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
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.
Something that extremely irritated and disturbed me in chapters 6 through 9 was how Amir had the audacity (when he was a child) to treat Hassan incompetently, not considering him as a friend, nor entitling him as one verbally to others. He never stood up for Hassan and never has. He admitted that he "always envied his natural athleticism" (Hosseini 53). Amir just wants to be acknowledge by Baba, but he knows he never will because he isnt the athletic nor strong-minded son his father wanted, however Hassan was. Its so insulting of Amir to say "I had been mean to Hassan [and] almost apologized, then didn't" (Hosseini 60). It just goes to show that even though he felt guilty he didn't let Hassan be aware of it. This scene portrays how insecure
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.
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
The guilt that Amir feels due to his destroyed relationship with Hassan haunts him throughout his entire life. First, Hosseini uses the scene of Hassan’s rape as a haunting source of
Hosseini tragically displays the betrayal of a so-called friend. When they were young, Amir and Hassan did everything together and they were inseparable. Amir’s obsession with gaining Baba’s love not only made him lose someone that adored him, but also someone that would always stay by his side. Later on, Amir redeems himself of his horrible past by taking in Hassan’s son, so he can have a clean future. Hosseini depicts good versus evil to question readers if Amir is forgiven for his one good deed compared to his many bad deeds.Was Amir really Hassan’s friend considering how disrespectful he is to Hassan? In the novel Kite Runner, Hosseini shows that Amir did
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,
This view is carried out with the supportive character, Hassan, who plays a significant role in the novel by representing a Christ figure who is forever forgiving of Amir. Hassan is the, “harelipped kite runner” whose only friend is Amir (Hosseini 2). Hassan demonstrates the themes of second chances and forgiveness through his actions of kindness. For example, when Assef and his gang come to torment Amir, Hassan comes to the rescue with his slingshot. Although Amir never considers him to be his friend, Hassan proves to be a flawless servant to his half-brother, even after Amir betrays him. Throughout the story, Amir remembers Hassan by his kind-hearted phrase, “For you, a thousand times over,” which evidences how magnanimous and
Hosseini conveys the turning point when Amir gets on the right path to learning and understanding the true nature of sacrifice by attempting to redeem himself. Amir plants money and his new watch that he got for his birthday under Hassan's bed to make it look like Hassan stole it. Baba brings Ali, Hassan and Amir together and Amir explains that “They’d both been crying; [He] could tell from their red, puffed-up eyes...they stood before Baba, hand in hand, and [he] wondered how and when [he’d] become capable of causing this kind of pain” (105). Hosseini uses this scene to demonstrate the true colors of Amir that he is a liar. This scene also highlights the loyalty that Hassan has towards Amir and his family and but it is not the same from Amir to Hassan. This illuminates Hassan’s loyalty most more than other scenes because as you can tell Baba and Ali were very surprised about what (they thought) Hassan had done because nothing like this has ever happened before. This explains one of the many sins that Amir has and reveals the lying and
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
The time Amir felt the most guilt was when Amir saw Hassan get raped and ran instead of helping or getting help. Later in Amir's life he realized that he was a terribly dishonest friend to Hassan and realized he was a monster. Amir says to himself, “ There was a monster in the lake. It grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the murky bottom. I was that monster. That was the night i became an insomniac”(Hosseini 86). Amir began to hate himself feeling guilty because of his mistakes in the past, he couldn't even sleep at night.And the monster in Hassan dream symbolizes Amir being a coward which will leave him feeling guilt for the rest of his life. Later on Amir decides to to adopt Sohrab to fix past mistakes and remove that guilt from him. Amir also realized that terrible things were done to Sohrab their. And when Sohrab tries to kill himself, it leaves a lot of pressure on Amir because he already had guilt in him from a death of a great friend and if Hassan son died in the hand of him it would ruin his life.Amir mumbled a prayer at the hospital, “my hands are stained with Hassan's blood; I pray God doesn’t let the get stained with the blood of his boy to”(Hosseini 346). Amir prays because he knows if Sohrab dies he will feel guilty for the rest of hi
Amir stumbles upon an alley. In the alley, he sees the Hassan trap by three boys named Assef, Kamal, and Wali. All they asked of Hassan is to give up the blue kite. However, Hassan’s loyalty and friendship toward Amir prevented Hassan to give up the kite. As the tension built, Assef lets Hassan have the kite, but in-return he does unthinkable. Assef rapes Hassan as Amir watched unnoticeably from the alley (Hosseini 62-66). This was Amir’s chance to prove his true friendship by stepping in to save Hassan. Instead, Amir ran “because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he could do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley, to Hassan” (Hosseini 68). According to Amir, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (Hosseini 68). “He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 68).
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.
In the United States it is not uncommon to hear the question, “What are you?” This seemingly simple question stems from the American belief that individuals can be divided into different biologically defined racial groups. However, anthropologists have long argued that U.S. racial groups are a product of American cultural constructions, meaning that racial groups are not genetically determined but only represent the way cultures (in this case Americans) classify people. For example, in the U.S individuals are classified into different races based on their heritage. However in Brazil, people are classified into a series of “tipos" based on their physical appearance. In the article “Mixed Blood”, Jeffrey Fish supports the claim that race is nothing more, but a social construct by demonstrating the cultural basis of race by comparing how races are defined in the United States and Brazil.
Hosseini utilizes outside environmental factors to contribute to the preeminating assumption of Amir's character. The actions taken in response to external stimuli convey the true nature of not only the protagonist Amir but his genuine friend and unknown half-brother Hassan. The two juvenile Afghani boys face many challenges growing up in Kabul; bullies taunt and threaten them routinely. Assef, the leader among the tormentors, inadvertently plays a key role in determining the measures taken by Amir in order to gain the acceptance of his father. Under repetitive harassment and criticism, Amir rarely fights against his subjugation. Baba discerns his son’s predominant flaw: cowardice. In his mentality, Baba believes that “a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who