Amir’s Sacrifices for Baba’s Love

Amir’s Sacrifices for Baba’s Love

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Submitted to: Ms. Murtha
Course: ENG3U1
Submitted on: May 2, 2013

Amir’s Sacrifices for Baba’s Love

Children often feel the need to get constant approval from their parents. No matter how indifferent they may seem, they still take deep satisfaction in making their parents proud. In the novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir is no different than any other child. He has a constant urge to be praised and recognized by his father. This desire may perhaps be even greater than most children due to Baba’s aloofness towards Amir. Amir goes to extreme lengths to please his father, sacrificing many important things along the way. To please Baba, Amir changes his personality, gives up his own peace and sanity, and sacrifices Hassan. Believing these costs to be worth Baba’s love, Amir easily surrenders them. However, it is not until after he has already given up everything does he come to realize that he has lost much more than he has gained.
When Amir is first introduced as a young boy, he appears to be soft hearted and quite innocent. When bullies happen to attack him and Hassan he is shown to never fight back. He allows Hassan to fight for him instead of choosing to stand up for himself. This trait gets noticed by Baba who expresses his concerns to Rahim Khan. Baba believes that “a boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” (Hosseini 24). Rahim Khan argues with Baba, trying to make him understand that Amir just does not have it in himself to be mean to others. When Amir overhears this conversation, something in him changes. It is at this point that Amir subconsciously starts to mould his personality into the personality that he thinks Baba would prefer more. He believes that being meaner and more aggressive is the way that Baba wants him to be. This is why Amir convinces himself that “Rahim Khan had been wrong about the mean streak thing” (Hosseini 25). Amir’s initial kindness slowly starts to dissipate from that point, which can be seen during a conversation with Hassan where he “[snaps] at him, [tells] him to mind his own business” (Hosseini 25). Amir has never been mean to Hassan before this point, as he is usually on good terms with him. The rudeness towards Hassan is a result of Amir’s changing personality for the sake of Baba’s approval. The kind and soft hearted Amir makes less of an appearance, instead being replaced by the rude and arrogant side of him.
Amir is always trying to do everything he can to be noticed by Baba in a good light. He always has it in mind to find out different things he can do to please his father. As a result, Amir is never truly at peace with himself, with who is he is, and with who he is not. He wants to be loved by Baba so desperately “because the truth of it was, [he] always felt like Baba hated [him] a little” (Hosseini 20). Amir becomes unhealthily obsessed with receiving praise from his father. One can say that Amir becomes a little mentally unstable because of this deep need. The night Afghanistan is first invaded by the Russians, many bullets are fired potentially putting everyone in danger. However, when Baba hugs Amir as a result of his concern for his safety, “for a brief insane moment, [Amir] was glad about what happened that night” (Hosseini 19). He was glad for the invasion and the gunshots all because it resulted in him getting a worried hug from Baba. Amir does not seem to be able to think logically when it comes to Baba; the deprivation of warm from Baba has made him lose a bit of his sanity. It seems that everything in Amir’s life revolves around trying to please Baba. Even the kite tournament, which is initially supposed to be a joyous and fun game, turns into something much more serious. The tournament, for Amir, becomes the ultimate way to gain love from Baba. The game is no longer relaxing and fun as it had been in the previous years; it becomes something that brings him anxiety and panic, because he is weighing a lot on the outcome of the tournament. The tournament resulted in being Amir’s “one chance to become someone who was looked at, not see, not listened to, not heard” (Hosseini 69). He wanted Baba to be the one looking at him and acknowledging him, resulting in Amir giving up his peace and sanity just for recognition from Baba.
However, the most notable sacrifice Amir has made is Hassan. Hassan and Amir are literally brothers. Even if neither of them knows this fact, they still treat each other as brothers in many ways as they are growing up. However, Amir always seems to be jealous of Hassan because he believes that Baba has more love for him. He can never seem to understand why Baba is shown to have so much interest and approval in a Hazara servant rather than his actual son. Amir’s envy runs so deep that when he told Baba about Hassan being sick he “couldn’t help hating the way his [Baba’s] brow furrowed with worry” (Hosseini 87); Amir gets jealous over such a simple concern. After winning the kite tournament, Amir counts on Hassan to run the last kite for him. Although Amir knows that Baba is already pleased with him for winning the tournament, he wants to go to further lengths to gain praise from him by getting the last kite. When Hassan is cornered by Assef and raped, Amir only hides nearby and watches. Amir does not intervene to save Hassan because he is not willing to risk losing the kite and in the process, Baba’s praise. In that moment he believed that “nothing is free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price [he] had to pay, the lamb [he] had to slay to win Baba” (Hosseini 82). Amir is willing to give up Hassan and not fight for him, even though Hassan has fought for Amir countless times in the past, just to get the acknowledgment he deeply desires from Baba. To readers this may look like an extreme sacrifice but it seems that Amir has justified his actions to himself, even if only for a little while. It cannot be said that Amir is not affected and disturbed by the abuse Hassan faced. However, when Amir comes home after winning the tournament, he comes to a hero’s welcome, one he has dreamed of constantly. Finally getting what he always wanted, Amir finds it easy for a while to ignore his unlawful actions. Amir’s favourite part was when “Baba held [him] close to him, rocking him back and forth [because] in his arms, [he] forgot what [he’d] done. And that was good” (Hosseini 84). A simple act of getting a hug from Baba made Amir forget about such a terrible thing which only proves how deprived he was of Baba’s warmth and love.
Believing that gaining Baba’s love is of utmost importance Amir deliberately gives up what he can just for it. He is ignorant to the true weight of the sacrifices he is making and the things he is turning his back on. This include Amir changing his personality, abandoning Hassan, and losing his own peace and sanity. Making sacrifices like this is the extreme length Amir goes to, just to please Baba. Amir is a perfect example of a child with a deep urge to be recognized as someone important by their parent. The desire for this can be so great that some children may sometimes go to severe lengths to gain it. This is why it is important that a child is unconditionally given constant approval and love by their parents, or else they will find their own childish ways to gain it.