The Kite Runner is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini that revolves around the friendship of Amir, the son of a rich Pashtun, and Hassan, the son of a poor Hazara. The story also focuses on Amir’s guilt after witnessing an act of violence against Hassan that he does nothing about and his path to redemption following this event. Though the novel covers many themes, the most prevalent one is that searching for redemption plays a major role in the rest of one’s life. This is shown multiple times throughout the story, both in the narrative and in literary devices such as irony and metaphors. Firstly, the theme of redemption majorly affecting one’s life is expressed through irony during Hassan’s rape. Amir feels as if he has failed his father because …show more content…
The largest of these is the metaphor of the lamb. After he runs from Hassan’s rape scene, Amir reflects “...Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it…”(Hosseini 68) Amir recognizes the sacrifice that Hassan has made for him and immediately regrets his decision to leave Hassan. This metaphor appears again in chapter 22 when Hassan’s son, Sohrab, risks his life to protect Amir’s. He unknowingly has continued the loyalty his father showed Amir and has become the lamb and, if Amir hadn’t been searching for redemption, he would have never returned to Afghanistan in the first place. Another metaphor lies in Hassan’s cleft lip. This deformity symbolises the separation between Amir and Hassan. This resolves itself in chapter 23 when Amir suffers a split lip which reflects his satisfaction in redemption though he still is going to take care of Sohrab which is the opposite of what he did when Hassan and him were still children and Amir made fun of Hassan’s inability to read. In Amir’s mind his taking in of Sohrab is his redeeming himself to