Manya Kapur
Ms. Kanika Dang
English Thesis Paper
9th November 2015
You Before Me
The act of sacrifice can significantly be highlighted in the Islamic religion, where one must resign from the materialistic realm to re-establish the divine connection with Allah. Khaled Hosseini has masterfully crafted The Kite Runner and made numerous references to slaughter of the lamb as a portrayal of one’s love towards God. Hannah Remillard postulates, “Sacrifice is one of the purest and most selfless ways to love someone.” Thus, it becomes clear that love is just an endless cycle of sacrifices we make, be it for our partner, family, friends or even our nation.
Sacrifice can have several definitions but the author believes that in its purest form, sacrifice is surrendering oneself for the sake of someone else. A mother loses sleep to comfort her child, a father skips his meals to earn a livelihood for his family, a friend gives up on his/her dreams and ambitions just so they can see someone they love fulfill theirs, and so on. One cannot simply escape making sacrifices if they truly care. An analogous relationship is witnessed in The Kite Runner.
Hassan’s very first word ‘Amir’ gives the readers a glimpse of Hassan’s loyalty towards the protagonist. Some might say Hassan
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Sacrifice is circular as it moves from one character to another [Nicole Crosta, 2013]. It is a major emblem of love and affection as well as plays a crucial role in portraying one’s devotion. From the grand sacrifices in Shakespeare’s plays to the little things we give up for the people we utterly love, from dying for a greater cause to merely losing for something important, all are momentous examples of sacrifice. There is no ‘love’ without the will to relinquish and there is no ‘sacrifice’ without passion. Be it love for a person, an object, a position or the quench for power; all come at the hefty price of
Most of the time sacrifices are driven by some type of love, strength or necessity. It is done by giving up something good for the better, whether for yourself or, another person. In the real world, the idea of selfless sacrifice is shown through the soldiers that fight for their country. Not only does this idea appear in the real world, but also the literary world where one character’s act of courage to make a sacrifice becomes an important variable in the novel. One such novel is Veronica Roth’s Allegiant.
When sacrifices are made, a goal is accomplished by the person sacrificing the object and a life is affected by the sacrifice made which could be seen in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, and Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor. In The Lottery, a community of people stand with their traditions even though it harms their society. In The Veldt, the children sacrifice someone they should love and replace it by a room they love more. In Good Country People, Hulga, a mid age, deformed, and independent, woman sacrifices something she needs for a person she thinks she knows.
Aarushi Bellani Ms. Kanika Dang Thesis Paper 8th November 2015 Portrayal of Sin & Atonement in Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’ “Our English word “atonement” explains well the theology behind such restoration, for it suggests that God and humanity can relationally be “at one” again,” suggests Ed Stetzer in his blog on Christianity & the Old Testament. This concept of sin and atonement can be seen to occur frequently in the novel ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini through the course of the protagonist, Amir’s life.
Despite having the trappings of a hard sci-fi adventure story, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is a deeply humanist and spiritual film exploring philosophical and emotional issues in a complex way (Dean, 2015). Central to this are the concepts of bravery and sacrifice: as Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and the rest of his crew take great risks and travel vast distances to save humanity from a dying Earth, the characters all display varying aspects of the human condition, especially related to these very big, complex ideas. As the characters of Interstellar go about their mission and weigh the risks and rewards of each and every decision, they each find their own definitions of bravery and sacrifice, weighing their own personal decisions against
In the science novel, The Martian, the author Andy Weir explores the theme of sacrifice and the sacrifices a human must make to stay alive. The story is about a Mark Watney, an astronaut who is on a space mission on Mars and gets separated from the rest of the team and is stranded on the barren planet for many months. For Mark’s sake, he is stranded alone and chooses to make sacrifices that he doesn’t need to make. “It wasn't your fault ... In your position I would have done the same thing.
On the other hand, his Hazara servant and childhood friend, Hassan, has always remained loyal to Amir even with his atrocious betrayal. His knowledge of Amir’s deceitful actions never impeded him from ultimately sacrificing himself for Amir’s benefit. Hassan’s compassionate and forgiving attitude added to Amir’s guilt, making it nearly impossible for him to forgive himself. Hassan’s tremendous sacrifice highlights his kind hearted nature, which eventually positively impacts Amir’s life turning him into a more appreciative person. Growing up together led Amir and Hassan to
In The Road, a novel by Cormac McCarthy, published in 2006, a man and a boy struggle to survive as they travel south on the road in the post-apocalyptic world. On their journey to the coast, the man and the boy encounter the remains of an ashen world, ravaged by men who are willing to kill to survive. Among the death and destruction of the post-apocalyptic world, McCarthy illustrates how the man gains resilience from the spirituality he finds within his son, which proves how in a world void of official religion, belief in something greater than yourself creates the strength necessary to survive. The man sees his son as a spiritual figure that provides him the strength to survive in the desolate world.
Draft 1 – Sacrifice to Redemtion “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” , said once by Dr. Seuss. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Amir had gone through difficulties and has had to choose from the three choices. If Hassan didn’t sacrifice himself, Amir wouldn’t have become a better person.
Can Amir be good again… ? This is the exact question that has been continuously running through my mind with each turn of the page in The Kite Runner, though before hand, I found myself wondering what aspects, qualities, or characteristics have ever defined Amir as “good” in the first place? Furthermore, by the term, “good”, do our minds think of “good” as in only benefiting thyself, or benefiting those of the world around us? Before one can determine if Amir can be good again, these questions that linger in the depths of our mind must be brought to the surface of reality and acknowledged. As far as the reader knows, Hassan and Amir both started life at the same place, but when one analyzes the characters personal characteristics, they foil each other in such a way that Hassan seems to have a sole purpose of exposing the flaws of Amir throughout their childhood, leaving an everlasting impact on the reader's thoughts, in which it is hard for the reader to detect the good in Amir when there seems to be so much bad.
In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini expresses a main idea about loyalty. Throughout the story, the author shows us that a way to be good is to be loyal to family and friends. First of all, because Hassan showed his loyalties lay with Amir, he shows he is honorable. For example, when Hassan and Amir were confronted by Assef and his friends, Hassan protected Amir by threatening Assef with his slingshot. Then Assef backed off and ran away.
It is delineated by natural inclination that people sympathize with others who undergo an unfortunate circumstance or event. However, this type of behavior is dependent on how one uses prior knowledge to judge whether someone is worthy of sympathy. The idea that people tend to draw conclusions based on other people’s decisions and character remains as one of the many underlying themes in literature. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, Amir’s character is considered worthy of sympathy by his redeeming actions towards the end of the novel, his good intentions toward Baba, and his ability to empathize with others.
Redemption in Family and Friends Holding a terrible truth that can lead to so much guilt can tear a person apart. Not only from themselves, but from others too. In the novel, The Kite Runner, there are many characters with many secrets that the others don’t know about. Two characters of many others are Amir and Rahim Khan.
Regret was a big part of the characters in Kite Runner lives. With regret comes the desire to redeem themselves and makeup for their mistakes. Pursuing redemption isn’t always an easy thing. You have to sometimes do things that you may not be accustomed to doing, admitting you were wrong. You could have done something, said something, or not said something to deceive someone.
Each and every day, people make sacrifices for their loved ones. Maybe they choose to get up earlier in order to do chores or miss an important meeting so that they would have time for each other. There is no greater example of sacrifices for loved ones than in Romeo and Juliet however, where Shakespeare explores two star-crossed lovers, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, who come from two families that have a deep hatred towards each other. The pair meet each other, secretly wed, and then in order to stay together, commit suicide out of despair and distress. Through Romeo and Juliet’s acts of defiance and sacrifice, Shakespeare proves that while hate has the power to destroy and kill, love is even more powerful as it has the power to transform.
In the fiction novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, happiness and redemption are two separate occurrences in life that are achieved in different ways. A critic of the novel writes that The Kite Runner is a “thoughtful book in which redemption and happiness are not necessarily the same thing,” The happiness and redeeming qualities of the characters in the novel are not one and the same; sometimes, one is without the other. This leads to a disconnection between these two aspects. When Amir was a young boy in Afghanistan, the one thing that brought him true happiness was when Baba was proud of him.