A Thousand Splendid Suns

Everybody has things that they are guilty of, some things bigger than others. Amir, the protagonist of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, suffers from the guilt of all he has done too. The first argument is that Amir is a selfish person. The next argument is Amir feels he has to compete with Hassan for Baba’s love. The last argument is that Amir always wants to feel smarter than Hassan. As Amir seeks redemption for his cruelty to Hassan, saving Sohrab is not enough to atone for all his past…

another orphanage. Amir comes to peace with himself and his past with an act of generosity. At last, Sohrab's journey to the United States was a challenge and Amir was willing to sacrifice and experience this change. Amir tells Sohrab, “for you, a thousand times over” (371). Amir concludes his journey of guilt with offering and coming through with accepting Sohrab into his family, which comes from his generous thoughts, actions, and intentions. To conclude, Amir has an extensive…

The Path to Being a Modern Hero Redemption is of release for guilt. Someone is seeking forgiveness for a wrong that they have done. On the other hand heroism is defined as displaying or committing a courageous action. These two things are very different. In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner a story of redemption and heroism is told through Amir’s point of view. The story follows Amir’s progression from a self-centered child to a contemporary hero through acts of selflessness. Amir demonstrates…

The Kite Runner storyline is told as a series of flashbacks from the perspective of the main character Amir reflecting on his life up until he receives a life altering phone call. Amir is a Sunni Muslim who is born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan. Baba, his father, is a businessman. They live with two Hazara Shia Muslim servants, Ali and his son Hassan. Amir and Hassan grow up as best friends. A traumatic childhood event that impacts Amir occurs when he witnesses Hassan being raped by the…

In 1979 the Soviets invaded Afghanistan (US Department of State 1). They took control of the country and its people before proceeding to retreat, leaving the country more broken than before and allowing open opportunity for the Taliban to take over. Characters Amir and Hassan face this invasion into their lives in the Khaled Hosseini’s narrative. Through the characters and setting of his novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini creates a story that is allegorical to the political situation of…

The theme of guilt and redemption is ever-present in everyday life. Humans are notorious for committing acts that they wish to undo, and often struggle to achieve redemption for their wrongdoings to absolve themselves of their guilt. When someone is wrought with guilt, this feeling can take over their mind and can drastically affect the ways in which they live their lives. This idea is best exhibited in the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. More specifically, through two of the…

Throughout this novel, Khaled Hosseini uses a significant amount of references to eyes in order to characterize individuals in this story. In the Kite Runner, eyes represent the personality and feelings of the characters. With the huge emphasis that was placed on eyes, Hosseini asserts that the eyes are a universal symbol of true emotion and feeling for any person. This is demonstrated when Amir says, “people say eyes are the windows to the soul” (pg 8) which is used to show that although Ali…

The Kite Runner The novel, The Kite Runner, is a story about a boy, Amir, and the experiences he has within his life. He faces many struggles in his childhood that his friend Hassan helps him get through. Afghanistan, the country where the two boys live, is also going through hardships. In the beginning of Amir’s life Russia invades Afghanistan and later the Taliban takes over. Throughout the story, there are two main themes, love and war. Hassan is Amir’s childhood friend and also one of…

In the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, Amir is faced with a choice; to help out a friend in need, or to walk away. This choice ends up affecting his entire life, in ways that he never imagined. This is a defining moment of the book because it not only affects Amir’s life short term, but impacts the choices he makes later in the novel. While at the time Amir may have had no idea what the consequences of his choice would be, he made the decision in a blink of an eye, which changed his…

would have wanted. All of this because of his deep connection to Hassan, as proven by their relationship as foils. The proof comes in the final pages of the book when Amir repeats what Hassan said to him before he was raped by Assef, “for you, a thousand times over”, to his son Sohrab. This represents his coming to terms with his actions and finally stepping into the shoes Hassan left for…