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Kite Runner Parallelism

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Throughout The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini, there are many structural elements that support the theme of redemption and how salvation is possible no matter how terrible an act is. Early in the book, the main character Amir watches his friend/servant Hassan get raped by the neighborhood bully. After realizing what he had done, Amir felt incredibly guilty and it became impossible for him to even be near Hassan. After moving to America and growing up, he continues to struggle with his guilt, and keeps it buried inside. Eventually, he is faced with an opportunity for redemption, and there are many signs leading him toward it. One structural element that supports the idea of redemption was the line "There is a way to be good again" being italicized. …show more content…

In the first half of the book Hassan spends his life working for Amir, doing everything he needed, just so he could eventually be let down. Now that Amir realizes his mistakes, he spends his adult life dedicating his life to Sohrab, Hassan's son. A specific similarity would be when Hassan ran Amir's Kite during the competition as a child and when Amir teaches Sohrab how to run kites at the end of the book. Hassan and Amir's competition as children ended in victory, and Hassan telling Amir "For you a thousand times over," (Pg.67) meaning that he would help Amir as much as he needed to. When it becomes Amir's turn to run the Kite for Sohrab, they successfully took down a kite, leading to a special moment between the two. During this moment, Amir repeats the same line said to him so many years ago; "For you a thousand times over." (Pg.371) This repetition shows that Amir is recognizing the growth and resemblance between himself and …show more content…

One example is the letter he receives from Rahim Kahn telling him that it is his time to pass and that Amir needs to learn to forgive himself. The letter is completely focused on Amir's acceptance of what has happened, and his belief in salvation: " And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir Jan, when guilt leads to good." (Pg.302) This message is clear to Amir because of the form it was expressed, a letter. When one writes a letter, especially a letter that contains the last words they'll ever tell someone, they are including very specific thoughts that could not wait to be said in person. These words written by Rahim Kahn were important for Amir's redemption, which is why they were said in a letter, which stands out from the rest of the chapter due to spacing and its

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The Kite Runner is a novel of love, struggle, and most importantly, redemption. The main character, Amir, is haunted throughout adulthood by transgressions of his childhood and finds himself in a journey for redemption that nearly costs him his life. By the end of the novel, Amir has grown into a respectable man through the criticism from his father, Rahim Khan’s dying confessions and influence upon him, and his own conscience choice to change who he was. Up until this point he acted as a coward in every sense of the word. The most glaring example of this was when he didn’t stand up for his closest friend and half-brother, Hassan, when he was being raped.

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Can Amir be good again… ? This is the exact question that has been continuously running through my mind with each turn of the page in The Kite Runner, though before hand, I found myself wondering what aspects, qualities, or characteristics have ever defined Amir as “good” in the first place? Furthermore, by the term, “good”, do our minds think of “good” as in only benefiting thyself, or benefiting those of the world around us? Before one can determine if Amir can be good again, these questions that linger in the depths of our mind must be brought to the surface of reality and acknowledged. As far as the reader knows, Hassan and Amir both started life at the same place, but when one analyzes the characters personal characteristics, they foil each other in such a way that Hassan seems to have a sole purpose of exposing the flaws of Amir throughout their childhood, leaving an everlasting impact on the reader's thoughts, in which it is hard for the reader to detect the good in Amir when there seems to be so much bad.

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Although, Amir shows many acts of kindness and selflessness, in the end, he was not able to truly redeem himself. To begin, Amir started his journey to redemption with conviction and confession although he was not very successful. The guilt bothered Amir very often even in his adulthood when he believed he had been denied “fatherhood for the thing [he] had done.” (188) Almost immediately after Amir watched Hassan get raped he believed he had done something wrong. He believed he could not have children with Soraya because he did not help Hassan, but he does not confess until more than fifteen years later.

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The connection between the relationships of Hassan and Amir and then Amir and Sohrab thrive off of the conflicts and the recurring motifs throughout the novel. Amir lived his redemiton and his loyalty through Sohrab, trying to make what he did to Hassan feel like less of a burden on his shoulders. There are many different ways for one to redeem themselves, but there is no better way to show loyalty than to be present in a time of

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In addition, she overlooks Hassan’s devotion. Years later, Amir returns to his devotion. Though Hassan has long since died, his child remains, and Amir seizes the opportunity to fly the kite for Sohrab in the same way that Hassan did for him. "For you, a thousand times over," I heard myself say. "This line represents the character’s devotion to the person being addressed.

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For other people, redemption may come by doing something for the person whom we have hurt. This is shown in ‘The Kite Runner’. In an attempt to make up for what he has done to Hassan, Amir addots Hassan’s orphaned son, Sohrab. He takes Sohrab to the United States with him and saves him from the terrorist group that had been keeping him hostage,”Taliban”. In this example, Amir could not get away from his guilt without actually taking responsibility for his

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The final guilt Amir struggles with is his guilt of apathy where he physically commits the action and instead of standing as a bystander becomes the person who committed the act, which gives him a different form of guilt. Amir feels apathy guilt through betraying his friend and kicking Hassan out of the house because he is a witness to the crime Amir has committed. Amir has guilt because he chases Hassan out, “I flinched, like I’d been slapped… Then I understood: This was Hassan’s final sacrifice for me… And that led to another understanding: Hassan knew.

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He’s my servant!”(Hosseini 41). AlthoughDespite there is a lot ofthe internal conflict between the two boys, Amir and Hassan continue to play with each other often. The last time they flew kites together Hassan turns to Amir and says “for you a thousand times over” (67), as seen throughout the novel Amir is haunted from

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Amir at the time of Hassan's assault beloved that if he does not step in, he is doing the right thing for his relationship with Baba, but after he turned his back, he was left feeling guilt, which he carried with him for the rest of his life until he rescued Sohrab, which reiterates the theme of redemption. Redemption plays a key role in The Kite Runner because it sets up the ending of the novel, if Amir had not stood idle whilst Hassan was raped in their childhood, he would not have gone back to see Rahim Khan, he went back to correct his wrongs, ‘to be good again’, but once he found out Hassan was dead he began to believe that redemption for his childhood self’s actions was an unrealistic goal which is why he went to get Sohrab after much deliberation. He went to get Sohrab because he was his last chance at

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