The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

Amir was completely plagued by guilt throughout the entire novel. He could not seem to escape the shame he felt for all of the mistakes he made. The guilt ultimately controlled his life; therefore, Amir was not able to fully enjoy every experience he had. All he could think about was how his past actions affected his life. The guilt Amir felt was a central theme within The Kite Runner, and Amir spent his whole life trying to lessen the guilt he felt for all of his mistakes.

The quote, “Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion” (Crilly, 2012), shows the effect of guilt on a person. Guilt can control a whole person’s life at times, and constantly causes them to think about events that caused the emotion. Two characters in The Kite Runner, Amir and Baba, constantly experience guilt due to important events that occured in their lives. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the motif of guilt is shown when looking at how Amir lived with the death of his mother, how Amir responded to the attack of Hassan, and how Baba dealt with being the biological father of Hassan.

People are different in many ways. Ranging from colour of their skin to their ethnic backgrounds. How society copes with these differences is what defines prejudice and discrimination. Racism, social class and ethnicity have become a never ending cycle that begins to shape the opinions of how people treat one another. The novel The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini revolves around a society constructed around two socially diverse ethnic groups the Pashtuns who practice Sunni Islam and the Hazaras who follow Shia Islam. Throughout the novel The Kite Runner, a variety of characters have made decisions that affect the overall outcome of the novel which base around ethnicity, race and social class.

“True redemption is when guilt leads to good,” Rahim Khan asserts. Khaled Hosseini compels the readers to think in the novel, The Kite Runner, by analyzing Amir’s quests. Additionally, readers must understand Amir’s journey to maturity throughout The Kite Runner, as a Bildungsroman novel. Amir’s journey to redemption ultimately accentuates his quest for adulthood.

The novel The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is the story of a young, upper class boy by the name of Amir and his friend, a lower class boy named Hassan. While Amir is a Pashtun and a Sunni Muslim, Hassan is a Hazara and a Shi’a muslim, which causes the main conflict between the two. Amir and Hassan learn more and more about their social status, as well as their personal friendships and problems as they grow up in Afghanistan.

Atonement is the focal point of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner as portrayed through Amir’s guilt, the repercussions of his guilt and his effort to remove this guilt by atoning his sins.

It is in human’s nature to make mistakes, but what is important is how we solve those mistakes. The novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini explores the theme of redemption. Khaled Hosseini conveys the theme of redemption through the character by when sins are made redemption can be found. This is first demonstrated when Amir betrays Hassan by not standing up for him when he was getting raped but later makes peace with Hassan. Secondly, when Baba cannot accept Amir for who he is, later he then redeems himself by making him a new life.

“There is a way to be good again”(Hosseini,2). This thought represents the underlying message of the novel The Kite Runner, as author Khaled Hosseini tells a heartbreaking tale of a lifetime spent in the search of redemption for a “past of unatoned sins” (Hosseini, 1). Very often people undergo numerous internal conflicts throughout their lives, and they find that some of their problems change who they are as a person. Most people will not have the courage or the motivation to deal with and fix their problems, however, Khaled Hosseini’s novel inspires people to face and deal with internal conflicts. In the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir constantly struggles with guilt about his childhood mistakes and he finds it very hard to deal with them. The ending of The Kite Runner appropriately concludes the story because it portrays a journey of redemption for a childhood betrayal and ends with a hopeful message of new beginnings and freedom from past sins.

In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Amir craves his father's approval. Amir becomes jealous of Hassan and turns to cowardliness to hide his guilt for what he saw in the winter of 1975. The author develops the theme of betrayal and redemption throughout the novel by Amir’s experiences of betrayal from his father and by betraying others in return. Amir goes through his life wanting redemption for the sins he has committed.

All human relationships are complicated, there are many instances in the Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, which portrays the complexity of human character. Throughout the book, the Amir is burden with his own guilt from his childhood summer of nineteen seventy-five . As the book progresses the reader is forced to grapple with the meaning if redemption and the true meaning of family. Many readers have often debated whether Amir has actually attained redemption for his actions; however through the latter half of the novel the reader comes to understand that Amir does in fact redeem himself.

sin and forget about it. Amir then faced the long bumpy road to redemption. Khaled Hosseini’s

“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, is the complex story about a father and a son who struggle to find common ground. They are from Kabul during a time where danger was everywhere. Amir was a conflicted boy trying to find his place and purpose. He believed his father; Baba disliked him because his birth was the reason his mother passed. While Amir’s father favored the son of their family servant, Hassan. Amir’s friendship with Hassan was genuine until a tragic event Amir witnessed of Hassan and Amir did not step into help. Amir’s father once told him he needed to learn to stand up to people. That crime against Hassan changed Amir for the worse, something he could never let go of throughout his life. These are the main characters of the

The expectations of “Amir” pile up as Baba begins wanting his heir to become more and more like he was. However, throughout Amir’s life, he has always known Baba believed “there is something missing in [him]” (Hosseini 17). Amir has always known he was never able to match the expectations of his father and was never able to feel the sense of “namoos” or pride that he has always dreamt of. This creates a pathway filled with feelings of worthlessness and shame. The largest strike towards his namoos happens in his childhood; with Amir stating in the beginning of the book, “ I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975”(Hosseini 1). That very day, Amir scars the honor and pride of his best friend Hassan by letting him be raped, for “Hassan was the price [he] had to pay, the lamb [he] had to slay, to win Baba”(Hosseini 65). As Amir ran away from this incident, “[he] actually aspired to cowardice.” By stating that “I became what I am today at the age of twelve,” Amir is is emphasizing the fact that he never let go of what happened in his past; letting his childhood shape a path taking him all the way to where he is now. As Amir is fleeing this incident, Khaled Hosseini efficiently uses the words “I actually aspired to cowardice” to indicate that Amir believed his actions were worse than that of being cowardly; that Amir did something even worse than denouncing the Pashtun

Plot summary: Amir flashbacks to when he was twelve years old in Afghanistan. He lives with his father, Baba, and has two servants, Ali and Hassan, who are also a father and son duo. The latter two are Hazaras, Afghan’s minority, and as such, are subjected to racial slurs and cruelty. Amir and Hassan are playing when Assef, Kamal, and

Khaled Hosseini once said: “there are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.” Rape in Afghanistan is said to be an “epidemic,” but according to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of the term is “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.” Rape in this country is viewed as something that is inevitable and cannot be stopped. Usually, rape also involves domestic violence, hence the reason they’re paired together. Contrary to common misconception, men are raped as well as women, especially children of both genders. In the Kite Runner, rape is a topic that is prevalent in and throughout the book. Bacha Bazi is even a part of the Kite Runner.