In the fantasy novel, The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle wrote that “Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back” (Beagle). While this quote is a bizarre non sequitur, its core holds true. It states that the only sacrifice that is truly worth anything is the sacrifice of one’s self. Too often in this age, people step on others to help themselves succeed, gain prestige and positions for themselves while leaving those stepped on in the dust. In 2003, Khaled Hosseini wrote The Kite Runner, which explores the same theme of self-sacrifice and love. It follows the life of Amir, a rich Pashtu boy, who spends his childhood in Afghanistan with his father, Baba and his ever-faithful servant and friend, Hassan. Eventually, Amir and Baba are driven from their home due to rising political and military tensions and flee to America, where Amir tries to bury memories of wrongs he had done in his old life. The climax of the novel sees Amir making a great and dangerous sacrifice to atone for those wrongs. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini makes evident the idea of love and self-sacrifice while simultaneously deriding the concept of sacrificing another person, especially exploring both with the character of Amir. Most of the characters make sacrifices for another person, and are portrayed afterwards as brave and noble, but the few characters that sacrifice another character are malevolent and dishonourable.
In regards to characters that sacrifice themselves for the good of others, an easy example is Amir’s father, Baba. Baba is considered a very admirable man in the setting and he does much to prove his legendary reputation within the time frame of the novel. An outright e...
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...and not self-sacrifice, giving a wide array of consequences. Amir serves as a way to show that it is possible to move from one end of the spectrum to the other. Jesus said in the bible, “There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends” (John 15:13), and an easy contrast to that made by the novel is “There is no greater sin than to lay down one's friends for one's life.” Whether as small as Wahid giving up some food to treat Amir like a guest, or as significant as Amir abandoning Hassan in his time of need, in The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini teaches that self-sacrifice brings wholeness while sacrificing another brings only guilt.
Works Cited
Beagle, Peter S. The Last Unicorn. New York: Viking Press, 1968. Print.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2004. Print.
New Living Translation. Bible Gateway. Web. 15 May 2014.
How much are you willing to sacrifice for another? Whether they are a family member or a complete stranger. In the novel The Kite Runner Baba was was willing to risk his life when he had stood up and was trying to stop the Russian soldier from rape the young woman as payment for letting them pass through one of the checkpoints. Then there had been Amir it was when he had suffered extreme injuries, nearly losing his life when he had fought Assef, so that he could save Sohrab for the abuse he was suffering from the Taliban. Both Character Baba and Amir were willing to sacrifice themselves for another person, regardless of who they were. Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, teaches the reader sacrificing your life can lead to another person’s happiness through Baba saving the woman from the Russian soldier and Amir fighting Assef.
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.
(2) The Kite Runner follows Amir on his odyssey to redeem himself for his hurtful actions. Through this journey, Khaled Hosseini delivers the message that sin and guilt can always be atoned for. At the beginning of The Kite Runner, young Amir wins a kite fighting tournament. He feels like he has finally redeemed himself for his father.
Amir also committed a sin that affected him negatively throughout his life. This sin occurred when Hassan, Amir’s best friend during his childhood, was getting raped by Assef. This situation occurred when the children were chasing kites. Hassan got the kite first, but Assef insisted that he wanted the kite. Assef also had a racial and religious prejudice against Hassan. Because Hassan did not give the kite, Assef decides to rape Hassan as a “punishment”. Instead of helping his friend out, Amir just walked away from the scene and let Hassan get violated in one of the most vulgar ways. After this incident, Hassan quietly walked back home and gave Amir the kite for which he was confronted by Assef for. The kite in this situation proves to be an important symbol. Whereas earlier in the novel the kite represented happiness and fun to Amir, in this situation it represented sin and guilt to Amir. The only reason that Hassan got raped was that he was trying to get a kite for Amir. Now the kite acts a reminder to Hassan of his wrong-doing and it will now begin to haunt him for a long time. Although when in America, Amir does not get reminded about Hassan, deep inside he still feels guilty. Amir immediately begins to feel the most guilt when he goes to Iran when Rahim Khan, Amir’s childhood friend, asks him to come. He feels that Rahim Khan has reminded him of his “past of unatoned sins”(Hosseini 2).
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, follows the maturation of Amir, a boy from Afghanistan, as he discovers what it means to stand up for what he believes in. His quest to redeem himself after betraying his friend and brother, Hassan, makes up the heart of the novel. For most of the book, Amir attempts to deal with his guilt by avoiding it and refusing to own up to his mistakes. Because of his past, Amir is incapable of moving forward. His entire life is shaped by his disloyalty to Hassan and his desire to please his father over helping his friends. Throughout the novel, his attempts to atone for his sins end in failure, as neither physical punishment nor rescuing Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from Assef prove to be enough for Amir to redeem himself. Only when he decides to take Sohrab to the United States and provide his nephew with a chance at happiness and prosperity that was denied to his half-brother does Amir take the necessary steps toward atonement and redemption. Khaled Hosseini uses a series of symbols to reinforce the message that atoning for one’s sins means making up for past mistakes, rather than simply relying on forgiveness from either the person one betrays or from a higher power.
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?
Depicting Amir’s redemption in the story, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses a powerful flashback, recurring conflicts, and an altering tone of voice to illustrate the idea of Amir finally being able to redeem himself by the end of the story. Hosseini skilfully inserts the powerful flashback to show the significant change Amir had at the end of the novel. In scrutinizing Amir’s every decision he makes throughout the novel, Hosseini encourages the reader to grasp the idea of Amir finally redeeming himself for his sins at the end of the novel. Hosseini wants the reader to be on a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the novel to keep the reader interested in Amir’s journey to seek redemption for himself.
Amir and Hassan’s relationship in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is extremely strained due to deeply ingrained values and misplaced jealousy. Amir fears that if he truly befriends Hassan others will think less of him, and he fears he will lose the attentions of his father to Hassan in time; therefore, Amir constantly tries to push Hassan away by testing his loyalty. This tactic is deployed by Amir when he throws overripe pomegranates at Hassan until he is “smeared in red like he’d been shot by a firing squad” (Hosseini 93). Amir’s reasoning for doing this seems to be to forgive himself for not saving Hassan after the kite tournament because he feels like it was morally wrong not to save Hassan; however, due to the timing of this
Knowing one has broken someone’s trust or his/her own moral code of behavior often leads to remorse or guilt. Khaled Hosseini wrote the moving novel, The Kite Runner, which unfolds a series of unfortunate events, caused by characters’ unethical decisions or actions. It tells the story of Amir, a boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is haunted by the guilt of betraying his childhood friend Hassan by abandoning him to be abused. Similarly, Baba deceives his entire family from sharing Hassan’s true identity. Furthermore, Sanubar selfishly abandons her son after giving birth to pursue her own goals. Hosseini’s novel reveals guilt’s power to control lives as it influences people's decisions and pushes them to seek redemption as seen in the characters of Amir, Baba, and Sanubar.
“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” (Hosseini). In The Kite Runner, Hosseini shares Amir’s journey to atonement. As Amir states, he was unable to bury his past, similar to his father, Baba, who spent the majority of his life haunted by his sins. While both father and son are consumed by guilt, the way in which they atone for their iniquities is dissimilar. While Baba attempts to live his life according to the Afghan saying, “ Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end...crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis [nomads]” (Hosseini 356), Amir strays from this traditional perspective. Baba chose to continue his life unmindful of his past, while Amir, eventually decides to confront his. Although both Baba and Amir have acted immorally, the choices they make find redemption affect the success of their individual attempts. In the novel, Amir’s quest for atonement is more effective than Baba’s because he acts virtuously, while his father, acts selfishly. Ultimately, Amir is the more successful of the two because, in opposition to Baba, he seeks holistic atonement and is willing to make sacrifices to achieve redemption.
In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the author follows the development of protagonist Amir through a life filled with sorrow, regret, and violence. Amir encounters numerous obstacles on his path to adulthood, facing a new test at every twist and turn. Amir embarks on the long journey known as life as a cowardly, weak young man with a twisted set of ideals, slowly but surely evolving into a man worthy of the name. Amir is one of the lucky few who can go through such a shattered life and come out the other side a better man, a man who stands up for himself and those who cannot, willing to put his life on the line for the people he loves.
In The Kite Runner, Amir is on a quest for redemption. Throughout his entire childhood, he struggled to redeem himself to Baba for “killing” his mother while giving birth. Baba was always disappointed by Amir because he was nothing like him. After Hassan got raped by Assef, which Amir witnessed but never did anything to help him, Amir spent every second of his life trying to redeem himself to Baba, and Hassan. Amir goes back to Afghanistan in attempt to save and adopt Hassan’s son, Sohrab, after something terrible happens to Hassan. “And that, I believe, is what true redemption really is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.” (Hosseini 302) Amir redeemed himself because he finally felt at peace after Assef let his anger out on him, he is afraid
In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini creates the story of Amir, an Afghan man who describes his experiences throughout his years as a young man to an adult. Amir’s journey helps him relate to the audience, especially those are refugees of some sort. But there are those who may not relate as easily, like Western people or people who may be against immigration. The reaction of people who derive themselves from a culture also experience this novel in a different manner as well.
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.