Theme of Identity and Redemption in Khaleed Hossieni’s The Kite Runner.

ABSTRACT

The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a famous novel for its devastating and painfully honest depiction of identity, betrayal, deception and atonement. The narrative portrays the journey of a boy escaping from his haunted childhood while torturing himself with his own contrition. These two concepts of identity and redemption play a vital role in creating the string that binds the characters together. As a reader of The Kite Runner, one embarks on a journey that leads through the life of the glamorous prosperous Afghanis, as well as the treacherous horrific life of those less fortunate. Most importantly, however, one encounters face-to-face the good and evil that comes out when these two very distinct lives are intertwined. Amir‟s “unatoned sins”, as they are described in the novel‟s opening chapter, have plagued his conscience and cast an oppressive shadow over his joys and triumphs. The phone call interrupts Amir‟s seemingly comfortable life as a married man and newly-published novelist in America, and launches an epic journey back to Afghanistan in search of redemption. The present paper explores guilt and perseverance in The Kite Runner as the motivation for an individual to seek redemption and attain the satisfaction of self-fulfillment. Unfolded through the first person narrative mode , the novel is structured like the memory lane of the protagonist Amir whose sense of remorse and guilt over the sin of leaving behind his ever loyal friend Hassan, for reasons far too vague , force him to commit acts of expiation through return . Amir‟s return to homeland, tarnished and tattered by war, fundamentalism and the turbulence of a Taliban led regime unfolds his journey towards self identity and redemption. Unlike Changez in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, in The Kite Runner, Amir faces no sense of identity crisis in the adopted homeland. Rather he feels himself a stranger when he returns to the changed realities of his home town, Kabul. Amir‟s journey home in search of Hassan‟s surviving son, Sohrab is replete with conflict, violence and violations. In the novel, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a volatile plane of clash and confrontation of identities and loyalties. As Seyham describes,” border carries intrinsically within itself an idea of perpetual motion and confrontation (201). The border thus turns almost into a real space in which the confrontations between cultures , nationalities and languages take place , and in which , ideally the culture of hybridization replaces the traditional idea of a national identity. Amir is a cultural hybrid which makes him distinct and unique. Thus the novel revolves around the central axiom of personal selves permeated by political prejudices and permutations.