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Personal Integrity In The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini

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The Kite Runner Theme The theme of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is that you redeem yourself when you develop a strong sense of personal integrity because of Hassan’s incident, Amir’s moral standard, and Sohrab’s rescue from Amir. Amir’s quest for redemption is a significant idea and is basically the center of the novel. Firstly, Hassan’s incident sets the most of the plot for the rest of the novel. This happens after the kite-fighting tournament when Amir goes asks Hassan to get his blue kite after Amir’s victory, “ Blocking Hassan’s way out of the valley were three boys, the same three from the day on the hill, the day after Daoud Khan’s coup, when Hassan had saved us with his slingshot.[...]I opened my mouth, almost said something. …show more content…

But I didn’t. I just watched. Paralyzed.”(pg.76 & 78) Here, Hassan gets raped by Assef when he was trying to retrieve Amir’s blue kite. In this part of the novel, Amir shows his poor sense of personal integrity because he “just watched. Paralyzed” him. Amir should be trying to help Hassan like “the day after Daoud Khan’s coup, when Hassan had saved us with his slingshot.” This reveals his cowardice because he is unable to defend a loyal friend unlike his friend once did for him. Here, Amir starts his quest for redemption because he couldn’t hold the guilt inside him. Secondly, Amir achieves his moral standard to help start develop his sense of personal integrity. Amir overhears Baba talking to Rahim Khan and picks up this,“A boy who can’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up for anything.”(pg.24) When Amir overhears this quote, he uses this as his moral standard as something profitable for him to redeem himself and Hassan. This is a significant quotation that sets the moral tone throughout the novel. Lastly, Sohrab’s rescue from Amir redeems himself. Amir is fighting Assef to try to rescue Sohrab, “WHAT’S SO FUNNY?’ Assef bellowed. Another rib snapped, this time left lower. What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of

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