Connor Wallis
The novel The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hossieni tells the story of Amir, who betrays his half-brother Hassan at the age of twelve. Twenty-six years later his father’s old friend, Rahim Khan, phones him and sends him on a quest for redemption, in which he has to rescue Hassan’s son Sohrab; who was taken to an orphanage after Hassan was killed by the Taliban. I think that the main theme of the book is redemption, and that Hossieni believes that we can become better people in our lifetimes. I will investigate this statement by looking closely at and analysing the actions of the characters Amir, Baba, and Assef.

Hosseini believes that we can become better people in our lifetimes. At the age of 12, Amir watches a boy, Hassan, who would give his life for him, get raped by the neighbourhood bully Assef. “I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t. I just watched” This observation is entirely true; the rest of his life would have turned out differently. He spent the next 26 years dwelling on this incident, and he wanted to forgive himself for what he had done. Hossieni’s purpose behind this event is to convey the theme of redemption and forgiveness by essentially recreating the same incident 26 years later, where Amir fights Assef so he can take Sohrab, back to America with him. He ends up taking a beating from Assef, which causes him to forgive himself, “I don’t know at what point I started laughing, but I did. It hurt to laugh… what was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace… I remembered the day on the hill… the he’d taken the pomegranate from my hand, crushed it… Are you satisfied now? He’d hissed… but I felt healed” Amir finally forgives himself for the terrible mistake he made 26 years earlier. Hossieni is trying to say that we need to