Redemption In The Kite Runner

“Amir looks down the alley where Assef and the others have Hassan pinned to the ground without his pants.”( Hosseini 72) The Kite Runner is the first novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul whose closest friend is Hassan. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet military intervention, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime according to Chicago Tribune. At the time Khaled Hosseini wrote The Kite Runner, childhood was seen as a less capable and less advanced version of adulthood. With this

In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini utilizes Amir’s actions in order to portray how shame leads to moral degradation due to one’s search for redemption.

To redeem himself to Baba, Amir thinks he must win the kite-tournament and bring Baba the losing kite, this sets the rest of the novel in motion. As an overwhelming desire to win seizes Amir, he then begins to think that it will gain Baba’s approval. While in the contest Amir peeks at the roof too see if Baba is watching and approving of his performance. This event leads to the biggest guilt trip of Amir’s life, “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” (Hossein 1) The first couple of chapters lay out the basic facts and over all plot of the story, including major characters, their backgrounds, and relationships between each other. These chapters exhibit Amir, our narrator looking back on his childhood years in Afghanistan. Looking back on the past is a recurring motif

This guilt is what digs so deep into the story, including Amir’s journey to Kabul to find Sohrab and his confrontation with Assef. The theme is introduced primarily through Baba, who worries that if Amir can’t stand up for himself as a young boy, he may not be able to stand up for what is right as an adult. He says this because he sees Hassan standing up for Amir in fights while Amir appears to back down. “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.” Baba explains one of Amir’s major character flaws in this quote here which would be —his cowardice—and the reader knows ever since the begging of the story Baba shows how much value he places in owning up to your mistake and standing up for what is right. Baba is unwilling to praise Amir, mostly because he fills like Amir’s lack of courage and self-confidence to stand up for himself, leaves Amir constantly craving for Baba’s approval. But an unfortunate event occurs over Amir’s desire to please Baba, which will later cause him to let Assef rape Hassan. Also, another major factor of Amir’s character that occurs is when he must decide whether to return to Kabul to save Sohrab. “My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.” (Hosseini p. 289) This quotation explains the meeting with Assef as he is searching for Shohrab chapter