...Kite Runner: Redemption Amir’s Atonement When you do wrong, you are plagued with guilt. Guilt can be sinful; it stains your conscience and ruins your morals. Although these actions are wrongful, they can be atoned to through sacrifice or purification. People find piece of mind in doing something that makes up for the cause of guilt and this is especially eminent in Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner. Although there are many ways to advocate to wrongful doing, through the main character Amir’s actions sacrifice was proven to be the most liberating act. Throughout the book, the main character, Amir, seeks redemption for his “…past of unatoned sins” (Hosseini, p. 1). These feelings of guilt arise at the beginning of his life, when his mother, Baba’s love, dies giving birth to him. From that point on, Amir strives to redeem himself because he feels he is responsible for her death: “Because truth of it was, I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I?” (p.20). It is this guilt that Amir carries throughout most of his childhood and for which he tries to atone to with Baba’s love and affection: “Maybe he’d call me Amir Jan like Rahim Khan did. And maybe, just maybe, I would finally be pardoned for killing my mother” (p. 60). Amir competes against Hassan for the approval...
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...Hector Farinas ENC1102 The Kite Runner. |Sacrifice is a major theme in this novel, which is demonstrated through the various relationships | |existing between Amir and his family. Amir feels guilt throughout the story towards those who have made sacrifices for him, such as those | |sacrifices of Hassan and Baba. Also, his character development throughout the novel allows him to be able to make sacrifices for those | |around him after realizing the nature of selflessness. With this intense moral realization, he is finally able to put his lifelong guilt to| |rest. | | | |In the beginning of the story, Amir is a egoistic twelve-year old living in Afghanistan, whose goal in life is nothing more than to gain | |the approval and affection of his father (Baba). His wealthy yet detached father has shown him mainly distance and indifference for Amir's | |entire life. Amir spends the entirety of his free time with his lifelong companion, Hassan, who cares for him with seemingly entire | |selflessness and affection. Amir is unable to return this affection, at least on the surface, frequently teasing Hassan and treating him | |rather badly. At this...
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...Loyalty defines a person’s great devotion to another. These two works of literature integrated this theme of loyalty in both The Kite Runner and Beowulf. Beowulf from the epic poem Beowulf emphasizes the importance of loyalty. Beowulf is extremely loyal, as perceived in his commitment to his king Hygelac, to his entertainer Hrothgar, to his own loyal men, such as Wiglaf, and to his people. In contrast, Hassan from the “Kite Runner” shows loyalty for his friend Amir. It is in Hassan’s letter, years after their separation, that puts Amir on the way to redemption. And so, Hassan saves Amir twice, previously as a boy and later in the future, even after his own death. In both The Kite Runner and Beowulf, the authors express loyalty from friendship and from commitment....
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...Inspired by the plights of Afghan refugees, Khaled Hosseini writes The Kite Runner in an attempt to give hope to his readers. Throughout history, authors have passed down the torch of inspiration from writer to writer in order to embolden and empower the reader. One such bearer is Nobel laureate William Faulkner....
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...Redemption Takes Over Mistakes are made by everyone, some are more extreme than others but they all have their benefits and consequences. In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, redemption is a major theme. Redemption occurs in the characters lives through personal sacrifice and this also benefits others. Hassan, Baba and Amir are all characters in the book that go through self-sacrifice and benefit others to try and redeem themselves. Although they all go through this, they happen in different ways. First of all Hassan is a character in the novel who achieves redemption through personal sacrifice such as his rape event, going back to Baba’s house with Rahim Khan and spiritually when Sohrab hits Assef in the eye, while ultimately benefitting others. Hassan redeems himself spiritually because when Hassan and Amir were younger he tries to do the same thing as Sohrab, but didn’t actually hit Assef. Sohrab technically finishes the job for Hassan by hitting Assef with his slingshot. Another event that helps show this is that they both aim for the left eye. Secondly, Hassan goes through personal sacrifice when he decides to leave his home and lifestyle to go back to Baba’s house with his family and Rahim Khan. “Then he ask[s] me about your father. When I told him, Hassan burie[s] his face in his hands and br[eaks] into tears. He wept like a child for the rest of that night.”(207). “Agha sahib was like my second father… God give him peace.”(208). In these two...
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...Book:- Our book is A Thousan Splendid Suns, a 2007 novel written by an Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, after his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini has mentioned that the novel was a “mother-daughter story rather than to The Kite Runner, which was a “father-son story”. It uses some of the theme used in The Kite Runner but has its focus primarily on all the female characters and how they live in the Afghan soceity. On 22nd May 2007, the book was released and received favorable prepublication reviews which led it to become the number one on New York Times bestseller for around fifteen weeks. It sold over one million copies just during its first week. Characters:- Mariam, born in Heart, 1959. She was boren an ethnic...
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...The Kite Runner: Literary Analysis In a perfect world, friendship and true friendship would be synonymous. Unfortunately, this is not the case. For children, friendship can be simplified to enjoying eachother’s company and playing with one another, whereas true friendship may be taking the blame so the other can avoid the cruel and unusual punishment of timeout. No matter the age, true friendship exists where selflessness thrives, meaning one must seek out another’s highest good before even considering their own. In The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, Amir’s childhood friendship with Hassan is one plagued with underlying jealousy and manipulation, but Amir’s transformation from selfish child to selfless adult helps him to overcome his own self-loathing and become the true friend that Hassan deserved all along. From the beginning of the novel all the way through his death, Hassan maintains an unchanging good-heartedness that shines through him and his actions. His loyalty, selflessness, and forgiving nature are just what make him a true friend to Amir. Hassan’s loyalty to Amir is made known early in the novel in one of Amir’s flashbacks. The two sit up in a tree, causing mischief, when Ali comes to reprimand them. Amir recalls “[Hassan] never told on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbor’s dog, was always my idea” (4). This flashback tells us a lot about the boys’ relationship. First and foremost, we see that Hassan’s...
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...Research Paper on “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini Introduction: The international best-selling novel, The Kite Runner was first published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, written by the Afghan-born American novelist and physician, Khaled Hosseini. He was born into a Shia family in Kabul, and later on in his life when the family moved to Paris because of his father’s occupation, Hosseini’s family was unable to return to Kabul due to the bloody Saur Revolution; hence they had to seek political asylum in the United States. Being as young as he was, roughly 11 years of age, the actions of his home country must have left an impression on him. It is such a great read because among many other themes such as betrayal, redemption, bullying, inhumanities of revolution, discrimination, loyalty, hypocrisy, horrors of rapes etc. the main focus of this story is of a man who is haunted by his past demons. We see in some of the opening lines of the novel, “I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975… 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.” These opening lines gets the ball rolling on what is to come and to be expected from the story, of possibly an aged man who is looking back at the past and justifying how it has made him the way that he is to date. The setting vividly takes place in the disorderly country of Kabul, Afghanistan...
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...e Runner begins with our thus-far nameless protagonist explaining that the past cannot be forgotten. A single moment in time defined him and has been affecting him for the last twenty-six years. This moment was in 1975 when he was twelve years old and hid near a crumbling alleyway in his hometown of Kabul, Afghanistan. When the protagonist's friend, Rahim Khan, calls him out of the blue, he knows that his past sins are coming back to haunt him even in the new life he has built in San Francisco. He remembers Hassan, whom he calls "the harelipped kite runner," saying "For you, a thousand times over." Rahim's words also echo in his head, "There is a way to be good again." These two phrases will become focal points for the rest of the novel and our protagonist's story. Chapter Two The protagonist remembers sitting in trees with Hassan when they were boys and annoying the neighbors. Any mischief they perpetrated was the protagonist's idea, but even when Hassan's father, Ali, scolded Hassan, he never told on the protagonist. Hassan's father was a servant to the protagonist's father, Baba and lived in a small servant's house on his property. Baba's house was widely considered the most beautiful one in Kabul. There Baba held large dinner parties and entertained friends, including Rahim Khan, in his smoking room. Though the protagonist was often surrounded by adults, he never knew his mother because she died in childbirth. Hassan never knew his mother, either, because she eloped with...
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...Kite Runner vs. Poetry Key quotes: “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” – Baba says this to Rahim Khan as a comment on the behaviour of Amir. Through this he identifies Amir’s greatest flaw: cowardice. It is this trait that leaves him desperately craving Baba’s love, and ultimately leads to be letting Assef rape Hassan. It also foreshadows Amir’s return to Kabul in search of Sohrab; the test of Amir’s character also tests whether Baba’s statement is true. “Huddled together in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise, none of us had any notion that a way of life had ended” – This sentence appears towards the start of chapter five and indicates the fall of the monarchy and the descent of Kabul (and indeed Afghanistan) into political instability. The peaceful world Amir knows, made possible by Baba’s wealth, turns into one full of violence and uncertainty. It ultimately leads to Baba and Amir fleeing the country. “There is a way to be good again” – Rahim Khan says this to Amir over the phone when trying to encourage him to come to Pakistan and in the dialogue this appears like an afterthought. It reveals that Rahim Khan knows the truth about what Amir did to Hassan. It also ties into the theme of redemption, allowing the reader to believe that by returning to the Middle East, Amir will be given the opportunity to break the cycle of guilt he is trapped in. “My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but...
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...Nothing Gold Can Stay Guilt. Cancerous almost, spreading through your body, manipulating your thoughts, working as a deterrent against any type of long term vivacity. As seen in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner one of the main themes is seeking redemption. Hosseini uses the motif of selflessness to show that in order to seek redemption and earn it, you must have the self-motivation deeper than other people pushing you (illustrated by Rahim Khan motivating Amir with his phone call). For most of the book, Amir has little self-confidence to achieve redeeming himself. It was an incredibly afflictive situation for Amir or any person to go through. Selflessness does not have a determined end or beginning; it happens when you’ve given your best...
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...In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the main character, Amir, is in a constant struggle between morality and immorality. The relationship between Amir and Hassan shows dominance on Amir’s part, which is obvious when Amir constantly puts blame on Hassan, when he left his friend to be abused by other men, and when he delivers the harshest blow by attempting to frame both Hassan and his father for stealing in order to get rid of Hassan. This obvious mistreatment towards his friend indicates both his lack of ethics and his selfishness, therefore causing ill feelings towards him. Whereas characters with similar personalities as Amir would become instantly disliked by all, his intense desire to win his father’s affection and approval evoke a sense of both sympathy and understanding. Furthermore, later in the novel, Amir’s apparent guilt and attempts at atonement make up, to a certain extent, for all of the wrongs he did in the past. The novel opens with the introduction of the relationship between Amir and Hassan. Right from the very beginning, Amir’s establishes the class distinction between them by stating that both Hassan and his father are the servants of Baba, Amir’s father; thus, Hassan is automatically ranked “below” Amir. Further showing his believed superiority, Amir refers to Hassan as a “Hazara,” though he doesn’t mean in a derogatory way until later in the novel. However, Amir does not really use that against him, as he seems his as more of a brother or friend...
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...know this week we are exploring the theme oppression. This week’s book is A thousand splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, author of the bestseller the Kite runner. I have with me, Ms. Kathryn Stockett, Reclaimed author of one for the most insightful books, The Help. Welcome Kathryn, we happy to have you with us. Kathryn Stockett: Thank you for having me Host: Kathryn could you tell those who are listening, what oppression means to you, and if you don’t mind give us a summary of the book A thousand Splendid Suns Kathryn Stockett: Oppression to me means dominating somebody (or a group of people), through cruelty, or harshness. One is oppressive if he/she is the source of worry stress or trouble to others. A thousand splendid suns is at one an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith and the salvation to be found in love....
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...The Kite Runner is a novel by Afghan-American author, Khaled Hosseini. This powerful book was banned in Afghanistan due to its controversial view on the difference and treatment between Pashtuns and Hazaras. The protagonist, Amir is a wealthy Pashtun who grew up with Hazara servants. As Amir grew older, he realized the many differences between him and his servants. For example, it is mandatory for Pashtuns must obey the Pashtunwali code, which is used to follow in the eyes of Pashtunwali. These rules have been set for over 5000 years and include core tenets of self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, love, forgiveness, and tolerance of all. Amir is a true Pashtun because he takes the responsibility to pursue the core tenets of the...
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...ELEMENT OF PAKISTANI CULTURE The society and culture of Pakistan comprises numerous diverse cultures and ethnic groups: the Punjabis, Kashmiris, Sindhis in east, Muhajirs, Makrani in the south; Baloch and Pashtun in the west; and the ancient Dardic, Wakhi, and Burushocommunities in the north. These Pakistani cultures have been greatly influenced by many of the surrounding countries' cultures.The past few decades have seen emergence of a middle class in cities such asKarachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Hyderabad, Quetta, Faisalabad, Sukkur, Peshawar,Sialkot, Abbottabad, and Multan. Rural areas of Pakistan are regarded as more conservative, and are dominated by regional tribal customs dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. Literature Pakistani literature originates from when Pakistan gained its nationhood as a sovereign state in 1947. The common and shared tradition of Urdu literature and English literature of South Asia was inherited by the new state. Over a period of time, a body of literature unique to Pakistan has emerged in nearly all major Pakistani languages, including Urdu, English, Punjabi, Pashto,Seraiki, Balochi, and Sindhi. Poetry Poetry is a highly respected art and profession in Pakistan. The enthusiasm for poetry exists at a regional level as well, with nearly all of Pakistan's provincial languages continuing the legacy. The independence of the country in 1947 and establishment of Urdu as the national language, poetry is written in that language as well...
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