Redemption In Rahim Khan's The Kite Runner

Hassan is hurt and frustrated by the way Amir treats him after the betrayal, but he never blames Amir for the way he acted. He never forgets about Amir and remains his faithful servant and loving friend until his he is killed by Taliban soldiers, even though Amir and Hassan's paths

Once back in Kabul, Amir takes steps he would never have imagined, which truly define his character. On his venture back to Afghanistan he learns the truth about Hassan’s connection with Baba. After hearing this Amir feels robbed of the truth and is angry at how his own father could hold this back from him. Despite his feelings, Amir realizes he must not only pay for his betrayal of Hassan but for Baba’s betrayal of Ali too. Amir knows he must face his fears and he understands this when he reveals, “I remembered Baba saying that my problem was that someone had always done my fighting for me" (Hosseini 239). Following this he undertakes a personal mission to find Sohrab and finds the courage to stand up to the Taliban, nearly dying in the process. During his quest Amir comes face to face with the disturbing Assef and fights him for Sorab, the ultimate sacrifice for his dead half-brother. While he is beaten he begins to laugh, which angers Assef even more. Amir explains that, “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace" (Hosseini 303). After successfully bringing Sohrab back to California, Amir defends his Hazara nephew when General Taheri insults him. Over the dinner

The only way to have full redemption is to tell the truth. In The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, Amir is a boy living in Kabul, Afghanistan, as the son of Baba. Who is a wealthy businessman of great success. He is a very generous person, building an orphanage, giving to the poor, and lending money to friends in need. Baba has a very well acquainted business partner and a good friend Rahim Khan, who gives Amir great attention that Baba does not give to him. They have Ali and his son Hassan, who are servants to them. Amir and Baba flea Kabul when the Soviets invade Afghanistan, leaving everything behind. When they emigrated to America, Amir and Baba live in great poverty. Baba is a manager at a gas station, then gets lung cancer and dies. He has a lot of guilt, giving to people and doing good deeds is not a way to redeem one’s self.

Throughout the novel, Hosseini reveals many examples of redemption and past guilt. Amir gets a call all the way from Kabul. It is from Rahim Khan, who tells him there is a way to be good again. Amir meets with Rahim in Kabul. Rahim tells Amir that Hassan is dead and to find his son and take care of him.

Amir thought, “I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past…. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” (Hosseini, 82) It was this conflict that changed the lives of all the characters. This was Amir’s, “final opportunity to decide who [he] was going to be.” (Hosseini, 82) As a result, He spent his adolescence ‘running’ away from his mistakes, because everywhere he looked “Kabul had become a city of ghosts…A city of harelipped ghosts.” (Hosseini, 144) To Amir, Hassan was haunting his memories. Amir couldn’t stand it so Baba and Amir moved to America. “For [Amir], America was a place to bury [his] memories.” (Hosseini, 136) In contrast to Kogawa’s novel, Amir’s actions resulted to the change of his life and the lives of people around him. Rahim Khan, a family friend, calls Amir in his adulthood asking him to come to Pakistan. Rahim Khan urges Amir, “There is a way to be good again.” (Hosseini, 2)

Amir’s journey starts when Rahim Khan calls him up, telling him, “There is a way to be good again,” (Hosseini 202), provoking Amir to revisit his buried past. The words spoken by Rahim Khan resonates with Amir, because for his whole life, that was exactly what he was looking to do. During Amir’s childhood, Rahim Khan has always been like a father figure to him, filling the holes in his heart that Baba never paid attention to. Rahim Khan has always been the most empathetic towards Amir, understanding his need for affection and motivating him to put his words to action. Years later, Rahim Khan is still seen to have a significant impact on Amir’s life. Despite knowing that Amir was a bystander

Knowing this, Amir returns to Kabul in search of him. It is a long, bumpy road, but he manages to converse with Rahim before he

In the Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini wrote that “true redemption is […] when guilt leads to good” (Hosseini 302). this connection between suffering and redemption develops throughout the whole story. Hosseini hints that sacrifice leads to redemption in the book the Kite Runner through the actions of Baba, Sanaubar’s return, and Amir’s journey to atone for his sins.

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

    Amir had always regretted his actions that day in the alley and wanted to repay Hassan by taking his son Sohrab to America with him. As soon as Amir saw Sohrab, he saw Hassan in him and wanted to do anything he could to help and resolve his guilt. He wanted to take Sohrab back to America with him so he could have a bed, food, shelter, and a good life. Amir knew “there are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood”

Events like Rahim Khan's phone call to Amir's "way to be good again," Assef not forgetting who Amir was because of what Hassan did, and what Sohrab did to Assef all follows this theme of past events becoming relevant in the present and the future. Overall Amir with his story, redeems himself from what he did to Hassan by Rahim Khan's "way to be good again" by taking Hassan's son Sohrab from a bad place, and back to America to make up his action of not doing anything to prevent the rape of his half brother Hassan, giving his son a right to a better future, away from Kabul, away from the Taliban, and most importantly, away from Assef, the threat to the main characters of the story. Courage is something Amir was scared to do at first but overcomes it and does an act of courage, by fighting Assef for

After some thought, Amir knows that he must go and find Hassan’s son, his nephew to redeem himself for the things he did to Hassan. Amir thinks to himself, “there is a way to be good again, he’d said. A way to end the cycle. With a little boy. An orphan. Hassan’s son. Somewhere in Kabul” (227). After feeling this sense of redemption, Amir does everything he can to bring Sohrab back to America with him, to help him start a new and better life.

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.

Since he was twelve, Amir has been struggling with his sin against Hassan; the fact that he did not come to the rescue of his friend. Deep down Amir always feels like he should have done something and feels horrible because he had chosen not to. Due to his nagging guilt, Amir is notable to live a peaceful life. Amir has an overwhelming need to be punished, to be redeemed from his sin, so that he does not have to live with his remorse. Amir’s feeling of guilt and his vital need for redemption are always a part of his life as he is growing up.

“For you, a thousand times over.” In The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini, there is a recurring theme of redemption that is portrayed by various literary devices. Kahled excellently juxtaposes devices such as irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing to show redemption within his first novel.