An Interpretation Of Amir’s Ethical Identity In The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini(1965-) is an eminent Afghan-American writer. His debut English novel The Kite Runner made him win the full recognition and gain popularity since its release in 2003.The Kite Runner tells that an Afghan-American man Amir betrays his half-brother Hassan during his childhood and makes up Hassan by saving his son. Amir becomes a real man finally by his self-reliance. All the previous studies mainly focus on the analysis of kite, Amir’s betrayal and redemption and so on. Interpretations of the fiction from the perspective of ethical literary criticism are seldom touched upon.As a critical method, ethical literary criticism advocates that literary criticisms need to come back to historical ethical environment to analyze literary works and explore the characters’ fates. The thesis spares no effort to analyze the hero’s ethical identity and attempt to discover some ethical motives. First, the thesis explores the protagonist’s betrayal by analyzing ethical environment, that is, ethnic, religious and family ethical environment. It will be comprehensive to understand Amir’s choice of the end of friendship with Hassan. After losing his ethical identity, Amir goes through torture and disorientation. Second, when Amir finds a way to be good again, he gets into dilemmas because of his pursuit of stability and return to kinship. After having a clearer ethical consciousness, Amir has a strong sense of ethical responsibility and reconstructs his ethical identity ultimately. Hosseini successfully exposes Amir’s ethical issues in a very specific ethical environment, which leaves the readers a lot of space to chew over Amir’s betrayal and gives an objective and rational evaluation. The story ends up within a happy ending. Hosseini demonstrates that goodness is one part of human’s nature. Meanwhile The Kite Runner not only reveals Hosseini’s concerns about society and people’s living conditions but also manifests the writer’s expectation of harmony between ethnicity and religion in Afghanistan.This thesis finds out the writer’s ethical claim. Besides, the readers can get the revelation from the ethical incidents in this fiction. Every one may inevitably make mistakes in his growth, only when he courageously faces them, can he grow and progress.