The Kite Runner Literary Analysis Essay

Amir's internal conscience attacks him after he fails to stand up for Hassan and forces him to leave.

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,

Amir resents his choice to be a coward when Hassan is raped. His guilt is immediate and it gnaws at him. A few days after Hassan was assaulted, Amir already feels guilt and resentment inside him. “’I [Amir]

“ For you, a thousand times over”. This one sentence sums up the immense love, loyalty and friendship Hassan had for Amir.

Amir's entire life had been haunted by what he saw happen to Hassan. Although he was a child at the time, he couldn't accept his shortcoming during a time of need. He was jealous of his father for being able to stand up for himself and others and Hassan's undying loyalty to him. He developed a pattern of behavior - of covering up his mistakes and hiding his past – that he could not rid himself of until he suffered like Hassan did. He made it up to Hassan by saving his son, and he made it up to himself by suffering the way he

Amir went through a tough battle with guilt. He saw his friend get raped and did nothing about it, he blamed himself for his mother's death and he felt bad for thinking that he wanted another man as his father. All this guilt he kept inside. But one day he ran into Assef, Assef and him got into an altercation. He got vanquished by Assef, the man who raped Hassan. While he was he felt relieved of the guilt that he had, another way he helped himself relive his guilt is by taking care of Hassan's child. Nevertheless everyone has felt somewhat guilty once, we all handle our guilt differently, yet we shouldn't act badly. We should do good, fix our wrongs and should have the idea that guilt can make you do good

When Amir was looking for Hassan after the kite flying contest he is talking to someone asking if they had seen him. He refers to Hassan as “our servant’s son” (69). He and Hassan are best friends at home through their entire childhoods. Despite this, he still does not even refer to him as a friend to society; to the people around him Hassan is just his servant. Then later in the novel after he has witnessed Hassan getting raped, he does not want Hassan to be living with them anymore. He asks Baba “have you ever thought about getting new servants?” (89). He tries to exile his best friend for no reason at all even though they have been through everything together. This is the foundation of Amir showing this theme of exile towards Hassan, and it only gets worse. Hassan begins to notice what Amir is doing and tells him “I don’t know what i’ve done, Amir agah I wish you’d tell me. I don’t know why we don’t play anymore” (88). He ignores Hassan and shuts him out into exile even though all he has done is be loyal to Amir. Soon after Amir wants to completely exile Hassan and get him out of his home for good. Amir decides to frame him so he “lifted Hassan’s mattress and planted [his] new watch and handful of Afghani bills under it” (104). Amir lets Hassan take the blame for this act completely and exiles him out of his life forever. Hassan even writes to him but Amir does not respond. Amir exiles Hassan and shows the theme of exile through his actions toward Hassan throughout the

Throughout the novel , Amir is plagued with guilt. He constantly thinks about his actions, is bothered by them but does not seem to know how to resolve the situation , how to stop the battle going within him, until Rahim Khan gives him a way, a way to be ‘good’ again. First we observe that Amir seems to be guilty as a child as he blamed himself for his mother’s death and believed it was the reason why Baba never truly loved him, he also was ashamed and unsatisfied with himself because he wasn’t strong and masculine like his father. : “ I always felt like

This one decision left a stain on Amir for the next thirty years. A quote on pg. 88 states “I wish someone would wake me up, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore” This quote explains how guilty Amir felt after seeing Hassan get raped as he desperately sought for anyone to find out but didn’t chose to tell anyone the actual truth. Another example from the text is when Amir tries throwing pomegranates at Hassan, as an attempt to get Hassan to fight back and punish Amir for choosing to leave Hassan. However, Hassan refused to throw any pomegranates at Amir, but instead smashed one into his face. A quote on pg.94 states “I wanted Hassan to fight me back for the way I failed him” This quote indicates that Amir wanted Hassan to fight him back, so he could have the “punishment [he] craved” (93) This demonstrates that Amir wanted to feel the act of being punished for his wrongdoing, similar to how Hassan was brutally raped due to Amir’s apparent mistake. Amir’s guilt forces him to travel across two countries to seek redemption for the mistake he made. 15 years later, Amir’s guilt led him to make the hefty decision of returning to Afghanistan “to be good again” (189) by rescuing Hassan’s orphaned son, Sohrab, from the terrible conditions he was left to face in Kabul. Amir sees this as an opportunity to redeem and free himself from

The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini can be seen as a great book but at the same time one that is too simple and easy. In discussions of The Kite Runner, one controversial issue has been the inner levels of the novel. On one hand, many people believe that the novel is filled with numerous themes that are deep and make one think about the human experience and will leave you thinking long after you finish reading it. On the other hand, there are also many literary critics who contend that opinion and say that the novel is overly sentimental and simplistic. The view I obtained while reading The Kite Runner would be in agreement with the first statement. I also believe that the novel is deep and makes one think

Throughout the novel, Amir attempts to find redemption after failing to stop his half-brother Amir 's rape.

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do,” Voltaire once said. Every choice in life comes with a consequence that follows. A common consequence is guilt, a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something wrong. Amir, the main character in The Kite Runner, discovers the consequence of guilt after making decisions throughout his childhood that were destructive. Khaled Hosseini describes the destructive ability of guilt to consume one’s life through the the relationships of Amir and Hassan, Baba and Ali, and Amir and Sohrab.

    Amir had been disloyal to Hassan his whole life. He did not stand up for Hassan when he needed it most and Amir even ran away when he could have helped Hassan. Amir constantly tortured Hassan as he tried to make Hassan eat dirt, throw fruit at him, or even when he tried to get Hassan to punch him. Amir wanted Hassan to stoop to his level and beat him up, so his guilt would disappear.

At first, Amir does not seek to earn redemption. We know that he is ashamed at what he has done but he prefers to hide his guilt rather than confess and redeem himself right away. After the incident, Amir attempted to avoid Hassan at all costs. Even when Hassan approached him to see if he wanted to go for a walk, like they used to do frequently, Amir refused to go with him and told him to go away (88). He knew that he didn't deserve his friends unwavering love and loyalty.

Though Hassan was his best friend, Amir feelt that Hassan, a Hazara servant, was beneath him. He passively attacked Hassan by mocking and taunting him. Amir never learned how to affirm himself against anyone because Hassan always defended him. All of these factors lead to Amir not being able to stand up for Hassan when he needed him most.