Examples Of Vanity In The Kite Lear

Baba’s high expectation influences Amir 's fixed mindset because Baba feels that his son should be more courageous and follow the values that make up a Pashtun man. Throughout Amir 's childhood Baba always sets these high expectations for Amir that leads Amir to believe that one cannot be weak at things. Throughout the story, Amir is a shy insecure boy while Baba is a confident and proud man. Due to Amir 's introverted self, he spends most of his time reading books and poetry; while Baba tries to force his interest onto his son Amir for the purpose that Baba wants Amir to be the great example of what a Pushtun man should be. An example that shows Baba has a fixed mindset was when Amir states, "With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can 't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little" (Hossieni15). This quote shows that Baba was a man with a strong personality, and it was his way or the highway. This instills so much fear in Amir that he is afraid of committing mistakes around his

He shows a quality of a good father, being proud of his child’s achievements, when he watches his son graduate from high school. He tells Amir that : “‘I am moftakhir, Amir,’ he said. Proud.” (Hosseini 139). Baba’s development as a father is further showcased with him expressing his delightness to his son graduating. This is a far cry from where he often gave Amir a word of encouragement or a sign of recognition back in Afghanistan. Now, he starts to build a stronger connection with his son by communicating to him genuine interest and complements. Likewise, Baba continues to praise Amir’s skills as a writer towards other and he expresses this towards General Taheri when he says: “ Amir is going to be a great writer…. He has finished his first year of college and earned A’s in all of his courses.” (Hosseini 147). This passage conveys to one that he has changed to be a better father than what he is seen to be in the earlier parts of the novel. Now in the latter parts of the novel, one can see how confident and proud he is of his son. He is certain that his son is going to become a great writer and that is not a sentence that one would expect from him due to his earlier thoughts of Amir in the novel. Moreover, Baba shows that he is a good father when he expresses how happy he is to see his son has grown when he is going to a lafz with

Throughout the whole book, Amir has been vying for love from his father, often against Hassan, and feels powerless when he does not get it; this causes him to attempt to assert power in other aspects of his life, usually over Hassan. Amir feels as if Baba does not love him, and feels powerless to fix it; he says, “I always felt like Baba hated me a little, And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? 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). He believes there is nothing he can do to make his father love him; after all, he cannot change the past, and he cannot change himself substantially. This feeling of powerlessness affects him in such a way that he feels the need to compensate for this loss of power elsewhere in his life. He would exploit the kindness and forgiveness Hassan always showed him, and would try and prove his superiority and worth in that relationship. Amir once asked if Hassan would eat dirt if he asked him to, and afterwards said, “I knew I was being cruel, like when I’d taunt him if he didn’t know some big word. But there was something fascinating--albeit in a sick way--about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play insect torture. Except now he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass,” (Hosseini 54). Amir is filling the power gap he feels in his life with power over Hassan, and is trying to show Hassan how much control he has over him. Hassan, Amir’s servant and a genuinely kind person, is in a vulnerable position against Amir,

His selfish bias making it impossible for Amir to begin earning redemption. This is again proven when he returns to Pakistan to visit Rahim Khan. Rahim Khan pleads with him to try and get Amir to rescue Sohrab, his nephew, from Kabul, but Amir refuses: “‘you know,’ Rahim Khan said, “one time, when you weren’t around, your father and I were talking. And you know how he always worried about you in those days. I remember he said to me, ‘Rahim, a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man you can’t stand up to anything’ I wonder, is that what you’ve become?’ I dropped my eyes. […] Finally, I settled for this: ‘Maybe Baba was right’” (Hosseini, 221). When given the choice to defend his honour and go rescue a young boy, or insult himself and look at the world through a negative lense, Amir chooses to adopt an incredibly negative persona, as per his past. He chooses to refuse the opportunity to experience empathy and relate to Rahim Khan’s desperation and pain, and instead drives a wedge between their relationship. Pushing himself further away from the redemption he craves so desperately. As a fear of empathy inhibits one’s ability to find redemption and uphold healthy relationships.

Humans have been known to take the majority of actions solely for their own personal gain, especially if the outcome allows them to receive praise and public recognition. In many different cultures, pride is a quality character trait because of the respect and honor that come with it. Amir, an Afghan boy in the novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, is pressured by his society’s view on pride because of its importance in his culture. In addition, the high standards that his father has set by being a highly successful and idolized businessman add to the expectation that Amir must follow in his father’s footsteps to create a good life for himself. In his younger years, Amir’s views on pride were solely based off of others. His

Nevertheless, he is unable to find true virtue until much later in his life after a series of regrets lead him towards moral wisdom. Amir begins his life as a privileged Pashtun in Kabul. He is the best friend of his servant, Hassan and greatly looks up to his father, Baba, and a friend, Rahim Khan. Amir spends his early life vying for his father’s attention just wanting this need of his to be appeased. His unrelenting want for his father’s approval and pride leads him so far astray from what Baba has been trying to teach him all along. On a winter day in 1975 came about the only time in which Hassan needs Amir most, and yet Amir stands silently and watches as Hassan is raped and changed forever. Amir’s cowardice and incessant need for approval are straining vices of Amir’s character. This event places a mark on Amir’s soul and proves that he is not and, in that state, will never be a virtuous person. Virtue is not bestowed upon a person based on their actions, but upon their traits, thoughts, and inner-workings instilled into them by someone higher up. I do not mean religiously or in age difference, although that may be true in some cases, but in that that person is higher up in their character, goodness, and personal virtues. After all, as it is expressed by Adam Cureton and Thomas Hill regarding Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, “the aim is not merely to avoid wrongdoing and

In his critically acclaimed first novel, The Kite Runner, author Khaled Hosseini tells the story of a 12-year-old Afghan boy named Amir, who seeks his father’s love but is hindered by his own cowardice. Both Amir’s cowardice and his father’s lack of attention are compounded by the people and events surrounding Amir, until they feed into each other in a vicious, never-ending cycle.

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Amir was the son of a wealthy social worker. He was brought up with the son of his servant, and perhaps his only best friend, Hassan. Amir had a rocky relation with his father. At times, it seemed as his father loved him but those moments didn’t lasted forever. He thinks Baba (his father) wishes Amir were more like him, and that Baba holds him responsible for killing his mother, who died during his birth. Despite being best friends, Amir thinks that Hassan is beneath him because he belonged to an inferior cast. He used to mock him jokingly or tried to outsmart him. In all fairness, it was Amir’s cowardly nature that

A man is insensible to appreciate prosperity until he has tasted adversity. Adverse situations shape an individual’s identity and play a significant role in one’s life by shaping personal values, determining one’s own potential and self worth. Khaled Hosseini conveys how hardships shape individuals identities through the characters of Amir, Baba, Hassan and Ali in his novel The Kite Runner. Like every individual they go through a series of incidents and hardships that shape who they become and how well they deal with struggles in

The first time the reader is introduced to the theme comes at a time when Amir is feeling as though he is not deserving of his fathers appreciation. “Because the truth of it was, I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could of done was to have the decency to turn out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him.” [19] Amir is showing he feels responsible for his father’s misfortunes, and believes his father doesn’t love him since he and his father are so different. Amir constantly tries to redeem himself for “killing” Baba’s wife by trying to become a better son. Amir tries to become athletic like his father, but fails. Then tries to get into spectating soccer with his father, but he can’t do that either. Amir discovers through this that the traits he admires in his father are the things Amir lacks. These traits include strong values, success in business and life in general, as well as athleticism. One can see Amir’s attempts at redemption through his desire to become more like his father, even though he realizes he is

Conversely, Amir grows up to be a man who achieves holistic atonement. As a child in Kabul, he overheard his father tell Rahim Khan, “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” (Hosseini 22); however Amir

Baba is one of the few muslims in Afghanistan that believes there is only one sin, theft. He states to Amir with a great sense of sterness, ''When you kill a man, you steal a life . . . [you] steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness” (18). Although Baba tries to teach this lesson to Amir, he himself is a thief; he stole the “right to the truth” by retaining the truth of Hassan (18). Along with Baba’s betrayal to his son, he also betrays his beloved servants, Ali and Hassan through adultery. Sanaubar, Hassan's mother was potentially driven away by guilt; leaving Hassan without a mother and Ali without a wife.

Amir’s misadventures begin as a boy living in an affluent Afghanistan world. On the day of his birth, his mother hemorrhages to death. Robbed of any feminine influence or comfort, he goes to his overshadowing Baba for love and acceptance. His father denies his only son the tenderness he desires, leading Amir to believe his father despises him. After all, Amir’s

In the novel, Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the protagonist, Amir, is torn between two truths as he lived associated with different kinds of religious groups in Afghan society: Pashtuns and Hazaras. Each identity played a unique part in Amir’s life. Whether they had a positive or negative effect, both changed his values and beliefs. Individuals also shaped Amir’s character. Baba, Assef, and Hassan were major influences upon Amir’s growth throughout the book; their differences shaped Amir into the man he later became as all three represented a different side of Afghan society.

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