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Loss Of Innocence In The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

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By experiencing cruelty and the obstacles of ethnic differences, Amir’s closest and most loyal companion, Hassan, must deal with the issues that uncover the negative side of society causing Hassan’s loss of innocence throughout The Kite Runner. The foremost goal of Hosseini describing Hassan’s transformation from an ingenuous child to an individual warped by humanity’s imposed malevolence is to accentuate the character’s loss of innocence. As immorality shatters the purity within his life, Hassan encounters spite that is forced upon him, which contributes to the demise of his childhood naivety; for example, Amir views Hassan being sexually assaulted and threatened due to his ethnicity: “Hassan didn’t struggle. Didn’t even whimper. He moved …show more content…

It was the look of the lamb” (Hosseini 75-76). Hassan bears Assef’s wrath resulting in his exposure to vice. Because he uncovers the darkness in people, Hassan’s unique and youthful smile shifts to “the look of the lamb” indicating that he changes, and the exposure to evil strips his adolescence away from him. Assef’s rage fractures the light and happiness in Hassan’s core, which contributes to his melancholy childhood. Therefore, Hassan’s vivacity wither away resulting in a lugubrious, forlorn disposition. This new, obscured side of Hassan, who puts his own life at risk for Amir, relates to a sacrificial lamb representing atonement for debaucheries by letting the blameless suffer. When “Hassan d[oes not] struggle. D[oes not] even whimper,” he seems stoical to his fate as the betrayed friend and the target of exploited power. The brutality Hassan experiences influences his innocence in which it diminishes along with the purity in his life. Shattering the illusion of society as virtuous, Hassan manifestly understands that evil is always lurking in the shadows. Deliberately, Hassan’s acceptance of cruelty foisted on him connects to his realization that traumatic endeavors can happen to virtuous

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By leaving Hassan defenceless against Assef, Amir’s disloyalty and inability to stand up for his friend truly emphasises his cruel nature. Amir physically and mentally turns away from the rape. He justifies his decision to leave Hassan by saying “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.”

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The author provides the reader with mixed feeling about Amir. In his childhood in Kabul Amir comes off as heartless person. He is this because he has done evil stuff in his life. In the beginning of the story something bad happens to Hassan, Amir says,¨In the end, I ran.

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Hassan, however, receives very different treatment. Hassan represents Baba’s mistakes. Because Baba would lose his social standing if he publicly revealed his affair, Baba refuses to provide for and protect Hassan. Hassan always lives honorably and “[everyone] knew Hassan never lied” even when the truth hurts (105).When Baba rejects Hassan, he symbolically rejects true honor and heroism. Baba’s treatment of his sons reveals his superficiality and his unwillingness to accept responsibility for his

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Unfortunately, Amir, one of the victims, had not been young enough to not understand. As a child, he made the mistake of not helping out his half-brother, Hassan. Even if he could have done something, he didn’t because of his cowardice, which was followed by selfishness. Betrayal made Amir the perpetrator. Due to his act of cruelty, he carried stones of guilt over his shoulder which were never shared with anyone but his own mind.

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Amir first realizes the depth of his cowardice as he watches Assef rape Hassan in the alley and thinks, “I could step in into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever happened to me. Or I could run” (Hosseini 77). He has an epiphany that he could choose to be brave and selfless like Hassan and step up to Assef regardless of any physical consequences. However, despite his understanding that the noble choice would be to interfere and stop Assef, Amir is unable to act on it because his fear of Assef overwhelms him. The guilt that consumes Amir in the weeks following Hassan’s rape indicates that he understands the extent of his selfish behavior and needs to resolve it before he can forgive himself.

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(Hosseini 67). Hosseini uses this quote to emphasize Hassan’s selflessness and devotion to Amir. However, when Amir finds Hassan being beaten and raped by Assef, he thinks to himself, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (Hosseini 77). Again, Hosseini draws attention to the selfishness and cowardice of Amir. When contrasted with a character like Hassan, the reader views Amir’s betrayal as all the more devastating.

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The reader is taken through the mixed, complicated emotions of Amir and Hassan’s

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The Kite Runner is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini, this novel shares the story of a young boy named Amir and his transition from childhood to adulthood. Amir makes many mistakes as a child, but the moral of the story is to focus not on the mistakes he has made, but how he has grown, and become a better man by redeeming himself for the mistakes he has made. The mistakes he has made mostly revolve around his friend Hassan, and his father Baba. Three of the most prominent mistakes are when Amir doesn’t help Hassan when he is being attacked by the village boys, lying to Baba about Hassan, and not appreciating and abusing Hassan’s loyalty to him.

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In the novel, Hosseini uses Amir’s internal conflict highlights how unresolved guilt and fear can negatively impact one’s life. Hassan’s rape initiates the internal conflict in Amir that lasts the rest of his young adult life. Assef rapes Hassan after the kite running competition prompting Amir to run away in terror and fear. After the incident, Amir celebrates the victory of

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Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (68). In Afghani culture, many sacrifice things in their life as a payment to god, Amir’s thought here was that Hassan was just a sacrifice. However, this is incorrect because even though Amir thinks this for a short period, he later feels the guilt and it has never left him since. Lastly, some may say that after Amir gets the child that he is “good again” even Amir says “My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last.

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In the novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini tells the story of Amir, a young, Afghan boy who learns about what it means to be redeemed through the experiences he encounters in his life. The idea of redemption becomes a lesson for Amir when he is a witness to the tragic sexual assault of his childhood friend, Hassan. As a bystander in the moment, Amir determines what is more important: saving the life of his friend or running away for the safety of himself. In the end, Amir decides to flee, resulting in Amir having to live with the guilt of leaving Hassan behind to be assaulted. Hosseini shows us how Amir constantly deals with the remorse of the incident, but does not attempt to redeem himself until later in his life when Hassan has died.

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The Kite Runner scrutinizes the whole scope of racism: blatant hatred, religious rationale of racism, nonviolent but still nasty racism, racism which coincides with charity and thoughtfulness, and internalized racism which reveals itself as self-loathing. Hassan is a Hazara, an ethnic group that the majority of Afghans (who are Pashtun) deem inferior, though Hosseini makes it coherent that Hassan is Amir’s equivalent and in numerous ways morally and intellectually superior. Despite racial tensions, the plot proposes, the very ethnicity that Pashtuns treat so poorly is closer to them than they may think- Amir finds out that Hassan, a member of the ethnic minority, is his half-brother. When Amir spots Assef violate Hassan in the alleyway, he dwells on if he really needs to save Hassan from the immediate danger because “He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?”

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Sacrifice, one the most prominent themes in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, clearly determines a person’s unconditional love and complete fidelity for another individual. Hosseini’s best-selling novel recounts the events of Amir’s life from childhood to adulthood. Deprived of his father’s approval and unsure of his relationship with Hassan, Amir commits treacherous acts which he later regrets and attempts to search for redemption. These distressing occurrences throughout his youth serve as an aid during his transition from a selfish child to an altruistic adult.

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He resists for Amir whom he loves with his whole heart. Amir witnesses this struggle, but he does nothing; he runs away since “he was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 77). Amir has always believed, deep down, that his father favored Hassan, a Hazara, the dirt of Afghan society, over him, his own son. Seeing Hassan reduced to that level of baseness is perversely satisfying for him.

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Amir is taught by Baba that “there is only one sin…theft” as he is indoctrinated by an exceedingly simplistic of sin. Hosseini portrays Hassan as “the all-sacrificing”, a model of morality and righteousness and a child who “never denied me (Amir) anything”. The authors emphasis on Hassan’s moral righteousness further emphasises Amir’s betrayal. Amir remarks at the event as “something I could stand up for” or “I could run.”, the brevity of the sentence reflecting the fragmentation of the protagonist’s mind. Amir is flawed, sinful greed dominates his conscience as he considers “Hassan was the price I had to pay” merely justifying “He was just a Hazara”, a thought the older narrator later laments “I was a coward”.

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