The Kite Runner Shows Us That We Can Never Escape Our Past. Discuss
“The Kite Runner shows that we can never escape our past. Discuss”
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In ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini, we are shown through the characters of Amir, Soraya and Sohrab that we cannot necessarily escape our past but we can confront our past mistakes, forgive ourselves and others and move on with out lives. Amir struggles for self-forgiveness and therefore feels like he cannot escape the guilt and shame of past mistakes. On the other hand, Soraya chooses to confront her behaviour and accept what happened. Lastly, Sohrab struggles to remember how happy he was before his parents were massacred and misses his old life terribly, in his case, he doesn’t want to escape his past but feels it is slipping away. Each character deals with their history and Hosseini shows that we cannot forget our past, so we must learn to live with it.
Amir struggles to deal with the guilt of his past mistakes. He cannot forgive himself and so he, therefore, cannot move on. When Amir and Baba fled for America, Amir was carrying a lot of guilt with him; he failed to intervene when Hassan was assaulted in the alleyway and he framed Hassan with theft, ultimately ruining a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. For Amir, “America was different… Some place with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.” He thought that America would be a place where he could forget about all his mistakes. However, he failed to forgive himself, as Baba would remind him of Hassan. Given this inability to forgive himself he feels he needs to be physically punished by others to redeem himself. We are shown the strain of such guilt through the incident between Hassan and Amir at the pomegranate tree following Hassan’s rape. It is also demonstrated when Amir returns to Kabul to retrieve Sohrab and he is attacked by Assef, his childhood bully. He says, “My Body was broken… but I felt healed.” For Amir, returning to Kabul was a place to provide an opportunity
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In ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini, we are shown through the characters of Amir, Soraya and Sohrab that we cannot necessarily escape our past but we can confront our past mistakes, forgive ourselves and others and move on with out lives. Amir struggles for self-forgiveness and therefore feels like he cannot escape the guilt and shame of past mistakes. On the other hand, Soraya chooses to confront her behaviour and accept what happened. Lastly, Sohrab struggles to remember how happy he was before his parents were massacred and misses his old life terribly, in his case, he doesn’t want to escape his past but feels it is slipping away. Each character deals with their history and Hosseini shows that we cannot forget our past, so we must learn to live with it.
Amir struggles to deal with the guilt of his past mistakes. He cannot forgive himself and so he, therefore, cannot move on. When Amir and Baba fled for America, Amir was carrying a lot of guilt with him; he failed to intervene when Hassan was assaulted in the alleyway and he framed Hassan with theft, ultimately ruining a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. For Amir, “America was different… Some place with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.” He thought that America would be a place where he could forget about all his mistakes. However, he failed to forgive himself, as Baba would remind him of Hassan. Given this inability to forgive himself he feels he needs to be physically punished by others to redeem himself. We are shown the strain of such guilt through the incident between Hassan and Amir at the pomegranate tree following Hassan’s rape. It is also demonstrated when Amir returns to Kabul to retrieve Sohrab and he is attacked by Assef, his childhood bully. He says, “My Body was broken… but I felt healed.” For Amir, returning to Kabul was a place to provide an opportunity