the kite runner essay

One of the central themes of the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, is whether Amir truly redeemed himself for what he did. First of all, I think what he did to Hassan was terrible. Not helping his friend, and half brother, which he would find out later, when he is getting raped, is a terrible and cowardice act. He should have at least told someone what had happened, or had fought back, rather than avoiding the situation all together. Did he honestly think that this event would not hurt his conscience greatly? Anyway, before I rant on too much about Amir's mistakes as a young kid, let's get back on topic. Did Amir really redeem himself? In the beginning, Amir continued to make further mistakes, pushing away his problems by putting his money under Hassan's bed, making it seem like he stole the money. He then moves to America with Baba. He thinks moving will help him erase his past; he can make a new life for himself. He becomes a writer and then gets married, but he cannot have a child and is still haunted by the incident. The two main issues in his life are the fact that he cannot have a kid and he is still remorseful for what he did to Hassan. Then, he gets a call from Rahim Khan, Baba's friend, and he says that there is an oppotunity for him to redeem himself. He then tells him that Hassan has been killed, because he is a Hazara, but there still is an opportunity for Amir to redeem himself. This means that Amir can never directly apologize to Hassan for what he did to him. But there is still an opportunity for him. He can save Hassan's son, Sohrab, from being abused as a orphan. Amir then learns how terrible Afghanistan has become. He displayed a lot of courage by going into a dangerous Kabul to find Sohrab. Amir confronts the official who has Sohrab, and it happens to be Assef. This means that he can fight back against the culprit of the previous act and save Sohrab. He fights Assef and Sohrab saves him by shooting a slingshot at Assef.
Now the debate begins. Did Amir do enough to redeem himself?
I think he did not redeem himself from ignoring Hassan getting raped because it is such a sick, cowardice act, is something that rarely, if ever, can be redeemed. He chose to try harder for his father's affection rather than help out his friend who was being raped. Amir did do a good thing by helping Sohrab, but originally he bailed to America to start a new life. He tried to push away his problems rather than address them. I think in the end that Amir did the best he could, but he was too late as he pushed his problems away for way too long so that he could apologize to Hassan for all of the terrible things he has done. Although my opinion would not matter to Amir, if he feels that he has redeemed himself, then good for him. If I was in his situation, I would constantly feel as if I am not doing enough to atone for what I did. He should not spend his life dwelling on what he did, and I feel as though he did good things to atone for what he did, but I feel like he did not do enough.