Redemption

Even though I have already seen this movie, like I said before, the plotlines and outcome were of total surprise to me. I guess the movie didn't stand out as much for me a couple years ago as much as the novel does for me right now.

At the beginning of the novel, when Rahim Khan calls Amir and says, "There is a way to be good again," I had totally forgotten about. I had forgotten what Amir had to be good for, and why he had to redeem himself. Now that I am finished the book, and it has all come back to me, I'm trying to decide if Amir actually did redeem himself, and made himself "good again."

When Amir finally saved Sohrab from Assef's cruel hands, it made me incredibly angry that he was just going to bring him to a random family's home and leave him there. There were at least thirty pages of Amir and Sohrab talking about where he was going to go, and them staying in hotels waiting to go to John and Betty Caldwell's. That's not how Amir would become good again. Then when John and Betty turned out not being real people, it finally hit him. Rahim Khan planned this, and the fake couple, so that Amir would adopt Sohrab and bring him home like he should of a long time ago, (But Amir didn't know about Sohrab at that time). If the novel was going to end with Amir bringing Sohrab to a foster home, I was going to be heartbroken that that's how to be "good again."

After Amir's meeting with the immigration lawyer Omar, Omar says to him,

"I meant to tell you in there, about what you're trying to do? I think it's pretty great." (357)

It is pretty great, and that's exactly how it should have ended up. Rahim Khan didn't mean for Sohrab to go anywhere but with Amir.

The relationship between Amir and Sohrab confused me, but Amir tries so hard to make little Sohrab happy. Even when Sohrab doesn't speak to him, Amir keeps talking to him, stays in a positive frame of mind and never gets upset with him for not trying to accept Amir as his guardian.

"He held my glance, then looked away, his face set like stone. His eyes were still lightless, I saw, cacant, the way I had found them where I had pulled him out of the bathtub. I reached into the paper bag between my feet and took out the used copy of the Shahnamah I had bought at the Persian bookstore. I turned the cover so it faced Sohrab. 'I used to read this to your father when we were children. We'd go up the hill by our house and sit beneath the pomegranate...' I trailed off. Sohrab was looking through the window again. I forced a smile. 'Your father's favourite was the story of Rostam and Sohrab and that's how you got your name, I know you that.' I paused, feeling a bit like an idiot. 'Anyway, he said in his letter that it was your favourite too, so I thought I'd read you some of it. Would you like that?' (371)

Amir said to Sohrab,

'You know, I've done a lot of things I regret in my life,' I said, 'and maybe none more than going back on the promise I made you. But that will never happen again, and I am so profoundly sorry. I ask for your bakhshesh, your forgiveness. Can you do that? Can you forgive me? Can you believe me?" (374)

"As I waited for his reply, my mind flashed back to a winter day from long ago, Hassan and I sitting on the snow beneath a leafless sour cherry tree. I had played a cruel game with Hassan that day, toyed with him, asked him if he would chew dirt to prove his loyalty to me. Now I was the one under the miscroscope, the one you had to prove my worthiness. I deserved this." (374)

I think by the end of the novel, I was convinced that Amir had redeemed himself, and had freed himself from his guilt. Everything that he went through with Assef, and the convincing Sohrab to come to America, and the visa for Sohrab, proved that Amir would go to any lengths for Hassan. I'm really disappointed that Hassan never got to see Amir's sorrow and that Amir never got to apologize to Hassan. I also wish they both knew that they were brothers at the end and that they could live happily ever after, but I guess nothing really works like that. I just got so attached to Hassan and now it's so difficult to end the book knowing he never knew that they were brothers.

I'm glad Amir made the effort that he did with Sohrab. I guess that in itself was the happy ending.