Accountability and other definite actions are the key to gaining redemption from your past mistakes. In his novel The Kite Runner, Khalid Hosseini reveals this idea through Baba and the actions he made till his death. Now under the same circumstances as Amir, Baba made an effort to be more understanding towards Amir. However, after Baba’s death, Amir learns that Baba has been lying about his relations with Hassan, his brother. Baba was not able to take accountability for what he did damaging his sons. Because of Khalid Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the mending of Baba’s relationship with Amir only redeemed how he acted towards Amir in his childhood; his lie has not been acknowledged nor redeemed.
Baba’s selfishness behind his decision
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Baba had an immense amount of guilt from his lie, making him do good for the community to compensate for his mistakes. That is why Rahim Kahn writes that “guilt leads to good” (302). However; this never rectifies Baba from the secret he keeps. His sons still don’t know the truth about their father no matter what good acts Baba completed. It is because of his ignorance that he dies unredeemed. When Baba later starts to fix his relationship with Amir it has the same impact as the good acts. While he genuinely tries to understand Amir more, he also sees it as an adequate excuse to not confess. Baba dies at peace with himself, but dies “[betraying the people who give their [life] for [him]” (226). His attempt to be good was for nothing because he never paid for the actions he committed. All the good actions and fatherly behavior did was quell the guilt burdening Baba. Implicating that Baba’s motive for his service to others was not to amend his wrong doings, but to feel free from any liability. Because Baba only cared about how his actions made him feel he failed to fix the effects of his …show more content…
In Kabul Baba tries to lighten up his guilt by doing multiple good Samaritan acts giving him less time to connect with Amir, and making Amir feel not enough. Even when Baba had moments with Amir to connect, he would seem disinterested making Amir wish to “open [his] veins and drain [Baba’s] cursed blood from [his] body” (32). This causes their relationship to become strained, making Amir take irrational actions in order to gain Baba’s favor. Amir shows this in the alleyway as he chooses to not interfere out of fear of Baba’s reaction to the outcome. This makes Baba directly at fault for the decision Amir makes. If he had made an effort to connect with his sons and face his past, Amir might have made a completely different decision at the alleyway. When in America, Amir stood up to Baba because the last time he listened he had “damned himself” (135). This reveals most of Amir’s motivations center around Baba’s expectations and that it leads to unsound decisions. Because of those expectations, Amir frames Hassan, making both Ali and Hassan leave. Through Baba, Hosseini shows how a single mistake that affects someone momentarily can cause hardships to many in the future. That is why Baba’s lack of transparency will indirectly be the cause for Hassan's death. If he had been true to himself and others, many of the hardships faced by Hassan and Amir could
We get to know a lot about Amir, a young boy, and his father, Baba Throughout the story we see Baba’s gradual change in character, turning from the cold distant father he was to the loving and caring father Amir wanted him to be. Baba fills the hole inside himself that was dug by guilt in Afghanistan by learning to move on from his sins and build a relationship with his son in America. The loss of his wife, Sofia Akrami, created the hole. After her death and Amir’s birth, he felt such despair that he had an affair with his best friend, Ali’s, wife. This only created more guilt, as he impregnated her with Hassan.
When Amir learned of what his Baba did, he felt a kinship between them that he never knew they had: “As it turned out, Baba and I were more alike than I’d ever known. We had both betrayed people that would have given their lives for us” (226). This kinship and similarity only goes so far, though. As stated before, the way they reacted after the event that caused them so much guilt differed greatly, and showed the true character of each person. Amir grew up a very troubled child with many character flaws, cowardice not being the least among them.
Hosseini explains how Baba’s relationship with Hassan led Amir to have negative feelings towards his father. Amir grew jealous of Hassan’s physical connection with his father and this led to feelings of jealousy. Amir loved his father and at the same time, hated him for his actions. Amir spent his childhood trying to prove himself to his father. After betraying Hassan, Amir tried to justify his actions remarking, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (Hosseini 65).
By not sharing common interests, Amir thinks that he is a disappointment to Baba. The way that Baba acts towards Amir only confirms in his mind that Baba does not like him, even hates him maybe, which further damages their already rocky relationship. Baba’s withholding of the truth continually gets in the way of his and Amir’s relationship, because Baba feels that he cannot love Amir fully due to his past. He keeps his secrets to make it easier for himself, as it is more difficult to face the truth. While Baba’s attempts to forget the past may solve his problems temporarily, it only makes it more difficult for Amir because he cannot understand why Baba is the way he is.
He thought that telling the truth about what had happened was the weak thing to which wasn’t a possibility for him because he was a Pashtun, they weren’t seen as “weak”or “emotional”. Because of this, he still feels lonely, even with all of Baba’s attention on him. He uses a simile to compare his empty feelings to an “unkempt pool”, meaning he feels out of order, not good, and unfulfilled. Therefore, we can tell that Baba’s relationship with Amir needs to be repaired because Amir can’t seem to be cheered up or have any good thoughts while spending time with
Both Amir and Baba proved similar in their acts of courage, their pursuit for passion and their decisions to betray a loved one. Amir and Baba proved to be similar not only in their good choices but also in the bad choices of betraying someone. The comparison should not be made between Amir as a child and Baba as a man. It is only right to compare Amir after he has progressed further into life and truly defined himself. “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.
In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, Hosseini portrays the dark downfall of Afghanistan through the eyes of a young Pashtun boy named Amir. The Kite runner brings the audience alongside Amir as he grows up, experiencing many life-changing events, ultimately rewriting his own unique character. Hosseini chooses to highlight the concept of betrayal and loyalty within his novel with characters such as Amir, for his actions of betrayal, Baba for his double-crossing history, and Hassan for his loyalty. By giving these characters such lively traits, Hosseini helps bring life to the story and helps the audience understand what is going through the mind of the characters with the consequences of their actions. To start, Amir’s development of
In his mind, he believes that Baba will send Ali and Hassan away, and, as a result, he will finally gain some peace. To Amir’s surprise, Hassan confesses to stealing his gifts without hesitation symbolizing “Hassan’s final sacrifice for [him]” (105). At that moment, Amir realizes that Hassan knew of his betrayal, which added to his already guilty conscience. Hassan could have easily told Baba the truth and he would have believed him because”[everyone] knew that Hassan never lied”, which, in turn, would ruin Amir’s relationship with his father (105). He probably knew that Amir was unworthy of his sacrifice, that he was the “snake in the grass, the monster in the lake”, but he lied for Amir’s own benefit
The Slaughterers of Amir’s Emotional Health: Baba and Hassan Everyone is born the same. People shape people. Amir did not become a coward because he lacked. The blame is to put on those that surrounded him. Hassan and Baba structured Amir’s life to bring out Amir’s negative features.
Some might point out the hypocrisy of Baba saying that theft is one of the worst things a man can do, but then stealing the pride of Ali by getting his wife pregnant and later stealing Amir’s and Hassan’s right to know they were brothers. After Amir learned this information, he could not view Baba the same way and was rightfully angry. Despite his anger, Amir was in a way able to forgive his father’s actions after reading Rahim Khan’s letter and seeing all the positive impacts he left in the world. Amir ponders about his own actions and compares them to his father’s; “But Baba had found a way to create good out of his remorse. What had I done, other than take my guilt out on the very same people I had betrayed”(Hosseini 303).
Although Baba lied to protect himself, he ended up stealing Amir’s and Hassan’s knowledge that they were brothers. Baba’s lies forced Amir to make decisions he would later regret and caused him terrible suffering because Amir thought he was fully guilty of driving out Hassan and Ali. Lies sometimes come out to be harmless, but in most cases they create many more problems than they were intended to
In his novel, The Kite Runner, the author, Khaled Hosseini explores the themes of accountability and redemption through the experiences of his characters. Ultimately showing us that choosing to run away instead of taking accountability comes back in a full circle, and redemption can only be attained by taking that step of accountability. This is shown to us through many characters but Amir and Baba, are prime examples. In the beginning, Baba is portrayed as a man who lives by his principles, a man who preaches the importance of honesty, integrity, and owning up to one's mistakes.
Therefore I think Hassan knew he had let Amir know that he would always find a friend in Kabul. In doing that Hassan showed Amir that forgiving is important and never too late. The last character to influence Amir was Baba because he shaped Amir into the man he is. In the letter that Rahim Khan left for Amir when he arrived back in Pakistan in the hospital, he reads, “When he saw you , he saw himself.”
Amir first realizes the depth of his cowardice as he watches Assef rape Hassan in the alley and thinks, “I could step in into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever happened to me. Or I could run” (Hosseini 77). He has an epiphany that he could choose to be brave and selfless like Hassan and step up to Assef regardless of any physical consequences. However, despite his understanding that the noble choice would be to interfere and stop Assef, Amir is unable to act on it because his fear of Assef overwhelms him. The guilt that consumes Amir in the weeks following Hassan’s rape indicates that he understands the extent of his selfish behavior and needs to resolve it before he can forgive himself.
Schoolwork Helper believes that, "His guilt became so great that he feels he was actually responsible for Hassan's death" (Remorse Leads to Redemption, Schoolwork Helper). Hosseini, in The Kite Runner, states how Amir has learned that burying the past is not possible as it always finds a way to rise up again (page 1, chapter 1). Amir's guilt of his sin, in a same fashion, rose up again, whenever he did anything which provided him with a sense of fulfilment. According to Niraja Saraswat, "Amir's “unatoned sins”, as they are described in the novel's opening chapter, have plagued his conscience and cast an oppressive shadow over his joys and triumphs" (Niraja Saraswat, IJIMS). Li Cunxin, in his blog, writes that at the end of the story, it is learned by the readers that Baba turned out to be a thief who stole the truth from Amir and Hassan.