Archetypes In The Kite Runner

During one’s life, they will be faced with situations that can influence the people surrounding them. The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini a novel based on the life of Amir, the son of a well-off Pashtun. Amir spends the majority of his life trying to please, and receive affection from his father, Baba. Amir and Baba had two Hazara servants; Hassan, and Ali, Hassan’s father. Hassan and Amir have been friends since birth despite their different social classes. Hassan has always gained the affection of Baba with less effort than Amir has, and for that reason, Amir begins to resent Hassan. After a series of unfortunate events, Ali and Hassan made the decision to leave the company of Baba and Amir to start a new life in Hazarajat. Later

The Kite Runner is the first novel of Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It tells the story of Amir, a boy from Kabul, Afghanistan, whose closest friend is Hassan, a young Hazara servant. Novel turns around these two characters and Baba, Amir’s father, by telling their tragic stories, guilt and redemption that are woven throughout the novel. Even in the difficult moments, characters build up to their guilt and later on to their redemption. Their sins and faults alter the lives of innocent people. First, Amir and Baba fail to take action on the path to justice for Ali and Hassan. Moreover, Amir and Baba continue to build up their guilt due to their decisions and actions. Although Amir builds up more guilt than Baba throughout the novel, he eventually succeeds in the road to redemption unlike his father. After all, Amir and Baba have many chances to fix their atonements but Baba chooses not to and Amir does. Baba uses his wealth to cover up his sins but never atone himself while Amir decides to stand up and save Sohrab and finally finds peace. Amir and Baba’s reaction to sins essentially indicate their peace of mind and how they react to guilt and injustice.

In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses the literary element archetypes. Archetypes are typically characters, actions, or situations that seem to represent universal patterns of human nature. Hosseini uses the archetype of the villain, which can be seen in the character Assef. By using archetypes, it shows the universal role of a character, in The Kite Runner, it shows the universal role that the villain has, but one step further. Throughout the novel, Assef’s main goal is to cause to harm to others including Hassan and Amir. He goes beyond the idea of a typical villain we know, not only does he want to cause harm but, physically and mentally destroy a person. We can see that over time Assef progressively gets worse as a villain, from taking pleasure in bullying, to raping innocent children, he slowly turns into a psychological monster that takes pleasure from the pain that is inflicted on others.

The desire to feel loved and wanted by your parents can drive a person to go to extreme limits to get that love. One boy that goes to these extreme limits is Amir. All Amir wants is to have a good, strong relationship with his father. He feels the death of his mother was his fault, and he needed to make it up to his father. In doing so, Amir let’s horrible things happen to his friend Hassan. Many many years later, after fleeing to America, Amir returns to Afghanistan in search of redemption of his actions all those years ago. The theme of The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini is redemption. Through Amir’s life, that’s what he’s been doing to himself, trying to redeem himself from his acts that have brought pain

The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini is a novel with multitudes of themes but the theme most integral to the story concerns friendship, guilt, and redemption. This theme was most important to the novel because the conflict in the book is intertwined with this theme, following the life of a man haunted by regrets. The book is told from the perspective of Amir and this is something he deals with for the entirety of the book after the incident with Hassan. Amir, even as a middle-aged man, is still haunted by what he hadn’t done for Hassan all those years ago. Amir’s entire life takes a certain path because of what he did or didn’t do during and after Hassan’s assault. Amir’s decision affected not only himself, but also Hassan. Their lives forever changed. Amir and Hassan were each other’s best friends and they grew together like brothers, though they didn’t know at the time. Amir feels as though he broke the sacred bond they had and he decided to make it right by finding Sohrab. This is the last thing he can do for Hassan. He cannot tell him he is sorry anymore. He doesn’t have any other paths of redemption.

To add to Hassan’s admiration for Amir, Hassan would take the blame despite the fact that it is Amir’s fault. “But he never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbor’s dog, was always my idea (4).” It is bizarre that Amir did not confess when Hassan was getting punished, like if someone has a friend, he/she would not want that friend getting hurt. Then he acts like nothing happened and does not even thank Hassan for covering for him, but instead he acts like it was Hassan’s fault and that Hassan deserves the punishment. Amir is most likely jealous that Hassan receives Baba’s attention while he needs to work for it, which is why he lets Hassan take the blame for him. “The group felt that Baba shows more kindness to Hassan as a way of overcoming his guilt for the affair, which in turn makes Amir feel unwanted: his literary talents are not appreciated because his father would prefer a son interested in football (Dennys).” It is assumed that Amir does not like Hassan because he can gain Baba’s attention easily while Amir has tried for years to get a little bit of attention. Amir thinks that if Hassan gets in more “trouble” then Baba would like Hassan less and start liking him more and pay more attention to him. Amir treats Hassan kindly when they are alone, but in public he degrades Hassan and acts like Hassan is nothing to him. “But he’s not my friend! I almost blurted. He’s my servant (41)!”

The novel, The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a story about betrayal, forgiveness, and redemption that revolves around that two main characters, Amir and Hassan. Amir is a young selfish boy who constantly manipulates and exploits Hassan for personal gains. He uses Hassan as a scapegoat to win Baba, but upon accomplishing this task, he is riddled with guilt. Amir uses his friendship with Hassan for ulterior motives. His lack of action caused severe guilt, which he tries to escape throughout the entire story. He uses various scapegoats to rid himself of his guilty conscience.

Amir’s guilt causes him to not be able to face Hassan; every time he saw Hassan he felt bad. He can not live in the same house with Hassan anymore and wants to kick him out of the house to avoid his guilt. Then, after asking Baba about getting new servants and being rejected, Amir places a couple of the envelopes of cash and his new watch under Hassan’s mattress to frame him as a thief. Amir “knocked on Baba’s door and told what I hoped would be the last in a long line of shameful lies” (Hosseini 104). The quote shows that Amir wants to cover up his guilt by lying to Baba. Even though Amir understands lying is the biggest sin, as Baba had always taught him, he still lies to Baba to achieve his own goal to let Hassan leave. He believed that making Hassan leave his home will overcome his guilt. Even though Hassan was innocent, he still pretends to be guilty and leaves with Ali. Amir could not get the redemption he needed from Hassan; he feels that Hassan sacrificed himself again for him. After Hassan’s departure, Amir is not able to live a peaceful life. He continues to be bothered by his guilt of betraying Hassan, even dreaming about the death of Hassan.

This refusing to succumb to the wishes of the boys leads to Hassan getting sexually assaulted and abused. Yet, he never once showed an ounce of cowardliness. A short time after Hassan’s rape, Amir plants money and a watch under Hassan’s bed to make it appear that he stole the items. When Hassan is confronted by Baba, Amir’s father, Hassan takes the blame even though it was not his doing. “‘Did you steal that money?

“The Kite Runner” is the record of Amir, a Sunni Muslim, who fights to find his place on the planet in connection of the surrendered results and outcome from an improvement of traumatic youth events. Amir opens the novel in the present-day United States with a questionable reference to one of these events, and a while later, the novel flashes back to Amir's energy in Afghanistan. Notwithstanding common youth experiences, Amir tries to gain a closer relationship with his father; over the entire manage to grasp how to introduce suitable reparations in light of pre-immature decisions that have proceeded on consequences. “The Kite Runner” is a novel about affiliations, especially the relationship amidst Amir and Hassan, Baba, Rahim Khan, Soraya, and Sohrab and how the psyche boggling relationship in our lives spread and helped us realize making us the people we are. First Amir betrays Hassan

Hassan is innocent and a loyal friend to Amir but Amir somewhat takes advantage of Hassan’s friendship. Their friendship starts out well, with them reading, playing, flying kites and being carefree, but when Hassan is raped by Assef, everything changes. Since Amir did nothing but witness Hassan’s rape, he is now filled with guilt and regret and this takes control of his life. After this event, Amir and Hassan’s friendship will never be the same. They now spend less time together and Amir is suffering because of all the guilt inside

Throughout the novel, Amir endeavors to be approved by his father, Baba, who is admired by people in Kabul. Unfortunately, Baba believes that Amir, unlike him, is very unmanly “and [that he] never fights back. He just... drops his head ” (Hosseini 24). Since Baba wishes for a son who would stand up for himself, he can’t help but observe that Amir’s friend Hassan, as the guy who “steps in and fends the [bullies] off” (Hosseini 24) is his idea of the ideal son. Though aware of his father’s expectations, Amir is unable to change himself and instead envies Hassan and the fact that Baba treats him like his own son by“[patting]Hassan on the back. [and even putting] his arm around his shoulder [like a fatherly figure]”(Hosseini 15). Despite the manifestation of this hatred in Amir, he continues to recognize the bond that he shares with Hassan, “ brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast” (Hosseini 11) which is because both their mothers died during birth. The confusing emotions he feels for Hassan has Amir face a situation in which he acts inappropriately and allows the guilt to manifest upon him. After winning a very important kite tournament for the first time and “seeing Baba on that roof, proud of [him] at last” (Hosseini 71) Amir begins to search for Hassan who had gone to run his kite earlier. Finally, Amir finds him in a dark alley and as he “peeks around the corner” (Hosseini 75) he witnesses a sight that eradicated not only his relationship with Hassan but also Baba’s brotherly relationship with Ali, Hassan’s father. Peeking through the corner of the alley, like a bystander, he watches his one and only friend getting raped. The guilt that came upon him was for two reason; one, his lack of courage to stand up to

“Amir does not know how to handle his feelings of betrayal after Hassan’s rape”. Initially, he was trying to avoid him, but seeing him consistently has become a persistent reminder of his greedy act. But since Hassan is part of the family, there is little he can do” in avoiding him, so many times he feels Hassan can punish him so that at least he can be reconciled with him”. Hassan, on the other hand, did not take up his act of betrayal but still showed him his unconditional love, which makes him stronger.

Life is a wonderful gift which can be taken away at any moment in many different situations. In the first three chapters of the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the main character, Amir, struggles with the fact of losing his mother while she was giving birth to him. Baba, Amir’s father, has a servant who is also a single father because his wife left him after their son was born. Because of this, Baba also takes care of his servant’s son Hassan like he does his own son since Hassan is extremely poor. Amir and Hassan do almost everything together as a result and are basically like brothers. The first three chapters of the novel show the many negative emotions of guilt, jealousy, and frustration and how these arise when a mother is not in the picture of a child’s life.

“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 1). This was written by the author on the first page of chapter one. Later it was revealed that he was talking about Hassan being raped by Asser. Amir is still looking back in the deserted alley and is unable to bury the guilt from that moment. Amir past is something that will linger within his mind for the rest of his days. He will never forget how he stood by as he watches Hassan gets raped. That lead to Amir and Hassan spending less time together, Hassan would ask Amir what he did wrong and Amir would just push him away. Finally Amir thinks that he or Hassan has to leave, so he stuffed his birthday money and watch under Hassan’s mattress. He tells Baba that Hassan stole his watch and his birthday money. When Baba confronted Hassan about the 2 items, Hassan admits that he did steal them. That