The Aspacts of Life

Devin Wilson Kite Runner Practice Essay 06/11/07 In /Kite Runner/, by Khaled Hosseini, redemption plays a very strong part in the latter third of the book. Let's talk about how redemption plays a part, and let's discuss some examples of redemption.

Early in the book, Amir, after winning the kite fighting tournament, asks Hassan to run th other person's kite (chase after it, and hopefully retrieve it) for him. Hassan says, “For you, a thousand times over!” Later, Hassan doesn't come back when he's supposed to. Amir goes looking for him and finds him in an alley. He watches, afraid to do anything, while Assef and his gang of grunts beats Hassan with brass knuckles. Amir thinks Hassan didn't know he was there, but later realizes that he does. Wracked by guilt, Amir plants money and a watch under Hassan's bed in the servant's hut and gets them to move out. This has repercussions in the rest of the book. Later, when Amir grows older and finds Hassan, they're together for a while before Amir has to go back to America. Later, he finds out that Hassan was shot by the Taliban. Suffering from survivor's guilt, in addition to what he had before, is unbearable for Amir. He finds out that Hassan had a son, Sohrab,and goes to Afghanistan to try to find him. When he reaches the orphanage, he finds out that a Taliban official has taken Sohrab for whatever purpose, and goes to find him. Arranging a meeting with the official, Amir finds that it's Assef, the same person who beat Hassan up. Assef offers to give Sohrab back to Amir if he can beat Assef in a fight. Amir gets critically injured, and Sohrab saves his life by shooting out Assef's eye with a slingshot.

Amir was motivated to redeem himself, and the only way he could to that was to adopt Sohrab. After fighting a long legal battle, Amir and his wife gain custody of Sohrab. Trying to make him happy is a long struggle, but eventually they go to a kite-fighting tournament together and Amir lets Sohrab use the kite. Sohrab...