The Sacrifice

The prince looks at the flock, seeking the purest lamb. He longs to pick the one not perfect, the one he does not love, but that sacrifice is not strong enough. That sacrifice will not earn him the love that he desires. He sees the one, the right one. Perfect. White. Pure. Beautiful is his name, Handsome. Hassan. He ties the lamb to the altar. It does not struggle. He places his hand on its back and confesses his sins against the father. I am sorry for killing your wife. I am sorry for not being like you. I am sorry I am not worthy of you. I am sorry for failing you. The prince takes the knife in his trembling hand. The lamb looks forward, resigned to its fate, waiting, willing to be sacrificed for his prince, his Amir. The prince closes his eyes as he slices its throat but cannot block the vision of the spilling of innocent blood, all for the father's love. Acceptance. Forgiveness. The father is pleased; the prince is scarred. He has damned himself because of his selfish and thus unholy sacrifice of the lamb without blemish. Only when Amir sacrifices himself for another can he find redemption from having sacrificed Hassan, in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

“There is a way to be good again,” Rahim Khan says on the phone to Amir (2). For his entire life, Amir has been fighting to escape the haunting of his sins in the past. Rahim calls Amir after twenty-six years and asks him to come to Pakistan, where Rahim faces deep illness soon to result in his death. When Rahim ends the conversation with, “There is a way to be good again,” Amir cannot help but to dwell deeply on these words. He realizes that he has been, “peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years,” where frightened, little Amir chooses the blue kite - his father's love - in place of Hassan (1).

Hosseini uses Hassan in his novel as a Christ figure, symbolizing specifically the lamb. In Amir's culture and religion, once a year he and his family and others Muslims sacrifice a lamb. The purity that Hosseini deeply describes through Hassan's character resembles that of a lamb, especially one pure enough to be chosen for sacrifice, and even Amir notices a physical resemblance when he “Saw the resignation in [Hassan's face]. It was a look I had seen before. It was the look of a lamb” (76, emphasis added). Hassan resigns to his fate; he delivers the precious blue kite to Amir, despite the consequences.

For months Amir avoids his friend, but the “signs of his loyalty, his goddamn unwavering loyalty” constantly torture him (89). Finally Amir voluntarily approaches Hassan and asks him to go on a walk. Amir begins pelting Hassan with pomegranates. “Hit me back!” Amir shouts, repeatedly (92). Amir longs for Hassan to hit him back; he longs for Hassan to do something, anything, harmful to Amir; Amir longs for some punishment, some sort of “payback” for his crime, his cowardice, his need so deep for Baba's acceptance that he flees from a friend in need. A friend willing to give up everything for Amir. This grace tortures Amir; he so desperately seeks for things to return back to normal, but he cannot even look at Hassan. He “find[s] it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people who mean every word they say” (54). Even before Amir watches his enemy rape Hassan, he feels the guilt through his inability to even look Hassan in the eye.

When Amir collapses after pelting Hassan with pomegranates, Hassan's next action most signifies his role as a Christ figure and further demonstrates his mercy and grace. He picks up a pomegranate, and, instead of “hitting Amir back,” as Amir so desires, he slams it into his own forehead. Hassan would harm his own innocent self before he would harm his friend, his friend for whom he would give his life.

The narrator often alludes to the day of the kite fighting tournament as the day that made him what he is, changed him forever. This day, when Amir's kite and one other remain in the sky past all the others, the narrator writes, “All I smelled was victory. Salvation. Redemption” (65). As is shown in the tradition of the lamb sacrifice, sacrifice must come before redemption and salvation. In order to receive his salvation - the love and acceptance of his father - he has to bring home that blue kite, which Hassan must first be sacrificed to retrieve. “Nothing was free in this world,” Amir recognizes. “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (77). Amir acknowledges his sacrifice, but realizes soon that it never could have been worth it. He understands later that “the last time I had [sacrificed for Baba], I had damned myself” (135).