People do things; sometimes bad sometimes good. The result of our actions is not always fixable, we don’t always get a second chance to change the outcomes of our behaviors. In today’s world mistakes happen even it costs lives and relationships. Survivor’s guilt is one of the most painful process that human can experience. Being sorry is a far worse punishment than being dead, everybody dies, but very few people ever feel truly sorry for the bad things they have done.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a novel based on different themes throughout the story. The Kite Runner is a hunt of redemption chased by people who is scared of facing the reality. There are many characters who are looking for forgiveness in the story. Baba and Amir are the role figures come forward in the reader’s view. These two characters are carrying similar personalities because of their common purpose in their life which is redemption. “When he saw you, he saw himself, and his guilt… your father like you, was a tortured soul” (Rahim Khan, 301).
Baba spends his life on helping the poor by building an orphanage, feeding people on the streets. He was hoping to redeem himself before he passes away from this world. Baba changed the future of his family when he decided to hide the fact that Hassan is his son. His honor didn’t let him reveal the truth that he is ashamed of. From the beginning of the story, he was trying to grow Amir as a “real man” who stands up for himself and also for somebody else when it is needed. Like he stood up for a woman who was about to get raped “Haven’t I taught you anything?” (Baba, 116) and also while he was dying, Amir asked what he is going to do without his father? Baba responded: “All those years that’s what I was try.
.he people who would have given their lives for us”(Amir, 226). Rahim Khan is the key character in the novel because he led Amir into the path of realization and forgiveness. He was like a second father for Amir, his knowledge about Baba’s secret was making it easy for him to understand Amir. “I know how hard your father was on you when you were growing up, I saw you suffered and yearned for his affections and my heart bled for you (Rahim Khan, 301). Eventually, both characters find peace in their life, they learned that there is a way to be good again if they strive for the important values in life that gives the real meaning of redemption.
“A true redemption is when the guilt leads to good” (Rahim Khan, 302). If you dedicate yourself to a commitment like these characters, you have already become one of the good people who worth be loved thousand times over.
