Warning: The Kite Runner Spoilers Ahead!

I (Christina) read The Kite Runner last week. It was probably about time, since everyone had recommended it and it's been on the bestseller list for who knows how long. It really was a good book, although disturbing in a lot of ways. But I was struck by one thing in particular. The back of the book says that, essentially, this is a story about redemption. Very true. The main character, Amir, did something as a child that has always haunted him. He never confessed it to another living soul (although he suspected that at least two people knew what he had done) and so neither did he ever ask for forgiveness. But the interesting thing is that redemption doesn't seem to be seen in terms of forgiveness anyway. Redemption is seen in terms of paying your dues, doing what you should have done in the first place. Amir should have stepped in and stuck up for Hassan in the first place, and if that meant getting a beating or losing the blue kite, so be it. He should have done the right thing and therefore been able to live with himself and with Hassan afterward. However, his inability to do the right thing to start with led to even greater wrongs in the days that followed. And as a result, Amir lost Hassan's friendship and his own peace of mind.

So, the need for redemption becomes painfully obvious at this point. Yet how can it be achieved? The plot makes it clear that the best way to find redemption is to somehow do now what you should have done then. So when Amir goes back to Afghanistan, it is specifically to look for redemption. When he decides not to leave Afghanistan without Hassan's son, it is because he knows this is the only way to find redemption, and if he doesn't stay on that redemptive path he will be haunted forever. And when Assef is beating him into a bloody pulp, Amir finally finds his peace and so begins to leaugh. The scenario in the alleyway 26 years earlier has been perfectly re-created; the only difference is that Hassan's son now stands in for Hassan. And in that re-creation, Amir manages to do the right thing -- stick up for Hassan's son and take the beating that follows -- and in doing so finds redemption.

But is that really what redemption is? Certainly Amir has done the right thing in this situation. But that doesn't change anything about the first situation or what followed from it. The only thing that has changed is that Amir now feels peace. But Assef still hurt Hassan terribly, then Amir hurt both Hassan and Ali. None of that is changed. Can there be true redemption without true re-creation?

The interesting thing is that the one time forgiveness is explicitly offered in the book, it's rejected. Now, we have to keep in mind that the ones who rejected the offer of forgiveness were not actually guilty. However, forgiveness is also offered silently to Amir, the truly guilty party, by Hassan, the truly innocent party. But again, that forgiveness is rejected. Amir refuses to confess his sin, either to Hassan or anyone else, and he refuses the forgiveness that Hassan silently offers him. Instead, he hopes that Hassan will finally turn on him, beat him up, or accuse him before his father, and thereby "redeem" him by forcing him to pay for what he'd done, or failed to do. But Hassan never does that. So Amir only finds redemption 26 years later when Assef makes him pay. But, of course, the joke's on Assef because he unwittingly gives Amir exactly the thing he craves.

The Kite Runner proposes two possible routes to redemption. The first route is forgiveness, but this path seems, ultimately, to be somehow impossible. (Although it's just occurred to me that Soraya takes this route. That's worth thinking about.) The second route is simply paying the price for your own sins. This is the path Amir takes and by which he finally comes to peace with himself. The interesting thing is that forgiveness does not exclude the paying of a price. In this story, it is Hassan who is able to offer forgiveness because it is Hassan who pays the price for Amir's selfishness and cowardice. Because Hassan has suffered on behalf of Amir, he has the authority to forgive Amir's sins. But Amir is not willing or able to humble himself to that authority, and so cannot find redemption through forgiveness. The fact that he finds redemption only through his own suffering could suggest that he is actually willing to be beaten to a pulp and perhaps killed in order to maintain his own authority and thereby earn the right to forgive himself.

The question: has Amir actually become less selfish and less afraid, or has he simply learned to manifest those same traits in a way that allows him to feel at peace?