Notions of sins and their corresponding atonement have permeated throughout Khaled Hosseini's incisive narrative The Kite Runner as a major theme, where in the novel, the protagonist Amir's sin towards his father Baba and his best friend Hassan, as well as Baba's sin towards his best friend Ali are respectively revealed, and their attempts at redemption have cost them dearly. a decidedly high price. Sins, along with the resulting punishments and atonements, intertwine with each other to form an eternal karmic cycle of morality. Within this cycle, it is true, most of the sacrifices of Amir and Baba for their remedies are highly beneficial as they have alleviated their inner torments and recovered their moral conscience, while a certain proportion of the sacrifices are beyond below dignity because they violate the original intentions of atonement. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The moral cycle begins in the older generation, between Baba and Ali, who are Amir's father and Hassan's nominal father, respectively. Due to Baba's selfish desire, he once had an affair with Ali's wife and gave birth to Hassan. To maintain his nang and namoos as a renowned figure, his hypocrisy made him a thief who detests more, and stripped Hassan of his identity, of Ali's honor. To atone for his sin towards Ali and Hassan, he makes a huge effort to keep them in his family. He treats Ali as a close friend with equal identity, despite their disparity in social hierarchy, and tries by all means to restore the affinity with Hassan that a father and son should possess. When Ali decided to leave with Hassan because of Hassan's mental problem, Amir saw Baba do something I had never seen him do before: he cried. The truncated two-word sentence, he shouted, underlines not only the rarity of Baba's crying, but also his affection and gratitude for the existence of Ali and Hassan in his family, because only if they stay with him can he atone for the his delinquency. He tells them “please” in pain, in supplication, in fear, the repetitive phrase with the anaphora again underlines Baba's desperation for their removal and his mental struggle for his atonement. The fact that Baba is unwilling to let Ali and Hassan leave for a time shows that he considers his compensation to them more than worthy as it pacifies his sense of sin and helps him achieve a mentally peaceful state. Furthermore, after Hassan learned of Baba's death, he wore black for the next forty days, where the numerical diction of forty days highlights Hassan's respect and desire for Baba. He signs that Agha Sahib was like my second father, without knowing the truth, he still considers Baba as his father, this indicates that Baba's efforts finally won his son's affection and affinity, which again proves a time that is worth atoning for. however, the story is dedicated to describing Amir's painful atonement for not having defended Hassan when he was in danger, but instead having expelled him from his family. Although the process of self-atonement is filled with both physical and psychological anguish and agony, he still has no regrets about the price he paid. Long before Amir realizes that he should no longer become a man who cannot resist anything as in Baba's comment, and that he should atone for his guilt for Hassan with concrete actions, he has already subtly made his psychological atonement in the way of the internal dilemma. When Amir finds out that his wife Soraya is unable toconceive a child, believes that perhaps something, someone, somewhere, decided to deny me paternity for the things I had done., where the repetitive alliteration starting with some in his internal monologue emphatically demonstrates that he infinitely believes in deprivation of his fatherhood is a punishment for what he did to Hassan. He considers himself deserved and guilty of the punishment, because only by atoning Hassan at the cost of his mental peace or even his right to be a father, can he free himself from the relentless guilt he feels for his best friend. Furthermore, when Amir decides to return to Kabul and save Hassan's only son Sohrab from the rapist Assef in order to fulfill his ultimate atonement, he has a bloody fight with Assef who scared him with his spleen rupture. Broken teeth. Perforated lung. Broken eye socket. Even though helping Sohrab get rid of Assef destructively harmed his physical health, he knowingly neglects his sacrifice because during Assef's assault, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. The peace of taking revenge, the peace of making up for his sin, the peace of putting an end to the internal torment he has suffered for thirty years. For Amir, as long as he can regain his moral peace, atonement is worth paying anything for. This explains why when Amir sees Sohrab's first subtle smile after his suicide attempt, as he runs with a swarm of screaming children, the high-mode movement suggests his inner joy and ultimate liberation from the disturbing past, which on the contrary reveals the value of his life. expensive atonement. However, to some extent, the sacrifice for the atonement may be excessive for the sin. Amir's mother died of hemorrhage during childbirth, which makes Amir an indirect murderer and a sinner towards his father for killing his beloved wife. To atone for himself in front of Baba, he decides to win the kite fighting tournament and asks Hassan to make him spin the last kite to satisfy Baba and satisfy his self-esteem. Because his desire to redeem himself is so intense, that he ultimately sacrifices Hassan for his inaction when he sees him being sexually abused by Assef. Returning home victorious, he thinks that perhaps Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to kill. The rhyming phrases emphasize his desperation to gain Baba's affection and atone for himself at all costs. This colossal sacrifice ultimately leads Amir to long-term psychological torment. Beyond the years, his guilt torments him, flooding his dreams or even his random thoughts. Amir once dreamed of the scene in which Hassan was massacred while he himself was the man in the herringbone vest in the role of the murderer, after having experienced the poverty situation of Farid's family which made him imagine the similar adversities that Hassan's family had only crossed because of his selfishness of not wanting to bring them to America, to thus disguise his crime. His internal struggle and turmoil were not diluted but intensified over and over again in chronological order, represented by the flashbacks of his memory that interrupted the linear structure of the novel. Within these flashbacks, the disastrous post-sacrifice consequences are revealed, which forcefully rejected the validity of Baba's great cost of his atonement. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Personalize EssayIn Baba Rahim Khan's friend's letter to Amir, he outlined the meaning of atonement by defining the line between good and evil: a man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer. And as it turns out, Amir and Baba are.