The book, the Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini is a story that mostly takes place in Afghanistan. One of the themes in this story is redemption. From the beginning to the end of the book, the main character Amir is searching for ways to redeem himself, an example of this would be with him and Baba. The most important thing he is trying to redeem himself for is his actions he committed towards his best friend and half-brother Hassan. The real debate of this story is, can Amir be redeemed for what he did to Hassan. Amir failed to do so, sadly. He ran away and did absolutely nothing when Assef was sexually violating Hassan, and he also treated Hassan as if he was his servant. Hassan loved Amir and always did what he asked for with no fail. The real reason Amir went back to Afghanistan and did what he did was because his conscience was soaked in guilt and he couldn't take it anymore. He did what he did in order to live more and it was too late anyways, he couldn't even apologize to Hassan. Amir tries to redeem himself for what he did to Hassan, but his selfish actions of cowardice as well as his motives do not make it a true redemption.
Ever since Hassan and Amir were best of friends, Baba always seemed to favour Hassan. This greatly affects Amir as he wanted to have Baba all to himself and Hassan was not making that achievable. This causes Amir to feel jealous for the extra attention Hassan has been getting from Baba. As a result of this and the fact that Hassan is a Hazara and a Shia has caused Amir to treat Hassan with disrespect. We see this when he makes Hassan call himself an imbecile, and when they're confronted by Assed for the first time. When Assef asks Amir why he hangs out with Amir, Amir almost said, "He's my servant!"(Hosseini, 44). Its then that he tells us that he excludes Hassan from playing games when there are friends coming over to play with Amir. This shows how much higher Amir thinks of himself.
