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Amir's Character Development in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

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Amir's Character Development in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
In the book The Kite Runner Hosseini uses characterization to characters the changes in Amir though out the text. In The Kite Runner the story is told by the protagonist Amir, Amir

In the text Amir changes when he’s finds out that his father Baba is diagnosed with Lung Cancer. This changes everything because Amir allows depend on Baba since he was a child. I know this because the author states, “ What about me, Baba? What am I supposed to do?........You’re twenty-two years old, Amir! A grown man! You....... What’s going to happen to you,you say? All those years, thats what I was trying to teach you, how to never have to ask that question.” This quote is significance because it shows when Amir pleads with Baba to try to take the medicine to kill the cancer cells, Baba states no. Amir question what is he suppose to do without Baba. Baba replies that this is what he has been trying to teach Amir his whole life. To Amir, it is clear for the first time why Baba has always treated him the way he has. He was preparing Amir to take care of himself and to know right from wrong. In other words, he was teaching Amir to be a man. To take up responsibility, independence and adulthood also requires Amir letting go of his childhood dependence on Baba making Amir become a man. At the end Amir marries Soraya and Baba dies proud of Amir.

Another way Amir changes through out the text is when an old friends from Afghanistan name Rahim Khan calls and tells Amir to come to Pakistan. The call Amir receives from Rahim Khan at the beginning of Chapter 14 is the same one Amir refers to in the Chapter 1 foreshadowing. When Amir gets off the phone with Rahim Khan he remember that Rhaim Khan says, “There is a way to be good again”. Amir than realizes that Rahim Khan knows everything that happened with Hassan, and in Rahim Khan comment to Amir that he knows of a way for Amir to be good again. This quote is significant because it shows that Amir still feels guilt for allowing Hassan to get raped. Amir implies that he’s going to see Rahim Khan in Pakistan not only because Rahim Khan is sick but also because, as Rahim Khan states, “There’s is a way to be good again” Amir hopes that there will finally be a way for him to redeem himself.

Lastly, another way Amir changes in the book is when he has to return to Kabul to find Sohrab Hassan son.

Return to kabul to save Sohrab.
Hassan’s death also marks a turning point in Amir’s quest for redemption. To Amir, the news of Hassan’s murder means not only that he has lost his friend forever, but also that he can never apologize to Hassan for allowing his rape and then lying about him stealing Amir’s birthday money. Making up for these actions was part of the reason he traveled to Pakistan in the first place. Initially, the story suggests that Amir will have to live with his guilt permanently, but Rahim Khan says one way remains for him to make amends. Amir can go to Kabul, find Sohrab, and bring him back to Pakistan where he can be taken care of. The request is not Rahim Khan’s alone. Hassan said in his letter to Amir that the most important thing for him was to survive so that Sohrab would not become an orphan. With Hassan and Farzana dead and Rahim Khan ill, Amir is perhaps the only person who can make sure Sohrab is not abandoned.
Hassan’s death also marks a turning point in Amir’s quest for redemption. To Amir, the news of Hassan’s murder means not only that he has lost his friend forever, but also that he can never apologize to Hassan for allowing his rape and then lying about him stealing Amir’s birthday money. Making up for these actions was part of the reason he traveled to Pakistan in the first place. Initially, the story suggests that Amir will have to live with his guilt permanently, but Rahim Khan says one way remains for him to make amends. Amir can go to Kabul, find Sohrab, and bring him back to Pakistan where he can be taken care of.Going to Kabul becomes a test of Amir’s honor, loyalty, and manhood. Amir is clearly afraid to go. To convince him, he brings up the conversation he once had with Baba, when Baba said he feared that Amir would not be able to stand up to anything as a man if he could not stand up for himself as a boy. Amir concedes that Baba may have been right. Then Rahim Khan reveals that Ali was not Hassan’s father, and implies that Hassan was, in fact, Baba’s child. Hassan and Amir, then, would be half-brothers, and Sohrab would be Amir’s nephew, obligating Amir further to find the boy. The dilemma brings together the tensions Amir has struggled with in the novel. By rescuing Sohrab, Amir can become the man that Baba always wanted him to be, and he can finally atone for the ways he failed Hassan as a friend.

In Conclusion,

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