Redemption In The Kite Runner

Fitiwi Tsigeyohannes
Miss Tapper
May 11, 2014
ENG3UI
Journey to Redemption It is said, “at the cross God wrapped his heart in flesh and blood and let it be nailed t the cross for our redemption”(E. Stanley Jones). In Khaled Hosseini’s book The Kite Runner 2003, revolves around the fact that sin can transform into redemption. The novel starts by Amir foretelling us about his ultimate sin in that winter of 1975 when Hassan gets raped and Amir chose to do nothing. And he tells the reader he carried that guilt even in America, “... Looking back now, I realized I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” (Hosseini 1) As Amir retells the story of his life, he weighs each event against his sin, his betrayal of Hassan.
As we learn towards the novel 's end, Amir is not the only character who seeks for redemption. When characters sin they are given a chance at redemption. When Rahim Khan reveals the adultery between Baba and Sanuabar, we start to see why both this characters did what they did. Baba, Amir and Sanuabar’s desire to be good leads them to sin and finally look for redemption. Baba is the most significant person who demonstrates sin to redemption in the novel, since his whole life all he has been doing is redeeming himself. The character of Baba is deeply conflicted with an overwhelming sense of remorse for the sins of his past. The character of Amir powerfully illustrated Baba’s struggle as he said that, “Baba had wrestled bears his whole life” (Hosseini 183). Most religious people go to priests to confess their sins to be free from their past actions. The author lets the readers know that Baba is not a religious man, but he believes that theft is the biggest sin, and that every other sin is a variation of theft, “When you kill a man, you steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to fairness” (Hosseini 19). When Baba found out that Ali was not able to have kids, he went and slept with Sanaubar, “And now, fifteen years after I’d buried him, I was learning that Baba had been a thief. And a thief of the worst kind, because the things he’d stolen had been sacred: from me the right to know I had a brother, from Hassan his identity, and from Ali his honor. His nang. His namoos.”(Hosseini 237). Baba seeks his redemption by building an orphanage, always treating Hassan well, remembering his birthday, feeding the poor and finally standing up and protecting the woman in the truck.

Amir’s desire to be like Baba caused him to sin, and finally lead him to redemption.
When Amir saw Hassan getting raped, he felt like he had to be sacrificed like the lamb, “He moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. Saw the resignation in it. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb” (Hosseini 81). Amir also throws pomegranate at Hassan hoping that Hassan will hit him back, so his guilt can disappear. Instead, Hassan takes the pomegranate from Amir’s hand and smashes at his own head. When Amir’s plan did not fall through he decided to put the watch and money he received from his birthday under Hassan’s mattress. This caused Hassan and Ali to move out as well as caused Baba to cry and beg them to stay. Years after Amir moved to America, Rahim Khan called Amir and let him know there is a way to be good again. When Amir flew to Pakistan, Rahim Khan tells him that Hassan is his half-brother. During the years Amir and Hassan were separated, Hassan had started his own family and had boy named Sorhab. Amir feels like he has betrayed his own brother and had to redeem himself, he had to go to Kabul to get Sorhab. In order to get Sorhab Amir had to go through Assef. To get through Assef, Amir had to fight him. Assef lets the guards know that the winner of this fight would walk out free. Assef pulls out his brass knuckles and starts beating Amir, almost killing him. Ribs are being crushed. This is because after a long wait he finally tasted
redemption, “The harder I laughed, the harder he kicked me, punched me, scratched me…What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace” (Hosseini 303). When Sorhab sees that Amir was losing, he pulls out his slingshot and shoots Assef in the eye, giving Amir and Sorhab just enough time to escape. Amir wakes up in a hospital in Pakistan and finally decides to take Sorhab with him to America. The ending of the novel sums up Amir’s quest for redemption. Although it’s vague and keeps us asking for more what happens to his relationship with Sohrab years ahead, gives readers a sense that Amir will love Sohrab like his real son, because Sohrab is his only way to “be good again” (Hosseini 2). Amir tells us at the end of the novel that he got what he wanted, “It was only a smile, nothing more…But I’ll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting.” (Hosseini 391)

Five days after Hassan’s birth his mother, Sanaubar left.
Rahim Khan reveals to Amir that Ali was sterile, and that Baba fathered Hassan with Sanaubar. Amir starts to see why Sanaubar really left. Although the author does not tells us why Sanaubar left, we start to get ideas on why she left, maybe she left because if she stayed Ali would have known he was sterile and there would have been a big fight between Baba and Ali. When Sanaubar finally came back to redeem herself, Ali is dead and Hassan is married, “We lay her on the sofa and took off her burqa. Beneath it, we found a toothless women with stringy graying hair and sores on her arms. She looked like she had not eaten for days. But the worst of it by far was her face. Someone had taken a knife to it and… Amir jan, the slashes cut this was and that way. One of the cuts went from cheeckbone to hairline and it had not spared her left eye on the way. It was grotesque,” (Hosseini 221). When Sanaubar reveals to Hassan that she is his mother, he gets so furious that he runs up the hill where Hassan and Amir used to play. When Hassan finally comes back the next morning he forgives his mother and tells her that she was home now. To redeem herself Sanaubar picked tomatoes, trim the rosebushes, and talked with Hassan, catching up on all of those lost years. When Sorhab was born, he became the center of her existence, she sewed clothes for him, built him toys from scrap of wood, rags and dried grass. When he was sick, she was
always by his side, she stayed up all night with him and fasted for days, they were inseparable. When Sanaubar died, she looked calm and finally at peace, like she did not mind dying. She had felt like she had completed her redemption. That was why when she died, she looked like she was finally at peace and that she looked like she did not mind dying.

Baba, Amir, and Sanuabar tried to be good but as all humans they sin and they spend their entire lives looking for a way to redeem themselves. Even though these wonderful people sined, it is what they did to redeem themselves that really count in Gods eyes. The rescue of Sohrab, the sacrificial lamb and the blue kite represent redemption for Amir’s sins. Redemption is a main theme of the novel, and Khaled Hosseini uses the indicated symbols to tell the story of Baba, Amir and Sanuabar’s quest for redemption.

Works Cited
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Canada: Anchor Canada, 2003. Print.

Jones , Stanley E. Brain Quote, n.d. Web. 4 May 2014. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/estanleyj270449.html>.

"Betrayal and Redemption." CliffsNotes. Hougton Mifflin Harcourt, n.d. Web. 2 May 2014. <http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/k/the-kite-runner/critical-essays/themes-in-the-kite-runner>.