The Kite Runner- Halfway Post

Kendra Wragg

December 3, 2013

The Kite Runner- By Khaled Hosseini

Halfway Post

2. One problem that Amir faces throughout his childhood is to win Baba’s (his father’s) praise, and to make him proud. During his life Amir doesn’t feel Baba is proud of him, as if he hasn’t been a good son. This is an ongoing problem for Amir as he desperately wants to feel loved by his father. . “He needs someone who …understands him, because God knows I don’t. But something about Amir troubles me in a way I can’t express. It’s like…if I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he was my son.” (Pg.24) This is so important to Amir that he does everything possible to get that. He puts Hassan in danger so that he can bring home the kite to Baba hoping that will finally make him proud of his son. “Then I saw Baba on our roof. He was standing on the edge, pumping both of his fists. Hollering and clapping. And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last.” (Pg.71) He lies to Baba, and makes it look like Hassan stole from Amir in hopes that Hassan and Ali will leave. That way Amir will have Baba all to himself “Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay to win Baba.” (Pg.82) I don’t have a personal connection to this problem faced by Amir, however it reminds me of the movie the Social Network. These two examples have similar problems faced by the main character because both Amir, and Mark Zuckerberg (The Social Network) both want something really badly. Amir wants the love of his father, and Mark wants to create a very successful social networking site. It becomes apparent through both of these stories that they are willing to step on others toes in order to get there. For Amir, Hassan is the “lamb he had to slay,” while for Mark the Winklevoss twins are the ones he had to slay by steeling their idea in order to achieve what he wanted.

4. One main theme that I am beginning to see emerge is the quest for redemption. Amir is not only trying to redeem himself for what he did to Hassan and the tremendous guilt he feels towards that, but he is also trying to redeem himself to Baba for feeling as though he isn’t a good enough son. Amir struggles to feel loved by Baba his whole childhood. He thinks Baba is mad at him for killing his mother during birth and doesn’t think he is living up to be the person Baba is. With Hassan, he feels guilty for not standing up for him the day he was raped, teasing him and not always being nice to him despite the fact that Hassan was like a saint to Amir. But ultimately sacrificing Hassan so that Amir could win Baba’s love.  “I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past caws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty six years.” (Pg.1) “I thought about something Rahim Khan said just before he hung up, almost as an afterthought. There is a way to be good again.” (Pg.2) Another movie/book where one of the themes is redemption, is “The Last Song.” This book displays this theme through the character of Ronnie. For years she ignores her dad’s letter’s after her parents divorce, and when she goes to visit him in the summer she treats him terribly. Near the end of the novel, her dad becomes terminally ill. Ronnie then feels tremendous guilt for severing the relationship with her dad, knowing in a short time he will be gone. She spends the rest of the time she has left rebuilding their relationship. These two novels both have a similar of redemption, because in The Kite Runner, Amir severs the relationship with Hassan by not standing up for him and treating him terribly. He then spends the rest of the novel trying to rid himself of the guilt he feels by rescuing Hassan’s orphaned son. In The Last Song, Ronnie spends the last few months she has with her dad making up for the past years that she would not speak to him in hopes of redeeming herself for how she treated her terminally ill father.