Preview

Redemption in The Kite Runner

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
945 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Redemption in The Kite Runner
ISU: Redemption
It is only natural for humans to make mistakes, just like Amir in the novel The Kite Runner, but it is how the mistakes are resolved that will dictate ones fate. The main character of The Kite Runner, Amir, knows a thing or two about making mistakes. What he struggles with throughout the novel is finding redemption for those mistakes. Throughout all stages of Amir’s life, he is striving for redemption. Whether Amir is saying the wrong thing or hiding from a hurtful truth, he always finds new things he will have to redeem himself for. That is why redemption is a huge underlining theme in The Kite Runner.
When Amir is a child, he feels his father blames him for his mother’s death and cannot love him. He does everything he can think of to try and make up for the mistakes he made in the past. Since Amir feels his father does not love him, he thinks of ways to make things right with him. Amir sees Baba as a perfect higher presence that he could never amount to. When the kite running competition comes around he takes this opportunity to prove to his father that he can be more of an “ideal” son to Baba, ultimately getting redemption for everything his father has not approved of. Amir sees Baba as a perfect father figure because everyone looks up to him. Amir could never live up to Baba’s expectations of him and that is where the theme of redemption comes to play between these two characters. Although Amir impresses his father by winning the kite running competition, he ends the day by hurting his best friend in a terrible way and one day he will have to find a way to make up for it.
Amir and Hassan are two inseparable children, but their relationship is unusual because Hassan is Amir’s servant. Amir is never very nice to Hassan, but Hassan would never turn his back on Amir. This is evident when he says, “For you a thousand times over”. Amir makes a huge mistake one day by hurting Hassan and it takes a very long time for him to find a way to redeem
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Year 11 Assessment Task
    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Year 11 Assessment Task

    Good morning and thank you. These particular few pages of my novel, The Kite Runner, hold some of the most important parts regarding character and theme set up. One of the first apparent themes is the book is the tension and delicate relationship that exists between father and son. In the excerpt I show the reader that Baba is unimpressed with Amir. He feels that there is something wrong with Amir; he infers that Amir is a coward. This is revealed when Amir overhears the conversation between Rahim Khan and Baba. They are discussing Baba’s disillusion with his son, Baba says “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who won’t stand up to anything.” At this moment Baba is keeping his true feelings hidden, which only serves to heighten Amir’s feeling of inadequacy. This theme runs throughout the book and causes a lot of complication.…

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Janie Crawford, By Hurston
    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Rhetorical Analysis Of Janie Crawford, By Hurston

    Amir’s father, Baba, sees the cowardice that Amir possesses and the constant need he has for his father’s approval. As the story progresses, Amir witnesses an act of evil in the aftermath of the kite running festival. He sees Hassan, his only friend, being raped by Assef, the town bully. Overwhelmed with horror and fear, Amir flees the scene, leaving his faithful friend behind. As a young boy, he seeks redemption for having abandoned his friend by seeking out physical pain as punishment. Amir narrates, “I hit him with another pomegranate, in the shoulder this time...‘Hit me back, goddamn you!’ I wished he would. I wished he'd give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night. Maybe then things could return to how they used to be between us”(Hosseini, pg 92). Amir longs for forgiveness and to share the bond they once had. This incident serves as a lesson to Amir that redemption requires much more than encouraging Hassan to throw a pomegranate at his chest. While Hassan is a loyal friend, who might have recognized Amir’s attempt at redemption, Hassan refuses to participate. This failure at redemption leads to Amir distancing himself from Hassan, and the two continue to grow farther apart. The theme of redemption re-appears when Amir receives a phone call from his old friend, Rahim Khan. As Rahim finishes his conversation with Amir, he says, “Come. There is a way to be good again” (Hosseini, pg ). Without the prodding from Rahim, Amir may have never overcome the regret of his cowardly mistake. Even though he has grown and matured into adulthood, he realizes that his past is still a heavy burden. It is not until Amir returns to Afghanistan that he succeeds in finally securing atonement. After hearing the news of Hassan’s death and the fate of…

    • 946 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Examples Of Redemption In The Kite Runner
    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page

    Examples Of Redemption In The Kite Runner

    Set throughout the time of Afghanistan’s feud with Russia and also the control of the Taliban cluster, Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner takes US through the excruciating journey that emeer (The main character) should endure to achieve redemption for his sins still as his father’s love. Hosseini shows US the death of a child's innocence once emeer horrifically witnesses his supporter, Hassan, obtaining raped and will nothing to prevent it, each attributable to the very fact of their social variations and also the ‘reward’ that emeer would gain if he let it pass. This death of emeer's innocence propels the story forward by pushing Amir to come back to extreme measures so as to disembarrass himself of the…

    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Kite Runner: Guilt and Redemption
    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Kite Runner: Guilt and Redemption

    “It was Sanaubar who delivered Hassan’s son that winter of 1990….You should have seen Sanaubar with that baby, Amir jan. He became the centre of her existence…When he caught a fever, she stayed up all night, and fasted for three days.( Hosseini, 211)—To make up for her lack of presence early on in Hassan’s life, Sanaubar takes on raising his son Sohrab. She gives Sohrab the attention and love that she knew that she should have given Hassan instead of running off with a group of dancers and singers.…

    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Amir's Betrayal
    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Amir's Betrayal

    Because Amir is feeling distanced from his father, he is driven to betraying his best friend Hassan, by leaving him to be assaulted in an alley. Amir doesn’t have a very good relationship with his father. He is very different from him, and his father, Baba, doesn’t like this. Amir is almost the complete opposite of Baba, and because of this, Baba is sometimes not as fatherly a…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sacrifice In 'The Kite Runner'
    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sacrifice In 'The Kite Runner'

    He is selfish, demanding, cowardly, disrespectful and jealous. He does not seem like the type of person that will do something for another out of the kindness of their heart. He always thinks about himself and what he wants. He has never sacrificed anything for the people he loves. Growing up with the memory of Hassan’s rape still fresh in his mind like a situation that has just unfolded has finally opened his eyes and makes him realize he needs to be brave for once in his life. So Amir acts. He goes back to Afghanistan to find Hassan’s son, Sohrab. Rahim Khan’s advice, “There is a way to be good again” (pg.2) helps Amir to put his feelings into action. Assef, now a Taliban officer, beats Amir up badly, but this, heals Amir of his wrong doings from the past and he takes Sohrab back to America with him to live a good life. Amir finally puts someone before himself after all the sacrifices Hassan has made for him in the past. This shows the love and sacrifice he makes for Hassan’s child knowing it is the only way he can ever repay Hassan for the years of mistreatment in their…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Bpromg
    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Bpromg

    Kemmy Nolah once said,” Be extremely careful not break someone’s heart or to cause someone great disappointment, and never put up with people that are reckless with yours. That is why you shouldn’t force yourself to have space in anyone’s life because if they know your worth, they’ll create one for you”. (Nolah) In the novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, Amirs father” Baba” is greatly responsible for determining the personality of Amir. Born without a mother and raised by his father, Amir lives with a single role model in his life who repeatedly expects more from his disappointing son. Amir is like a key while in the same way Baba is a door that has no key hole. ” With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking”, (Hosseini 12). Throughout the novel Amirs character is developed in different time periods of his life involving his father. Furthermore growing up in a wealthy environment Baba did not show traits of a parent, causing Amir to betray and creates additional deceptions, which escalates Amirs life for the worst.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Betrayal In The Kite Runner
    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Betrayal In The Kite Runner

    cannot read or go to school. Though Hassan defends Amir if anyone tries to bully him, Amir…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Kite Runner Redemption Analysis
    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Kite Runner Redemption Analysis

    A voice is heard in the wilderness telling people to “repent:” “Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turn to God” (3:8 Matthew). In this passage, Prophet John the Baptist is preparing people for redemption. If anyone returns from their evil ways, there will be a redemption and peace for the rest of their lives. These concept of redemption is seen in the movie, The Kite Runner, which takes place in the late 70s in Kabul, Afghanistan. Director Marc Forster tells the story of a friendship between Amir and Hassan, two young boys growing up in Kabul. Although, they are raised in the same household and shared the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan grew up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan is the son of Amir's father's Hazara servant. As a protagonist, Amir has many complexes and struggles with the consequences of the…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Theme Of Redemption In The Kite Runner
    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Theme Of Redemption In The Kite Runner

    Set during the rough times of the Taliban's reign of terror in Afghanistan and Afghanistan's war with Russia, Khaled Hosseini's novel The Kite Runner takes us through the agonizing journey t main character Amir makes as he struggles to gain redemption from his past sins, as well as gain the acceptance of his father, Baba. Hosseini shows us the death of a child's innocence when Amir horrifically witnesses his best friend, Hassan, getting raped and does nothing to stop it because society's social rankings hold him back. This death of Amir's innocence propels the story forward by pushing Amir to come to extreme measures in order to rid himself of the guilt pressing down on him, and allows the theme of redemption to be displayed through his desperate journey. Hosseini employs the device of imagery throughout his novel, which allows the characters to come alive off the pages, and aids us in truly understanding the immense suffering and pain the novel's characters endure.…

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sympathy In The Kite Runner
    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sympathy In The Kite Runner

    For those who don’t reach the end of the book The Kite Runner, they might consider Amir to be evil or immoral. Based on his actions from his childhood and teenage years he does things that seem inhumane and inconsiderate. However, the full presentation of Amir is very important to the complexity of his character. The events that happen throughout the book make readers feel more sympathetic because the author explains scenarios that readers feel bad that Amir had to go through those experiences. Readers begin to sympathize more with Amir because they understand what being neglected can make a person feel like. They can also relate to what it might be like to not have a mother as well as the despair of being betrayed by someone you love.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Theme Of Redemption In 'The Kite Runner'
    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Theme Of Redemption In 'The Kite Runner'

    As we go through life we all make mistakes, how we deal with them shows more about us than the mistake its self. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Amir makes a huge mistake that he will struggle with for many years to come, until one day he gets a phone call telling him that “There is a way to be good again.” (Hosseini 2) After this he sets off on a journey to redeem himself.…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Mistakes In The Kite Runner
    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Mistakes In The Kite Runner

    He becomes aware of Baba’s betrayal to Ali, recognizing that his father and he were very much the same and the way he saw Baba as a kid was a false perception of his father. Amir realizes that betrayal is an evil thing and will haunt one until redemption is reached, like it once did with Baba, and now himself. Baba, however, did not have to be too hard on himself, for he tried to redeem himself throughout his entire life, although he made an immense mistake and had an affair with Ali’s wife, resulting in the birth of Hassan, Baba was sincerely sorry and was an honorable man who acknowledged his wrongdoing. Amir’s father was a prime example of a man who was worthy and honorable, he made a mistake, but an honorable man has several…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Role Adversity Plays in Shaping Identity
    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Role Adversity Plays in Shaping Identity

    As one goes from childhood to adulthood and deals with the hardships of life, they grow as a person and learn from their experiences. Amir’s journey of life displays how incidents and hardships shape ones identity. Amir as the kite fighter lets Hassan the kite runner get raped by Assef due to fear, jealousy and need for love. He sacrifices Hassan for his selfish desires and the need to prove himself worthy to Baba. “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.” Hassan’s rape shaped Amir’s identity and his personal values. He valued Hassan but he valued Baba’s love even more. He valued his need for acceptance more than humanity and loyalty to his friend. Rape created guilt and regrets; it shaped Amir’s personal values. After betrayal the need to belong was a struggle for Amir. He looked for ways to make Baba proud of him and searched for acceptance. It’s only natural to want to be accepted and loved however one has to decide how far they are willing to go…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Kite Runner
    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Kite Runner

    After years of misguidance, Amir realizes that on the road to friendship and loyalty, one must be able to stand up for what they believe in, something many are too afraid to do. When they were young, Amir and Hassan, Amir's slave, were confronted by the neighborhood bully, Assef. They happened to be in a remote location. Afraid of being hurt, Amir wondered if anyone would be able to hear his scream. “'Just let us go Assef,' I said, hating the way my voice trembled”(Hosseini 41). If not for the lethal threat of Hassan's slingshot, Assef might not have left without giving them a beating. This event portrays one of Amir's weaknesses, which contrasts his adult persona. It shows how he thinks about himself in situations that threaten his well being. A strong person would not have assumed that the only option was to admit defeat. Hassan managed to put aside his fears to overcome Assef's superiority; which was the opposite of Amir. Amir's weakness did not go unnoticed in his daily life. Baba, Amir's father, was able to see this in him: “A boy who can't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up for anything”(22). Baba's statement is not so much of a fact as it is a challenge. He does not believe that Amir will ever change, but there is never a way to be absolutely sure of what the future holds. The encounter with Assef was only a stepping stone on the road to learning what it means to be a true friend. Amir…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More

Related Topics