Is Amir a person we can look to for moral guidance? (Kite Runner)

One of the major differences between Amir and Baba is that Baba is seen as courageous, while Amir is more cowardly. Amir always seems to let hassan stand up for him, instead of standing up for himself. “‘Self-defense has nothing to do with meanness. You know what always happens when the neighborhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fends them off.’” When Amir sees that Hassan is being attacked, he has to make a decision on whether or not to save him. “I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past – and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” He was too scared to stand up for his closest friend. When Baba and Amir were escaping from Afghanistan, they were stopped by some russian soldiers and Baba was faced with a similar choice. “But the Russian soldier shouted something that made the other

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

However, his constant burden of having to pay for his adulterous act, considered one of the ultimate sins in his conservative Sunni Islamic environment, coupled with the tragedy of his wife’s death leads Baba to also be portrayed as a less of a father and more of having an immature personality in the way he deals with his son. Hosseini’s purpose in this complex relationship with Amir was to highlight how different the circumstances were in Afghanistan given more extreme social conditions Americans are unfamiliar with. This conflict leads Hosseini to somewhat reconcile Baba’s bad parenting as being a product of the trade-offs necessary to living in context of that particular belief system. His preoccupation with relieving his guilt prevented him from being the father Amir secretly desired him to be.

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

One phrase Hosseini used that really stuck out to me was “My hands are stained with Hassan’s blood; I pray God doesn’t let them get stained with the blood of his boy too” (Hosseini 346). While reading the novel I found the connotative meaning to be very clear and easy to see that Amir is very submerged with guilt as of what happened to Hassan, but now the occurrences are happening again with Hassan’s son, Sohrab. Amir finally comprehends that he is forever Obligated to Hassan. It was because of Hassan that Amir learned true loyalty and friendship. Because of this Amir thinks he is the one who needs to be the hero and save Sohrab from his terrible situation. When a bad incident happens Amir prays to god for direction in what to do so he doesn’t

This text allowed me to write a summary of the novel in a way that I felt would do it justice. By using imagery I was able to create a unifying voice. This text shows how making the wrong move due to ones selfishness could eventually ruin their life and attempting to fix it would be very hard and they would have to sacrifice a lot. Hosseini has developed the essential question of choice influencing direction of life through the use of Amir. Amir sacrifices his friend for his own selfish desire to not get beat up but in the end he redeems himself by going out of his way and saving Sohrab. Hossieni has showed us how Amir not helping Hassan in the alley and Amir helping Sohrab, as an act of redemption, has changed his life.

Shortly after Baba’s death, his old friend Rahim Khan calls him to come back to Afghanistan to finally make amends. As Amir begins his journey back to Afghanistan, his character can be defined as empathic and loving.

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

The assertion that Amir became who he is now 12 years ago could be seen to be true. This being as his past played such a large role in shaping him into he is now: a guilt ridden man with no way to make amends. This lack of an outlet for his guilt, becomes one of the most motivating factors for his character change towards the end of the novel. If he had not sought a way to deal with his shameful actions the negativity would have spread throughout his life. Adult Amir seems to have trouble dealing with these emotions. He does however manage to “become good again” through the adoption of Sohrab. In making right by Hassan’s son he was able to make peace with his own cowardice so many years ago.

Hosseini shows that it is Amirs immense guilt that drives him to want to make things right and to earn redemption. We learn the basis Amir's guilt through his memories. It is caused by a lack of response at a time when his loyal servant and close friend Hassan is in trouble. Amir makes a conscious decision to hide in the distance and just watch, not because he was afraid. He sacrifices Hassan in order to earn his fathers attention and affection. This decision results in Hassan suffering though a traumatic experience and is the root of Amir's lasting regret.

In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini tells a notable coming-of-age story portraying the actions and thoughts of Amir, a penitent adult living in the United States and his reminiscence of his affluent childhood in the unstable political environment of Afghanistan. Throughout the novel Khaled Hosseini uses character description to display his thoughts on sin and redemption.

Amir had great influences on him as a child; Baba was a brave person, generous to everyone, and should’ve influenced Amir to be the same. On the contrary, Amir was selfish and chose not to stand up for his friend, even when the situation desperately needs it. This is not because of how he grew up, of his environment. Amir’s genetics made him to be fearful and mean, as shown throughout the book. “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.” (Hosseini 54). Even though Amir had great influences growing up, Hassan took the brunt of his attacks and neglect. Near the beginning of the book, Hassan is raped in the alleys running a kite for Amir. Going after Hassan, Amir finds Hassan while this is going on but does not stop the rapist or stand up for his friend. Instead, Amir ran away and proceeded to abandon Hassan emotionally after the event. Baba was a brave man and would’ve stood up for Hassan, regardless of the danger to him, but Amir was not influenced nearly as much by his positive environment rather than his negative cowardice, or

As much as the book showed growth within Amir and how he realized his mistakes, he primarily disregards Hassan as a friend because he put Baba’s love in front of the relationship and always took into consideration his race and his social class. While Hosseini writes about Amir fulfilling his destiny and fixing his wrongdoings with Hassan, it brings up questions about how to treat each other: can you always fix mistakes later, or should you do the correct decision right

Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, depicts the conflicting life of Amir, a young boy who lives in Kabul, Afghanistan. His life becomes complicated at age twelve when he witnessed his best friend and Hazara servant, Hassan, get raped and abused. Amir just idoly stood by but was he feeling helpless, or was Hassan just a servant that meant nothing to him. This is when the question of good and evil comes out. While Amir shows significantly redeemable qualities throughout the book of doing, it does not change that he was toying with the fact that he let such a vial ast be committed in the first place. Later Amir finds out that Hassan was his brother and he tries desperately to do whatever he can to do good things in Hassan's name like adopt