17th April 2020 — Alfie Baldwin
Analysis: Kite Runner
- Amir feels healed from the fight with Assef as it has lifted a great burden off of his chest. From the start of the book Amir treated Hassan like his follower or lower than him. He used to beat him around and Hassan was the one who would always stick up for him. When Hassan gets attacked in the alleyway Amir does nothing to stop it and just sits there watching it go down. The guilt of him doing nothing follows him throughout the book until he comes face to face with Assef. Amir gets the beating from Assef that he believes makes up for leaving Hassan on his own. If Amir has intervened he would’ve got a beating from Assef and so getting beat up all those years later lifts the guilt off his chest.
- Amir believes he can redeem himself to Baba by being the boy he wanted him to be. When he wins the kite flying contest he thinks that he has gone and redeemed himself and finally become the boy Baba wanted him to be. Though things aren’t all good as with his victory comes a big loss. He loses his friendship with Hassan and he eventually leaves their family. If Amir hadn’t tried so hard to be the boy Baba wanted him to be he would’ve kept his friendship with Hassan.
- Amir is reluctant to follow Rahim Khan’s request to go back to his home village at first as the village holds lots of bad memories and he doesn’t want to be reminded of the guilt that he has held for 26 years. I think he decides in the end to accept Rahim Khan’s request because, eventhough Baba is dead, he still wants to redeem himself to him and undo the sins he has committed by saving Sohrab.
- I think that Khaled Hosseini is trying to warn us about doing things we will regret. The worst thing you can do for yourself is doing something as a child that you will regret for the rest of your life. He demonstrates that to overcome this guilt there will be lots of trials and tribulations to overcome to finally reach redemption. We should all think about this and realise that we should think about the long run and what our decisions will change in the future.
