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Kite Runner Hosseini, Khaled. The Term Paper

"People sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz, the Taliban's last stronghold in the north," but not in a way that encouraged them to feel compassion for Amir and his father Baba. (Hosseini, 2003, 316) the author noted that this was an ironic consequence that many exiles from nations hostile to the United States experienced, not just Afghanis. Unlike his father Baba, Amir, because he remained haunted by his cowardly actions and the disloyalty of his childhood, bore the slings of fortunes and insults of the American land of his refuge and torment far better than his father. Amir saw these difficulties as deserved punishments for his past crimes, rather than undeserved suffering. Amir could not escape the negative parts of his past in his own mind, even in America. "Swimming classes. Soccer.... And the Taliban scurried like rats into the caves." (Hosseini, 2003, 316) as he said at the beginning of the novel, and at its end "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975," not because of the takeover of the Taliban. (Hosseini, 2004, 3) Life rather than politics punished him, in Amir's view. In contrast, his father also cannot forget the past -- but only what was good, rather than bad about the past. Baba saw his suffering as part of his nations, not a personal affliction.

Thus both men remained essentially frozen in time, hence the circular fashion of the narrative. Amir could not escape his guilt for his childhood wrongdoings. Baba could accept the loss of his wealth, status, and family name. The fluidity...

The one remedy to prejudice in either land is forgiveness, suggests the book's narrative, as only forgiveness of past transgressions frees the individual to any degree of his or her past, and thus relaxes some of the pressures of prejudice, upon both those who have inflicted it and those who have suffered it.
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Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York:…

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Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead Hardcover, 2003
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