Abstract
The Kite Runner, written by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, is a truly outstanding book. Hassan's devotion in this book touched a lot of readers, while Amir's betrayal shocked and even infuriated a lot of others. All of the protagonist Amir's behaviors, including betrayal, guilt, and redemption, are said to be closely related to his psychological changes, according to the researcher. The emotional needs and behaviors associated with various psychological states can range from mistrust to doubt, guilt to inferiority, self-blame to role confusion, and willingness to love to devotion. The entire psychological process is undoubtedly a teaching opportunity for Amir. The entire psychological process is undoubtedly a teaching opportunity for Amir. To better understand the causes of Amir's sin and cowardice, this paper analyses Amir's psychological development at various stages using Erikson's psycho-social development theory to reveal Amir's inner world.
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Keywords: The Kite Runner, Amir, psychological change, psycho-social development theory, the journey of growth
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Introduction
Khaled Hosseini's debut book was titled The Kite Runner. He is an American author of Afghan descent. In 1999, Hosseini discovered that the Taliban had outlawed kite flying in Afghanistan. The news made him think back to his early years in Afghanistan, where he had played this kind of sport. He felt it was unfair and cruel to the kids, and the experience gave him the idea for a short story about two kite-flying boys. In March 2001, he started turning this short story into a novel as advised by one of his friends. After being released in 2003, this book has since gained enormous popularity and has been translated into a wide range of languages.
Amir and Hassan, Amir's aide, are the two boys featured in The Kite Runner. In the first half of the book, Hosseini emphasizes the friendship between the two boys. The main focus of the second half was Amir's efforts to atone for his transgressions by saving Hassan's son.
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Literature Review
The Kite Runner has developed a devoted following among academics both domestically and internationally since its release in 2003. They took several different approaches to the novel. Multiculturalism worries some publications. The Kite Runner is a creative illustration of the potential and power of multiculturalism, and it can be a very useful teaching resource in the classroom, according to Luckhardt's article, "Building Cultural Competence Through Multicultural Fiction." In "To Be Good: The Runner as Allegory of Global Ethics," Jefferess places special emphasis on Islamic culture. Distinguishes between "good Muslims" and "bad Muslims" from an ethical perspective.
Studies on this book that concentrate on betrayal and redemption include Elaine Lux's "Images of Salvation and Healing in Shusaku Endo's Silence Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner" and April Hefner's "The Ethics of Painful Reading: Suffering as a Means to Redemption, Insight, and Hope in Beloved, Maus, and The Kite Runner."
In their paper "On the Images of the Kite in The Kite Runner," Zhang Guangyun and Wang Zhilin investigated the kite images in The Kite Runner at home. "The kite as an image is a carrier of multiple metaphors," they contend. In her essay "An Analysis of the Symbolic Art Techniques in The Kite Runner," Cao Hu believed that Khaled Hosseini used symbolic art techniques to reveal numerous social issues in Afghanistan. The Kite Runner's spatial narrative techniques were examined by Yu Wengang in his paper "On the Spatial Narrative Elements in The Kite Runner," which looked at the hero Amir's psychological space as well as changes to the geography and environment.
Even though there has been a lot of research on Amir, it tends to concentrate on the person's humanity and spiritual development. They ignore Amir's behavior's links to psychological change, as well as each stage of psychological development. As a result, the goal of this essay is to look at Amir's particular psychological growth stages. In more specific information about the relationship between Amir's various behaviors and his psychological condition in the course of self-development, the author will divide Amir's psychological development into stages and analyze one. Additionally, it can help readers comprehend Amir's motivations for his various actions at different points in the story.
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Amir’s Psychological Changes
From Mistrust to Doubt
Children need enough love and care from their parents during the infant and early childhood stages to help them develop a sense of trust. They must learn to have a positive attitude toward their surroundings. However, Amir did not receive adequate care from his father during his infancy and early childhood years. He was abandoned by his mother as soon as he was born. His father hired a nurse to care for him after his mother died. Most of the time, his father was preoccupied with his own business, politics, and soccer, failing to devote enough time to his son. As a result, Amir developed a mistrust of his surroundings.
His father was cold to Amir and did not show him fatherly love or care, which led Amir to blame himself for his mother's death at times. In his opinion, his father's disdain for him stems from the loss of his wife, and he was the murderer who murdered his father's princess. Furthermore, when confronted with his father's refusal and indifference, Amir had difficulty trusting him. When he wanted to sit with his father, he was barred from entering the room and told him, "This is grown-ups' time." Then he'd close the door and leave Amir alone. Amir would then sit at the door for an hour or two, listening to their conversation and laughter.
He started to wonder who he was because of his identity. Because he thought his father loved Hassan more than he did, he was constantly afraid that his father would be taken away. Amir lied and said Hassan had something to do when his father suggested taking him and Hassan to the lake to play. Everything he did revealed his desire for love. He was eager to speak with his father more, but he sensed that he loathed him. This demonstrated his lack of assurance. In his opinion, Amir's father wanted Amir to become a brave young man who was also good at soccer. Amir was likewise prevented from moving on to the following phase of development by this.
From Guilt and Inferiority to Jealousy
From preschool through school age, kids learn to control their environment, according to Erikson's theory. At this age, they must learn to exercise initiative and independence while receiving support and encouragement from their parents. They will feel guilty if they are unable to live up to their parent’s expectations. At this point, Amir was unable to live up to his father's expectations of excelling at soccer and developing the courage to stand up for himself. He started feeling bad about himself. He found it difficult to get his father's attention, so he resorted to aggressive behaviors like climbing trees or throwing stones at windows. He always insisted that Hassan was to blame for his discovery by Ali. When he made a mistake, he discovered irresponsibility rather than initiative.
Children start to identify their true interests during their school years, and their confidence is crucial to their future development. If their parents give them praise and encouragement, they will work harder to finish their tasks and show perseverance. When Amir was ten years old, he started to show an interest in reading and writing. But when he went to read his father the story he had written, the man just gave him a blank stare. Amir thought he was being ignored because of this.
At this age, children are easily influenced by the attention of their caregivers. In his inner world, Amir yearned for his father's affection and concern. Long-standing feelings of inferiority stemmed from his father's lack of concern, which grew worse when he realized that Hassan was treated with such admiration by his father. He had the wrong kind of psychological feeling that made him jealous of Hassan. When his father revealed that he would perform harelip surgery as a gift for Hassan's birthday, Amir was taken aback. He became jealous because he thought it was unworthy to give such a gift to a servant. Such a feeling persisted for a very long time and became more intense as he aged. He had become sensitive as a result of his longing for love. He was either happy or envious when his father showed him even a little love. He had the opportunity to display bravery by saving Hassan after Assef had raped him, but he chose not to. He believed that regaining custody of his father required some sort of sacrifice, so he decided to be cowardly and uncaring. His cowardice and jealousy of Hassan were both driving forces behind this betrayal.
From Self-accusation to Role Confusion
Erikson's theory states that children's development at each stage can have a significant impact on their next stage. Amir's life was filled with self-blame after he betrayed Hassan. He'd never forget the scene in which he examined himself and discovered his cowardice. He crouched behind the wall, peering into the alley, and found himself peering into it for the next twenty-six years. When a decision is made, people begin to walk down the path of accepting the consequences. No matter how much they resent it, they must bear it on their shoulders. Amir had all of his father's love after Hassan left.
They must forge their path after arriving in the United States. So, at this point, Amir needed to establish who he was and what he could do for his family. The United States was a completely new experience for him, and his father was no longer a strong role model for him. People in adolescence need to connect with society so that they can figure out who they are and develop a sense of self. However, Amir was experiencing role confusion at this point. His life in Afghanistan was carefree and free of worries. However, in the United States, they must earn a living. So, when he was faced with this situation, he had no idea what he could do to improve their lives.
From Being Willing to Love to Devotion
Amir gradually became aware of his own identity and matured during his early adulthood stage. When his father had disagreements with others, he would make the correct decision to maintain their friendly relationship with their surroundings. Furthermore, he eventually decided he wanted to major in English writing and become a writer. From this point, it is clear that he has discovered his dream and learned how to live with his father properly. Amir also met and fell in love with Soraya in the United States. Even after learning about her past, he accepts it. It was during this period that he learned to love and understand others. Just before his father was diagnosed with cancer, he gradually came to understand him and tried to pray for him. He also grew to appreciate his surroundings. When his father wanted to kill sheep to help the poor, Amir prevented him and decided to tell him to provide them with money instead of killing livestock.
Early adulthood is generally defined as being between the ages of twenty and thirty-nine. Amir underwent significant transformations during this period. When he realized he needed to save Hassan's son Sohrab, he decided to devote himself. There was a psychological contrast. Before adolescence, he just seemed to live within his world, relying on Hassan's love and loyalty rather than actively devoting himself. His psychological condition improved dramatically once he learned to love and devote himself. He was driven to bring Sohrab to the United States and provide him with a better quality of life.
Conclusion
Different stages of a person's development occur, and they are closely related to one another. The tasks that people must complete at various stages are also variable. People can only reach the end of their growth journey when the necessary qualities associated with each stage are developed by our growth. We can see how this process simultaneously shaped Amir's path to personal development by looking at his psychological changes. And there is a direct correlation between our actions and our psychological states. We can learn more about the factors influencing people's various decisions when we make every effort to understand their inner lives.
He was a young child like Amir, yearning for love and attention. When we accuse him of betraying us, we should also consider the underlying causes of his actions. In this way, not only is it helpful for us to understand Amir's personality and behaviors, but we can also learn a lot from Amir's own experiences and be greatly inspired by them, demonstrating the importance of placing a high value on family education from a psychological standpoint.
Bibliography
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