Atonement In The Kite Runner

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Rhonda Sharp Jillian Daly English 50 6 December 2007 My Fathers Son Throughout the novel The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini, Hosseini explores the issues of atonement. Baba a wealthy man and his son Amir lived in a beautiful home in Afghanistan while their servants Ali and Hassan lived in a mud hut. Amir’s mother died giving birth to him and Hassans mother ran off with traveling singers and dancers. Baba and Ali had grown up together. Ali was like family although Ali was Baba’s servant. Amir and Hassan had fed from the same breast. Amir had nothing in common with his father Baba and he was always looking for his acceptance. In Afghanistan, it was a winter tradition to hold a kite-fighting tournament and Amir being twelve years…show more content…
Baba had been a thief, he not only stole from Amir, he stole from Ali and Hassan. Hassan was Baba’s true son, underprivileged, uninitiated, and sacred. Amir is tired of all the lies; he has carried around the guilt from the sin’s he committed as a child. Finding out that Hassan was his half brother, was hard for him knowing what all he had done. Even though Sohrab is a Hazara decent, he is Amir’s nephew and he will be treated as family. Amir has embraced the truth and can move forward feeling free of his guilt. He does not want Sohrab to grow up like he had done in some ways, trying to gain acceptance from the people closest to him. Amir gives Sohrab an identity so people don’t look at him as if he were an object. The name Sohrab comes from a Persian hero who was mortally wounded by a great warrior Rostam, before finding out that he was his long lost son. Hassan would cry every time Amir would read him the book and wonder, why? Maybe Amir finally realizes that the character Sohrab reminded Hassan of Amir who longed for Baba’s love. In a way Hassan named his son after Amir. Amir knows he missed the chance to make things right with Hassan, but it’s not to late with his son Sohrab. By confessing Baba’s sin and giving Sohrab an identity, Amir had begun to atone for his childhood…show more content…
A child is taught how to do things by their parents, and the people they look up to. They are taught how to speak, think, and act. On page 226 Amir had said, “like father, like son….Baba and I were more alike than I’d ever known.” He learned his ways from his Baba, without even knowing Baba’s sin. I believe that the cultural environment that Amir was brought up in played a major part in his actions against Hassan. Amir had treated Hassan as lower class because it was acceptable in Afghanistan culture to treat a Hazzara like dirt. After living in the United States and returning to Afghanistan, Amir saw things differently. Seeing the young children dirty and hungry in Afghanistan, he relized he grew up spoiled. Amir felt remorseful and recalled the time he had framed Hassan for stealing. Seeing the children with hardly anything, Amir put money under their mattress. He had grown up not just physically, but mentally as well. He became a changed man, and had accepted all his wrong doings. He even began to kneel and pray, and believe in a
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