Forgiveness In The Kite Runner

To Be Good Again In 1963 in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, two boys’ lives are twisted together in an ugly truth. A rich merchant boy and his servant grow up to become great friends. But time passes for these boys much too quickly, leaving one to witness a horrible deed that can never be undone. Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, demonstrates how one terrible ordeal can intertwine two lives indefinitely through a story of guilt, betrayal, and forgiveness. Amir, the son of a wealthy merchant, Baba, lives in a lavish house with Hassan, and his father, Ali the servants. Kites fly high in the city of Kabul one fateful day, a victory for Amir but also a sacrifice, on that day he gains approval from his father, but he also sees Hassan, …show more content…
Rahim Khan, a father figure and friend of Baba’s, calls and summons Amir to Pakistan many years later saying, “There is a way to be good again” (Hosseini.2) One of the many themes Khaled Hosseini writes about in his novel is forgiveness, the idea that one’s wrong doing may someday be acquitted in the …show more content…
Ever since Amir witnesses Hassan being raped, he lives with his guilt every day having to face it and most times not being able to. The scene at the pomegranate tree shows Amir’s need for forgiveness; he not only wanted Hassan to punish him to admit that Amir did something bad, but also to be forgiven. The author writes, “I hit him with another pomegranate, in the shoulder this time. The juice splattered his face. ‘Hit me back!’ I spat. ‘Hit me back, goddamn you!’ I wished he would. I wished he’d finally give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I’d finally sleep at night. Maybe then things could return to how they used to be between us” (92). Amir wishes to be able to tell others what he had done, or rather hadn’t done, to be given the punishment he deserved, to provide justice for Hassan. His chance for peace and forgiveness comes when Rahim Khan calls saying, “There is a way to be good