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Guilt And Redemption In 'The Kite Runner'

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“Sad stories make good books”, a continuously disheartening tale, the novel ‘The Kite Runner’ truly embodies this idea. Following the life of a young Afghani boy Amir, the reader is spared no details of what it is truly like to be raised in a country full of religious inequality and political warfare. Although sad, this novel is a very good read and portrays some very relevant and striking messages. One idea in this novel that I found interesting was the message around an individual’s guilt and redemption. Through the ongoing guilt felt by the character Amir due to his childhood actions, as well as the guilt felt by Baba from his previous wrongdoings, we (the reader) are able to see how an individual can be haunted by such guilt for the duration …show more content…

Baba’s remaining life was then driven by a search for redemption, constantly doing good for those around him in hopes to conceal and minimise his guilt in relation to hiding his sons identity. A relevant quote is “I think that everything he did, feeding the poor, giving money to friends in need, it was all a way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.” In extension of this idea the book also says “a man with no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.” I think this quote is also relevant to this idea of redemption as it is saying how it is ok to ‘suffer’ or feel guilt for our mistakes as if we didn’t it would be almost inhuman. Baba’s actions therefore taught me the lesson of how guilt can lead us to doing good things, allowing “bad people to become good people” in their pursuit for redemption. The only thing I felt conflicted about within this idea is whether or not an individual such as Baba should be able to redeem themselves via alternative roots (such as feeding the poor) over the confronting the real situation (telling his son, Hassan the truth).Although having this internal conflict, from this idea I learnt the general message that everyone makes mistakes and that really it is not an individual’s wrong doings we should

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