Essay on Guilt and Redemption in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

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Guilt and Redemption

What is Guilt?

Guilt is the overwhelming feeling of remorse that one experiences after committing a sin.

What is Redemption?

Redemption is compensating for one’s sins through actions that relieves one from guilt.

Thesis

When making choices that causes one to feel guilt, one tries to purge their guilt through the act of redemption. Hosseini exhibits this through the characters of Sanaubar, Baba and Amir.

Sanaubar’s Guilt and Redemption

Sanaubar elopes with a group of singers and dancers when Hassan was less than a week old. She also knew about the sin she committed when she slept with Baba and conceived Hassan. Eventually, Sanaubar returns to Kabul to seek forgiveness from Hassan.

“I have
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“ Said the soldier wanted a half hour with the lady in the back of the truck… ‘I want you to ask this man….where is his shame..Tell him I’ll take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place”(Hosseini, 115-116)—When Baba, Amir and other refugees are travelling to Pakistan in a vehicle, the pull up to a checkpoint. At the checkpoint, they encounter a Russian soldier who wishes to sexually assault the women with them. Baba being courageous decides to stand up for the women by offering the Russian soldier to kill him. We also know that Baba committed the sin of sleeping with Sanaubar. Because he knows that he stole Ali’s honour and what he did was wrong, he is trying to prevent another man’s honour being stolen from an another man sleeping with his wife as well.

Amir’s Guilt and Redemption

Amir teases Hassan in many occurrences and doesn’t do anything when Hassan is being raped. He also makes Hassan leave his house and Kabul all together. Later on, when Amir has matured as a character, he goes back to Kabul from America and brings back Hassan’s son, who is an orphan now, and decides to raise him as his own.

“There is a way to be good again.’’(Hosseini, 2)- As we know, Rahim Khan knows about Hassan’s rape and is telling Amir that he can redeem himself for what he had done in his childhood.

“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

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