughout this novel being shown through the actions of Hassan, Baba, and Amir.
In order to grow and prosper, one must make mistakes and learn from them. People are not born perfect; everyone must live and everyone must learn throughout his/her lifetime in order to mature. In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseni, Amir does exactly this. He makes several mistakes, these mistakes are not wasted, because, in time, he learns from his wrong-doings and redeems himself. Several, if not all, of the mistakes Amir makes are directed toward his childhood friend, and brother, Hassan.
Hassan would do anything for his friends and treat everyone, even bullies, with respect because his respectful dad, Ali, taught him to always be loyal to all, and never hurt anyone. Ali was Baba’s servant and long-time friend, and stayed close to him throughout their childhood and adulthood. 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.
The Kite Runner is a book about a young boy, Amir, who faces many struggles as he grows up in Kabul and later moves to America to flee from the Taliban. His best friend and brother , Hassan, was a big part of his life, but also a big part of guilt he held onto for many years. The book describes Amir’s attempt to make up for the past and resolve his sins so he can clear his conscious. Amir is worthy of forgiveness because although he was selfish, he was very brave and faced his past.
“The guilty one is not the one who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.” – Victor Hugo. In The Kite Runner, the theme of guilt and redemption is shown through the character development of the protagonist Amir. Hosseini used Amir’s guilt of his past to grow the impression that with regret lies a hope for redemption. Amir is a man who is haunted by the demons of his past.
When a child receives abuse, their life can become forever damaged, and problems such as what Sohrab experienced through mutation may occur. When Amir is trying to gain trust from Sohrab through talking, Sohrab tells him, “…they did things…the bad man and the other two…they did things…did things to me” (Hosseini 277). Violence brings people together, in some ways it brings people in to help join in and hurt more, but the violence in this book brings the readers together to share utmost sorrow and compassion for Sohrab. Hosseini writes Assef as the “evil villain” in The Kite Runner; however, Assef, always doing harm and hurting others, is written as a villain that many could and have encountered throughout life, which is why the theme of violence guides the readers to relate and understand easier the events of rape and abuse in the book. Guilt can bring the best or worst out of a person. As Amir thinks over his development in how he has dealt with guilt, he says, “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years”(Hosseini 2). The reader gets to see Amir grow up through his development of redemption as he deals with the guilt of not
As he grows into a man and pushes his regrets to the side - though not ever completely out of his mind - he learns to live through and accept the pain he caused both himself and his best friend, Hassan. Towards the end of the novel, Amir goes to great lengths to earn the redemption he feels he needs in order to finally be at peace. The Kite Runner asks the audience what it truly means to be a good person - do we need to be born with goodness in our hearts, do we live the way that is comfortable and right according to ourselves, or do we have to constantly fail and prove that we are good?
He has had to live with the regret that he caused by deserting Hassan left to be raped by Assef. Ever since the day he abandoned Hassan in the alley, Amir allowed the guilt from that tragic event to eat him up. Amir then fled to the US to escape the grief that was back in Afghanistan. Next, Amir put himself at risk to save Hassan’s only son from the dangers of Kabul. Lastly, Amir was to forgive his own self. Amir recognized the problem through guilt; avoided repeating the offense by fleeing; did what needed to be done by saving Sorhab; and asked forgiveness from God by accepting
From the beginning Amir and Hassan friendship is an unconventional one. Since they differed in denomination of religion and ethnically there really was no reason for them to even talk to one another. The divide between them is what deters Amir from truly befriending Hassan. If they can even be called friends it is very much a one sided situation in which Hassan loves Amir much more than what is returned. Amir is afraid of what others might say to him should he befriend Hassan. As it stands he was already being verbally abused at school for hanging out with Hassan and Amir genuinely believed that distancing himself would ultimately bring him happiness. Ironically this is what also led to his cowardice when Hassan was raped; this twisted belief
The story The Kite Runner is centered around learning “to be good again.” Both the movie and the book share the idea that the sins of the past must be paid for or atoned for in the present. In the book, Amir can be seen as a troubled young boy who is struggling with a tremendous amount of guilt. It is easy to blame Amir’s actions on his guilt and his father’s lack of love for him.
Throughout Amir’s childhood, he tried to redeem himself to his father for his mother’s death during his birth. After Hassan is raped, he spends his whole life trying to redeem himself for his betrayal of his faithful friend. In chapter 7 Amir says, “I caught a glimpse of his face and saw the resignation in it. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb.” (76) This quote shows the foreshadowing of a sacrifice that was going to be made. The lamb was the sacrifice for Abraham. Both Hassan and Sohrab are innocents who are sacrificed by being raped, but these sacrifices have very different meanings. Amir sacrifices Hassan for the blue kite. But in Sohrab’s circumstance, Amir is the one who discontinues his sexual abuse. The sacrifice is portrayed as the misuse of the innocents. Amir is still haunted by his wrongdoings, even after he has settled down in America and has started a new life as a writer. One day his friend Rahim Khan calls him on the phone explaining a way he can redeem himself back in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan he learns that Hassan his brother. He also finds out that Hassan and his wife were shot, leaving his son Sohrab in an orphanage. Amir decides a way to redeem himself is to take Sohrab from the orphanage. Amir’s redemption is tested when he is forced to fight Assef to save Sohrab. The author uses the quote “what I saw was Hassan with his slingshot pointed at Assaef’s face” to show how Hassan was there in the moment to help him survive (286). It is ironic that the person who haunts his dreams, is the person he must get by to save his nephew. He is beaten by Assef but stands his ground as he has been destined for this abuse. For the first time, Amir has sacrificed himself for Hassan. Amir later realizes that to completely redeem himself he must adopt Sohrab. By accepting this fact, Amir displays the ultimate courage and redeems