Redemption In Khaled Hosseini's Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini’s “Kite Runner” brilliantly illustrates the story of a young boy named Amir going through his life and the troubles he carries. Redemption is a key theme throughout the book, of which Amir goes through the entire book trying to amend for the sins he committed as a child . This also brings out another theme that goes hand in hand with redemption which is forgiveness something that takes Amir a majority of the novel in order to fully understand. In order for Amir to come to terms what has happened in his past he must truly attempt to atone for his sins in order forgive himself.
Redemption is something that Amir craves to obtain he goes through a majority of the novel reflecting on what he did when he was just a child. The first opportunity of redemption comes with a phone call from his old friend Rahim. “He knew about Assef, the kite, the money, the watch with the lightning bolt hands. He had always known. ‘Come. There is a way to be good again,’ Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up”(192). Here the author is foreshadowing the upcoming events going to take place will be in Afghanistan where Amir goes to search for redemption and also a way to forgive himself, so he can move on without living in a shadow of guilt. If Rahim Khan knew all along what happened to Hassan and what Amir did why did he not relay any of this to Baba? The purpose of Hosseini was that he wanted to be able to focus on the ending of Baba and Amir’s life together in a happy and more connected way then they had lived throughout the first part of the book. In order to forgive himself he has to actually attempt at redeeming himself which comes with his newly known nephew Sohrab. “I want you to go to Kabul. I want you to bring Sohrab here, he said….. Why me?... I think we both …show more content…
Here Amir is looking for a chance to get Sohrab to enjoy life and feel free while not living in a shadow of the past as Amir did, also looking for a way to forgive himself by giving Sohrab something his father never truly had. “It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn’t make everything alright. It didn’t make anything alright. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird’s flight. But I’ll take it”(371). Amir has finally come to forgive himself for what he did in his childhood and is now working towards a brighter future with Sohrab. His redemption is yet to come as he states that it made nothing alright and uses a metaphor to compare the smile to a small leaf scattered in a wake of other leaves that represent the sins he has done in his life as well as the good. Showing that in his eyes he has a long way to go in order to truly redeem himself for what has happened, but that he has come to be able to forgive himself and move on from his past into the light of the world he lives in along with Sohrab.
The novel has shown hardships and overcomings through Amir and has given a connection between redemption and forgiveness and how they intertwine. Going through Amir’s life Hosseini shows how in order to achieve true forgiveness you must honestly attempt to atone for the sins that have been