Redemption- The Kite Runner

Brianna
October 31, 2013
The Kite Runner Essay Rough Draft Redemption is something a person has to work for in order to make themselves feel like they have made up for their wrong doings. In The Kite Runner, Hosseini describes the life of a young boy named Amir whose mistake haunts him for years. And His journey to find a way to redeem himself and relieve the guilt he had to live with. Redemption is a way to rid people of the guilt from the mistakes they have made. Using the parallels of the secrets of Baba, Amir, and Soroya the author demonstrates how guilt can physically and psychologically push a person to search for a way to redeem them self. Baba and Amir, father and son, don't have the strong bond a father and son should have. Baba wonders why Amir is not more like he was as a child, sporty and manly, not poetic and shy. “He needs someone... who understands him” (Hosseini 20). All Amir wanted was his fathers love. He blames himself. Baba was portrayed as a good man, proud and strong, practically perfect. There was one flaw in all his perfection, he betrayed his best friend by sleeping with his wife. His best friend. Ali, was sterile, his wife bore a son named Hassan. Baba kept the fact that he has a second child from everyone except, Ali and a family friend. Hassan represented Baba's perfection with his one imperfection, the imperfection being his harelip. The love Baba has for Hassan is strong, but the problem is he can not show it and treat him like a son. Because of this Amir feels like he does not have his fathers love, like he has to work hard to get his approval. Baba took his frustration of not being able to love Hassan openly, out on Amir. Baba's guilt is what made him act that way toward Amir. In the novel, Amir's wife Soroya goes through her own search for redemption. In her youth Soroya ran away to live with a drug inflicted Afghan man. Soroya's guilt after running away consumes her because in the time she was away her mother had a stroke. She blames herself for what happened to her mother. After coming home she behaves like a “good Afghan girl” and lives with her parents. When Baba goes to her fathers house to see about Amir being a suitor, Soroya calls Amir to make sure he knows about her past. When Soroya told Amir, he could feel her relief. “I envied her. Her secret was out. Dealt with” (144). She may have come clean about her past but the guilt of it still haunts her and that shows in their marriage. When Soroya and Amir cannot conceive it devastates them. Both thinking it is their fault, slowly destroys their marriage. Punishment is needed to gain redemption. Soroya thinks her inability to have kids is her physical punishment. When she finds out Amir is bringing Sohrab, his nephew home she feels that “There is a way to be good again”(198). She cleans the house prepares for him. She had wanted to be a mother and the love she could have had for her own child she will give to Sohrab. She sees Sohrab as a way to redeem herself by being good mother to him. “Looking at her smiling at Sohrab, her eyes tearing over a little, I had a glimpse of the mother she might have been, had her womb not betrayed her” (312). She feels happier with Sohrab, earning her own type of redemption in the process of trying to be a good mother to him. Amir's deepest and darkest secret is the fact that he watched his half brother, Hassan, get raped when they were twelve. Amir was using Hassan as the sacrificial lamb to gain his fathers love and affection. “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price?” (68). His sacrifice for his father, he was afraid of letting Asseff harm him, too scared to step ina and too scared to lose the kite that Hassan ran for him. Amir was guilty after watching the incident happen with Hassan. After Amir finds out why Baba treated Hassan the way he did for all those years he understands. When Amir tries to get Hassan to relieve him of his guilt Hassan just shows more loyalty to Amir which only makes him feel worse about himself and what he had done. “I wish he'd give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night” (81). He feels inadequate, like he is not good enough. The guilt that from his mistakes haunts him well into his thirties. Amir's need for physical and psychological redemption over powers his need to move on with his life. This comes out when Amir is trying to save Sohrab from Asseff, “I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d been looking forward to this...- I felt healed” (253). Finally feeling that relief is a weight off of his shoulders. Knowing that finally he could breathe again. He takes that feeling and laughs through his entire beating. Like Soroya, he uses Sohrab to make himself a better person. Finally after all the years of being separated from Hassan Amir understands unconditional love, and that he has it for Sohrab. “I thought I saw him nod. “For you a thousand times over,” I heard myself say. Then I turned and ran”(323). Amir realizes this is his way to redeem himself psychologically. To take care of Sohrab and just be a friend to him, to treat him better than he did Hassan. The closure people crave when they have done something they are not proud of is redemption, both physical and psychological. Closure is what people need to be able to move on in life and redemption for their actions can do that for them.