Themes

Redemption

“There is a way to be good again.” – Khaled Hosseini

          Redemption is probably one of the main central ideas depicted in “The Kite Runner”. Amir’s whole life has been filled with guilt and tragedies that he feels he is responsible for. His mother dies as soon as he was born and he blames himself for Baba’s sorrows. Amir searches to redeem himself to reduce some of his guilt for killing his mother and has a deep desire to earn Baba’s affection. However, this leads him to experience an even bigger sin when he allows Hassan to be raped by Assef for the blue kite; the key to Baba’s love. Unfortunately, Amir is unable to release some of his guilt when Hassan stayed loyal to Amir and refused to hit him with the pomegranate when asked to. Amir lives his life in horror and tremendous guilt after the incident in the ally, but when Rahim Kahn said to him, “there is way to be good again”, Amir is given the chance to redeem himself from his lifelong, heart wrenching guilt by saving Sohrab. Although, Amir is unable to stand up for himself and for others as a child, which caused tragic events in his life, he learns to protect those in need as an adult and finally redeems himself from his guilt.

Father and Son Relationship

“I have imagined Baba’s wrestling match countless times, even dreamed about it. And in those dreams, I can never tell Baba from the bear.” – Khaled Hosseini

         The relationship between Baba and Amir is a great impact to the story. Amir constantly feels no love and affection from Baba, and his desire for it caused unfortunate events to take place in his life. Amir has a deep admiration for Baba, but at the same time, he is somewhat afraid of Baba as if he is a “bear”. Moreover, Amir’s nature is different from what Baba expects from his son and Hassan seems to fill in the part of him that is missing. Despite Hassan’s true loyalty to Amir, Amir cannot help but feel envious of Hassan. He could not understand why his father was treating his servant and him equally. However, after Amir mature and grows old, he finds out the truth about Hassan being his half brother. This pieces together Amir’s misunderstanding of his father and understand why his father was who he was. Baba had always loved Amir, but he loved Amir in a different way due to the pains of unable to love his other son freely due to society. 

Warfare

“You couldn’t trust anyone in Kabul any more – for a fee or under threat, people told on each other, neighbor on neighbor, child on parent, brother on brother, servant on master, friend on friend.” – Khaled Hosseini

          War is a very terrible thing that took place in Afghanistan. It is what split apart Hassan and Amir forever and its corruption and cruelty ruins people’s lives and relationships. Amir’s peaceful memories of Kabul are clearly ruined when he returns to Kabul as an adult. Unfortunately, his long desire for redemption can no longer be fulfilled directly to Hassan due to the killing of Hassan because of war. Furthermore, even social structure is destructed. Baba, once a rich and high class man is pushed down from having almost everything, to almost nothing. People are forced to sacrifice things for other things, such as Baba, giving up Hassan, Ali, and everything he owns for the safety and well being of Amir. War takes away the peaceful childhood of children and fills them with horrors and fears like what happened to Sohrab. Indeed, there is no longer trust in the war ridden country, as “…people told on each other, neighbor on neighbor, child on parent, brother on brother, servant on master, friend on friend.” Clearly, a war is responsible for many of the crimes and wrong doings in this world.