The Truth of Redemption Redemption is a complex thing and the prospect of actually reaching it often hangs delicately between feasible and unobtainable for some people. Many seek to find redemption after they 've wronged someone but few people understand exactly how redemption can actually be gained. A quest for redemption is an underlying conflict in Khaled Hosseini 's novel, The Kite Runner, in which the character Amir discovers many truths in his life about what exactly redemption can be and how windows to achieve it can come and go with time and circumstance. One truth of redemption that Amir learns is that it often cannot be gained simply by punishing oneself for what they did, nor by experiencing the same wrongful action they let happen
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Amir didn 't realize this until he received a call from his close friend Rahim Khan telling him, “There is a way to be good again, Amir” (192). Rahim Khan calls Amir to Afghanistan and explains to him that Hassan had been killed by the Taliban a few months prior, and although Amir and Hassan hadn 't spoken for years, Rahim explains that Hassan had written Amir a letter a few months prior to his death. In the letter Hassan talks of how the Afghanistan of their youth “is long dead” and he reminiscences warmly about their days playing and reading under the pomegranate tree when they were young, but after all of this Hassan ends the letter with something slightly unexpected: Forgiveness (217). Hassan tells Amir, “there is an old faithful friend waiting for you” (218). Here Amir learns the truth that forgiveness doesn 't equate to redemption in all cases. Though Hassan doesn 't hold anything against Amir for his wrong doings of the past, Amir has not yet made things right and therefore has not redeemed himself in his mind and still feels guilty. Amir also learns the bleak truth that sometimes the person you need to make things right with to be redeemed can leave your world forever, just as Hassan tragically did at the end of a smoking
Amir didn 't realize this until he received a call from his close friend Rahim Khan telling him, “There is a way to be good again, Amir” (192). Rahim Khan calls Amir to Afghanistan and explains to him that Hassan had been killed by the Taliban a few months prior, and although Amir and Hassan hadn 't spoken for years, Rahim explains that Hassan had written Amir a letter a few months prior to his death. In the letter Hassan talks of how the Afghanistan of their youth “is long dead” and he reminiscences warmly about their days playing and reading under the pomegranate tree when they were young, but after all of this Hassan ends the letter with something slightly unexpected: Forgiveness (217). Hassan tells Amir, “there is an old faithful friend waiting for you” (218). Here Amir learns the truth that forgiveness doesn 't equate to redemption in all cases. Though Hassan doesn 't hold anything against Amir for his wrong doings of the past, Amir has not yet made things right and therefore has not redeemed himself in his mind and still feels guilty. Amir also learns the bleak truth that sometimes the person you need to make things right with to be redeemed can leave your world forever, just as Hassan tragically did at the end of a smoking