So I was attempting to take this last blog seriously. Go out with a bang. Write a blog with some real and impressive insights. I was going to write a blog about the double lives all the characters were leading their search for something genuine and real in the world. Instead, I found myself thinking about all the other things I’d rather be doing with my time. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad is that as time passes you can never get it back. Consequently, I’m just going to discuss all my petty complaints.

First – Why did this win the Pulitzer Prize??? Let me backtrack. I know why it won the Pulitzer Prize. It won because it was avant garde and told a story in new and different way. It was nonlinear, a collection of short stories, didn’t focus exclusively on one character, and had a 70 page power point for a chapter. That said, it felt like Egan was trying too hard. It was if when she was writing this, she was purposefully trying to get an award. She wrote all her characters to be super edgy, which critics seem to love for some reason. (I’m looking at you Song of Solomon with your weird ass characters.) None of them are normal. You don’t have a normal disillusioned music producer; no you have a producer who eats gOLd fLaKeS to increase his sex drive. A 13-year-old boy is obsessed with the pauses in songs of all things. And ALL of the characters (except maybe Alex and Sasha) did drugs. Idk, I know I’m being petty, but the forced quirkiness of all the characters really annoyed me, especially when they felt excessively so just so that the critics would like.

Two – the references to all the old rock songs. Okay I know that this just means I’m not the intended audience for this and the songs weren’t super important, but it was really frustrating to read the titles of all these songs as they were referenced and not have a single idea what they were about. Yes, I probably could have looked them up, but there were a lot of them, and I’m all about doing the least amount of work possible.

Three – So this is absurdly petty of me, but it made me mad every time I closed the book so it needs to be addressed. Can we just talk about the author picture on the back cover? Why is she smirking? Who is she smirking at? Why is she giving us a weird side eye? Why is that the angle she chose to give the camera? Is she wearing a trench coat??? (Also, sidenote, she kind of looks like Meredith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy.) Her author picture gives the same “oh I’m so edgy and different” vibes as her book did.

So now that I’ve got these petty complaints out of my system, let’s talk about the things I enjoyed about the book because I did like some parts. Dolly’s story about the dictator was really cool and kinda wild. Rob’s story made me lowkey cry and was super moving. And it was super satisfying see all the different connections between the different stories. This wasn’t a bad book by any means, and if Kurt finally read and enjoyed this one, you should definitely keep it in your curriculum. I just found myself really frustrated with it, but that probably reflects more on me being stuck at home and wanting to do anything else than reading this book.

Usually I try to write a blog that hits on key scenes or themes of the novel as a whole, but it wouldn’t feel right to leave my Heathcliff trilogy incomplete. So here is yet another blog about Heathcliff.

As you probably know from my last two blogs, I don’t like Heathcliff as a person. I find him manipulative, obsessive, vindictive and abusive. I wanted so badly to hate, and I would have been justified if I did as his actions certainly merit some hatred. Yet by the end of Wuthering Heights I found myself sympathizing with him despite his abhorrent actions. It’s definitely not because as the novel went on Heathcliff actions became less repulsive; he went from mental abuse to physical abuse to holding Catherine and Nelly hostage. I think my sympathy for him stems from the consistency in his motivations and actions. Everything he does; every thought, every action, every word, can be traced back to his horrible, unhealthy, obsessive, yet heartfelt and sincere love for Catherine Earnshaw. I will admit that sometimes it takes a rather circuitous route to get there, but it always comes back to her.

It was honestly disturbing how he does everything because of his love for Catherine, especially when it came to his action with her daughter. He hates her for all that she represents. She’s gotten must of her features from Edgar not Catherine, reminding Heathcliff that Catherine did not chose him. Yet she looks and acts just enough like Catherine to constantly remind him of what he’s lost. While I disapprove of Heathcliff’s actions, stripping her of her property, forcing her out of her house, and blackmailing her into marriage, I can sympathize with him because I can recognize all the pain she represents to him.

The moment, however, that garnered the most sympathy from me was when Heathcliff came back to Wuthering Heights to the sight of Hareton and Catherine sitting together as she teaches him to read. When they look up at his approach he is struck by how much they resembled Catherine Earnshaw. They both had her eyes, and their mannerisms and “mental faculties” bore a striking resemblance to hers. He goes onto to tell Nelly how he sees Catherine everywhere in them and the house, and that he has to remind his very heart to beat and lungs to breathe when he remembers she’s not with him. Catherine was his whole life. Catherine defined him. Catherine was him. It doesn’t excuse his actions – I don’t think anything really can – but it does bring clarity to them and reminded me of the genuine “love” Heathcliff had for Catherine before it morphed into something much more vengful and obsessive.

When Heathcliff finally dies it’s not a peacefull picture that Nelly presents us with; in fact, it’s rather ghastly. Heathcliff’s eyes are wide open, his mouth is pulled into a sneer, and his teeth are sharp and white, yet on his face is a look of exultation, as he is finally reunited with her in death. It’s a perfect snapshot of his entire relationship with Catherine. It’s a ghastly and horrible thing to behold, but there’s a true joy and devotion in it as well.

Heathcliff was truly an awful person and, yet, I understand his actions and find myself hoping that in death he can achieve what he couldn’t in life – reunification with his childhood friend and love Catherine Earnshaw.

(Quick Disclaimer: I have not wanted to read anymore until I wrote this blog, but I have procrastinated writing it for two days now, so this blog only contains info from chapters 1 – 25.)

Heathcliff is one of the most interesting and complex characters I have read about in a long time. It is actually quite refreshing to be following a character that is not supposed to be good or the hero of the story. He is twisted, self-absorbed, and has an unhealthy obsession with revenge and the Catherine Lintons. But by far the most interesting thing about Heathcliff is his relationship with (the first) Catherine.

I could try to do an analysis on this relationship and how it affects themes and character development, but it would not be that deep and I do not think it would be correct because there is almost certainly more information to come that would change it. Instead, I am just going to highlight a few scenes I consider key and give my thoughts on them.

One of the biggest scenes is after Mr. Linton orders Heathcliff out of his house and away from Catherine. Heathcliff later claims that although he ardently dislikes Mr. Linton, he would never harm him or keep Catherine away from him because Catherine loves him still. (I think that’s what he says, but I can’t find the passage so just yell at me in a comment if I completely misremembered that.) This is so interesting to me because, while Heahcliff appears to follow this sentiment while Catherine is still alive, he seems to completely disregard it after Catherine dies. He now is completely bent on getting revenge on Mr. Linton despite Catherine’s love for him. This idea can be extrapolated on with Heathcliff’s dealings with Hindley and Hareton. Even after Nelly upbraids Heathcliff for how he treats them and urges Heathcliff to honor Catherine’s love for them, he continues his abuse of them. If there were not other scenes contradicting this idea, I would say that Heathcliff’s love for Catherine died with her.

Interesting scene number two: Catherine is dying from some illness (a broken heart???) and is begging Heathcliff to forgive her. He replies with “I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer–but yours! How can I?” (p. 156). Heathcliff is not a forgiving man. He is the kind of man that makes elaborate revenge plots against everyone who has ever slighted him. So the fact that he is willing to forgive what Catherine has done to him speaks volumes of his love for her. Yet, he has not really forgiven her because in his eyes Catherine killed herself by denying her love for him. So did he really forgive her? Then there is the implication that Catherine has killed him because he claims to “love [his] murderer.” I just love how so much can be gleaned about Heathcliff’s character from just a single quotation.

Finally, in chapter 3, we have our first introduction to Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship, but from Lockwood’s point of view. Lockwood dreams that Catherine is trying to get in the window, and in this dream she claims that she “lost her way on the moor” and has “been a waif for twenty years” (p. 25). Lockwood tells Heathcliff this, and in anguish Heathcliff cries out “Come in! . . . Cathy, do come. Oh do–once more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!” (p. 28). This scene shows that, contrary to my earlier speculation, Heathcliff still loves Catherine. If I have my timeline correct, twenty years from this time is right about when Catherine died. So ever since Catherine died, Heathcliff has been desperately searching for and calling out for her, and in his mind Catherine is not at peace in death. She is lost and desolate, forever wandering the moors, which is completely opposite of Nelly’s thoughts. It makes me wonder why does he believe she is not at peace? Is it because he is not at peace without her, so he projects his distress on her? Is it because of the conversation her overheard Catherine having with Nelly where she claimed to be desolate in Heaven?

So it’s 1 AM and I really just need to get this blog done. I have put off this first blog for way too long because I really don’t feel like I have anything really insightful to say yet. The only class discussions that I really participate in are the ones after we finish a book; at any other time, I force myself to BS something just to get the participation points. This is because when I read a book for the first time, I am not trying to predict anything. I am not purposefully trying to make any connections. I am not looking for themes, motifs, or symbols. When I read a book for the first time, I am just soaking in all the information. If some symbol or character jumps out at me, great, now I have something to discuss in class, but if not I just wait till I finish the book and am able to look at the entire story before I make any judgement or connections. I say this because I am well aware that this is not going to be the deepest of blogs and I guess I should apologize for that?

That said the one thing that really sticks out to me in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is the character Heathcliff. (Quick disclaimer: I have not read tonight’s reading so if I am missing anything crucial from chapters 15-16 that’s why.) Going into this novel the only things I knew about him was that he had the misfortune of having the name Heathcliff (Anyone else picturing a scrawny kid with buck teeth?) and from Sparknote’s Instagram page that he was a pretentious ass. While none of this has been exactly proven wrong, it has definitely been added upon.

To put it simply Heathcliff is not a good person. He manipulates, he lies, he low-key abuses his wife, he never forgives, and he actively works to ruin the lives of those around him. But he justifies it by claiming that he would never hurt Catherine and that all of this is for her. (I’m getting some serious Snape and Lily vibes here.) He even goes so far as to say “That for every thought she spends on Linton, she spends a thousand on me!” (144). That quotation made me stop reading and literally laugh out loud. Imagine having enough audacity to think that a woman thinks about you, a childhood friend who just abandoned her one night, a thousand times more than her actual husband. To be fair, he does have some justification as he overheard Catherine telling Nelly that “Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing, before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff…He’s always , always in my mind” (79-80). That said Catherine has been married to Mr. Linton for years, and while I will not say that their marriage has been joyous with no problems, Catherine has not been unhappy. It just seems very presumptuous of Heathcliff to come barging back into Catherine’s life and expect to be welcomed back by everyone.

My other problem is with how Heathcliff treats Isabella. Now Isabella is not perfect. She is naive and spoiled but she is not a bad person, and does not deserve to be treated the way Heathcliff treats her. He claims to have never lead her on or given her any reason to love him, yet he tried to embrace her in the garden and asked her to marry him. He married her only to get revenge on Mr. Linton for daring to marry Catherine and keep him away from her, but honestly who wouldn’t banish Heathcliff from their house? The way he treats others is awful. Isabella and Heathcliff’s marriage is so bad and he acts so abhorently that Isabella says something along the lines of “I would rather die than let you use me to hurt my brother.” I am almost impressed by the amount of hatred Heathcliff inspires in others.

I will acknowledge that his childhood, from living on the streets, to being spoiled by Catherine’s father, to be abused verbally and physically by Hindley, probably messed him up in some serious ways. But that does not excuse his inability to be decent to a single person outside of Catherine.

Ok that’s it. This blog is done. Did it just turn into a vent/rant about Heathcliff? Yep. Do I care? Nope. I am now going to go to bed without proofreading this and hopefully not sleep through my alarm so that I can join the google meet.

This is not the type of blog I usually write, but I thought it was a really interesting distinction that I felt was worth delving deeper into. While the entire story line of Exit West centers around the idea of people fleeing their country and seeking new lives in a different country, Mohsin Hamid never calls these refugees immigrants, rather he exclusively refers to them as migrants. (I don’t know this for a fact because no PDF is available online for me to check this, but it is true as far as my memory and skimming skills can tell.) Nothing is particularly strange about this choice except when I read about the Syrian Refugee Crisis or the influx of people from Mexico, the media always seemed to use immigrant instead.

Perplexed I decided to look up the exact definitions of immigrant and migrant. Immigrant is defined as “a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.” Migrant is defined as “a person who moves from one place to another, especially in order to find work or better living conditions.” The thing that stuck out to me the most about these definitions is immigrant’s emphasis on permanent and foreign. An interesting article in The San Diego Union-Tribune, titled “‘Immigrant’ vs. ‘migrant’; what’s the difference?”, expands the differences beyond the dictionary definition. In the United States immigrant has a legal definition that focuses on the settling in the new country. Furthermore, immigrant has many negative connotations associated with it like illegal, undocumented, etc. Migrant, on the other hand, is an “umbrella term” and encompasses refugees and those just leaving for economic reasons, causing it to have a less negative connotation. Additionally, news outlets with a wide, international audience like the New York Times, the BBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters tend to prefer to use migrant while local outlets typically use immigrant.

So now you know way more about the differences between immigrant and migrant than you ever needed or wanted to know, but I think knowing the differences adds a whole new layer to Exit West. One of the main conflicts in this book is the conflicts between the natives and migrants. Besides the fact that the two protagonists Nadia and Saeed are refugees, Hamid subtlety shifts the readers opinion in favor of the refugees with the use of the word migrant because the use of the word immigrant would automatically shift the perspective to those already settled, the natives. These people are not actively trying to settle in a new place or take it over; they are just trying to escape where they came from. This is shown in Nadia and Saeed’s willingness to leave Mykonos and London. Until they arrive in California there is no indication that they want to stay anywhere permanently, just the desire to move from one place to another. We, the natives, impose this idea of permanence on the refugees because of our fear of the permanent and irrevocable changes they will cause our home. Hamid’s use of the word migrant helps us look through the lenses of the fleeing refugee.

It is possible that Hamid unconsciously chose to use migrant as that’s how all British news outlets referred to those fleeing from Syria around the time Exit West would have been written, but I like to think that it was a purposeful decision meant to sway us ever so slightly to supporting the thousands of migrants looking for escape in our country.

*Seriously this play has the most boring cover I have ever seen.

This entire weekend, I have been racking my brain for something, anything, meaningful to say about Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and, still, I have nothing. It is not a lack of debatable material in this play, Albee provides plenty, that is causing me to not be able to write about it; rather, it is the complete alienness of the scenes he presents. Several things in this play are strange to me, like the 2:00 AM setting and why Nick and Honey decide to stay or even come over in the first place, but what stands out in particular is the relationships, particularly George and Martha’s marriage.

I am not going to claim to be any expert in marriage. The only experience I have of it is based on my parents’ marriage, my brother’s, and however books and movies decided to portray it. But George and Martha’s definitely do not match any of the aforementioned examples. They have an insincerity with each other and never seem to be acting honestly toward one of each other, and then there is the fighting. That one is at least familiar. I myself have heard my fair share of yelling, name calling, and door slamming, and I am sure every child has witnessed this at some point, but it is different with George and Martha. It seems to be a part of the game they call their marriage, and (enjoy is the wrong word but that is what I am going with) they seem to enjoy it. They thrive off of each other’s anger and frustration, and it acts as a band-aid, straining to cover a wound that is much to big for it to handle. There is a constant undercurrent of discontent and uncertainty in their marriage, yet for the majority of the play it is never directly acknowledged; instead it manifests itself within the vehemence and bitterness of their “games.”

I want to judge their marriage so badly as it is vastly different from the ones I am used to seeing. It seems dysfunctional, unhealthy, and neither seem to appear particularly happy in the relationship. They argue, they degrade, they flirt with others in front of each other, and at one point George even begins strangling Martha, causing Nick to pull them apart. While I am aware this was (most likely) not a serious attempt on her life and that this was just a part of their games, it does not seem to make for the basis of a good marriage. And yet, this a system that appears to work for them. Martha expresses to Nick that George is the only one who can make her happy. George has given up everything for her, including his chance to be published. And at the end, after George has “killed” their son, there is a real tenderness and love between them.

While George and Martha’s marriage seems dysfunctional, unhealthy, and miserable on the surface, it is a marriage that works for them. It is not my place to judge it based on one drunken night just because it does not match the marriages I am used to seeing.

During class discussion about Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere on Friday, I made a statement that everyone, myself included, can agree was pretty stupid. Trying to be deep and show a soul for once in my life, I said “The saddest part about this story is the fact that the courts even had to get involved.” Everyone, including Wasowski, immediately disagreed and basically told me how dumb that idea was. To quote Wasowski (I think) “This is exactly what the courts are for.” And I hardheartedly agree with this. Bebe and the McCulloughs were at complete odds with one and another. There was no situation where both parties would be happy. There could be no compromise, no out-of-court settlement. In this situation the courts were absolutely necessary.

I did not explain myself clearly in class. The problem with the courts is that it takes an inherently grey subject and turns it black and white. They place blame on one party and absolve the other. They validate the winner and discredit the loser. The winning party gains everything, and the losing party losing everything. And while I already established and agreed that this was completely necessary, it is still sad. Because the situation of who should have custody of Mirabelle McCullough / May Ling Chow is not a cut-and-dry case.

Mirabelle would have a wonderful life with the McCulloughs. They would love her as their own daughter; she would be their daughter. She would lack for nothing. She would grow up in Shaker Heights lack nothing. Everything would be provided for her. But May Ling would have flourished with her birth mother Bebe as well. She would grow up knowing who she is. She would understand her heritage, her culture. Sure she would not have access to the same amount of material things, but love, arguably the only factor that matters, would be available in abundance.

Before reading this book, I would have sided with the McCulloughs every single time because of my own and my family’s experiences with adoption, but now I would hate to be the judge presiding over this trial, and I guarantee that I would think about my decision on this case for the rest of my life. I would doubt that my decision was the right one constantly because this is a no-win, impossible situation.

I am well aware how much I sound like Mrs. Richardson, but the best solution for this would be if it had never happened. If Bebe’s boyfriend had not forced her to move to Cleveland and then abandoned her, if Bebe had been aware of the social services available to her, if better paying jobs were available to her, then May Ling would always have been with her mother. It would have been a hard life, but it would have been one in which she was well loved. Instead the McCulloughs have their dreams finally fulfilled only to be stolen away in the middle of the night, and Bebe is forced to flee back to China so that she can keep custody of May Ling. As it stands, the courts were the only solution, but they did not solve the problem. All they did was turn a grey situation black and white, sowing further discord between both parties, and leaving no parties happy.

To echo Jenna, the overwhelming emotion that I had upon finishing this book was a feeling of sadness. Sadness for the McCullough’s pain. Sadness for Bebe’s desperate love for her daughter. Sadness that the case of Mirabelle McCullough vs. May Ling Chow ever had to brought before the court.

The start of AP English was rough for me. A Prayer for Owen Meany, the first book that we had to read, was a major miss. I hated it, causing me to majorly procrastinate on my reading. Every time I finally did open it, I would invariably slam it shut after some character said or did something incredibly inane or absurd. After A Prayer for Owen Meany, however, I enjoyed or at the very least tolerated the required reading. But Song of Solomon gave me PTSD to A Prayer for Owen Meany. (Both are oddly sexualized when they really don’t need to be.)I found myself waiting till the last minute to do the reading (I only finished the book at 9:30 tonight) and skimming it just to get it over with. I thought the novel was set in Georgia when it was set in Michigan. That is how much I just did not care about Song of Solomon.

Let’s start with the characters, specifically Milkman. He got his name after Freddie caught his mother Ruth nursing him far past the acceptable age because she got sexual pleasure from it, so there’s problem number one. Problem number two is that he’s a petulant, hypocritical, and entitled daddy’s boy. He derives all his sense of confidence and authority from his father’s prestige and money. He throws Hagar away like a used toy with no regard for her feelings when he tires of her. Makes it so Corinthians can’t spend time with Porter because of his affiliation with the Days, yet he still confides in and is friends with Guitar. Because of his father’s status, he treats everyone around him with little respect and rarely tries to see things from their point of view. To be fair, he is the main protagonist and he does have a character arc, so he grows out of some of these characteristics. He grows to tire of his father’s influence and journeys to Virginia to find himself and his family. He’s less selfish and more considerate of others. He returns to the woman he has sex with and says goodbye to her instead of just discarding her. And like the 30-year-old big boy he is, he takes the giant step out of his father’s shadow into his grandfather’s instead. Sarcasm aside, he does have some actual character growth and realizes what a jerk he has been to the others in his life. That said when he finally returns home to Pilate after his journey he doesn’t try to atone for or even apologize for his hand in Hagar’s death. Instead, he tells Pilate that she needs to bury her father’s bones, and Pilate, who spent three pages keening over Hagar’s dead body, just forgives him because he brings her some of Hagar’s hair??? I understand that this is important information that Milkman wanted to share and that Pilate would want to know, but Hagar’s death feels like it should have more of an effect on characters than this. It felt rushed, like Toni Morrison didn’t really want to deal with Hagar’s death and just wanted to get to the ending.

And that brings me to probably my least favorite part — the ending. Wasowski warned us that some of us would hate the ending, but, somehow, it still caught me off guard how much I hated the ending and frankly just didn’t understand it. So apparently, Guitar thinks that Milkman stole the gold and is refusing to give Guitar his cut as promised. Like any rational person would he decides to kill Milkman in response. (That’s an oversimplification, I realize that, but it shows how absurd it felt to me.) Pilate and Milkman are back in the cave burying the first Macon Dead when Guitar shoots her and she just dies. Milkman, knowing Guitar is going to shoot him, either leaps toward Guitar or off a cliff, and he learns the secret of flying that his great grandfather Solomon supposedly knew when he flew back to Africa. It’s unclear to me which one it is, and frankly I don’t care either way because both leave the entire plot of Guitar and the Seven Days, the only part of the book I found remotely interesting, entirely unresolved. One way or another Milkman is most likely going to die, but don’t worry he now knows the secret of flight that his great grandfather once knew! The ending felt rushed and pointless to me. It didn’t resolve anything, and I hated it with a passion.

I recognize that I probably wasn’t the right audience for this, and that I probably didn’t go into this book with the right mindset, but I really did not like this book. It made me hate AP English reading which is something that hadn’t happened since A Prayer for Owen Meany. I really hope I enjoy Little Fires more than Song of Solomon. Otherwise I fear that I’ll become the person who only sparknotes the novel instead of doing the reading.

For my tenth birthday, my brother gave me the entire Harry Potter series. But the gift came with a stern stipulation from my parents. I could not read the last three until I was at least twelve. (Apparently the subject matter was too dark and morbid for my ten-year-old self to handle.) Two years did not seem that long, and I did not even know if I would like the series, so I paid almost no attention to this rule. Like every other child, however, I became absolutely obsessed with the world of Harry Potter. I flew through the first four books and eagerly wanted to find out what happened next. Every time I would walk past my bookshelf my eyes would inevitably be drawn to the bottom, right shelf where I had the last three books. My eyes would linger, and I would reach out my hand, almost touching the spines of the books, before forcing myself to walk away. One day, I convinced myself that it would be okay to read the first chapter of the fifth book. Unsurprisingly, once I read one chapter I could not stop, and in less than a month I had read the rest of the series. At first, I was proud. Never before had I ever so consciously disregarded what my parents had told me to do. Then came the guilt. It followed me everywhere. My guilt tainted every conversation I had with my parents, and it was the last thing I thought about every night before I went to bed. Whenever my parents praised me, I would shrivel up internally, feeling unworthy because of what I did. I tried rationalizing it by telling myself that I would have gotten to read the books eventually, so I had really done nothing wrong, but it did not work. I could not deny the fact that what I did was wrong, so I tried to push it from my mind, to forget about it. But I had no relief from the guilt until I broke down sobbing one night at the dinner table and confessed what I had done. My parents were disappointed, I had to regain their trust, and I had to face the punishment that they doled out. But by confessing what I had done and doing everything I could to regain my parents’ trust I felt I had atoned.

Looking back at this, it seems like such a dumb thing to feel the need to atone for. So what? I read a few books that were literally written to be enjoyed by children. Besides, it was my parents fault for allowing me to keep the last books in my room. Can a ten year old child really by blamed for lacking the self-control necessary to not read ahead? If my parents really did not want me to read the last books of Harry Potter they should not have introduced the series to me in the first place. The extent of the “crime,” and whether or not I really can be blamed for it, however, is not what ultimately matters. What matters is the guilt that followed that lead me to feel that I needed to do something to try and fix what I had done.

I am hesitant to compare my sin of reading Harry Potter to Briony’s sin of wrongfully accusing an innocent man of rape and sentencing him to years in prison, but the parallels exist. Like me, Briony was just a girl when she committed her crime. Similarly, several possibilities exist to excuse Briony of what she did, or at least diminish the amount of responsibility she had for it. It was dark, so she saw what she believed to be true. The police gave her no opportunity to back down from or change her statement. Robbie’s actions to a 13 year old would seem predatory. Likewise, Briony went through the motions of rationalizing what she did, convincing herself that she truly did believe that it was Robbie, and then trying move on and forget what she had done. Furthermore, her guilt followed her into her everyday life, causing her to move away from her parents and pursue a career in nursing instead of a writer like she originally aspired to be. Like me, her guilt permeated her every action.

In the end, she too makes a confession through her story, fittingly titled, Atonement. I will not comment on whether or not this confessions is enough to absolve her crime. That is a discussion for anther day. What is important is that Briony makes the attempt, and that is enough for her to find peace with herself when she dies. It is a very self-centered way of looking at things, but atonement is for the sinner not the victim. I did not confess at the dinner table for my parents. I confessed for myself. Forgiveness does not need to be given to forgive yourself. Actions do not need to be acknowledged to know you preformed them. Guilt is guilt. It will gnaw at you until you numb yourself to its presence, or until you or find a way to absolve yourself of it. It does not matter if your sin can be justified or if nothing can be done to take back your actions. Because, no matter the crime, if you do not make an attempt at atonement, you will never be at peace with yourself.

As most of you probably know, my dad is a pastor. In addition to this he teaches world religion at the seminary. Growing up, every night before bed my dad would sit me down for our daily devotions, and on our hour long drives to and from soccer practice, he would often explain what Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and occasionally Zoroastrianism were and how they differed from Christianity. Combine that with the stories he told me from his time deployed as a chaplain in Iraq and I was very, very aware of the role religion in Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner.

That said I have never considered myself a religious person. Yes, because of my dad, I know more about the Bible and Christian theology than some people who have gone to church their whole life (I say this knowing I come off as condescending and arrogant, and I apologize for that, but it is true), but I have never really taken it to heart. I learned it the way I learn my classwork. I memorized it for its limited uses in life (mainly the bible category in Jeopardy), but I never really applied it to my own life. I go through the motions of Christianity but never seem to truly connect with it.

I promise I am not writing a blog about my religious journey. I am well aware that no one wants to read that, and a blog for AP English is not the place to explore this. I mention this, however, because it seems that this is the same attitude Amir has for his own religion. Like 99 percent of the people of Afghanistan he is a practicing Muslim. But unlike the rest, he does not not take it that seriously. Sure he knows the famous verses of the Quran, believes in Allah and Mohammad, and employs a Muezzin for his wedding and his father’s funeral. But Amir does not follow all the pillars like salat, prayer. Hosseini never makes any mention of Baba praying and only records Amir doing so twice. Amir is so disconnected from God that he cannot even say the common qualifier Inshallah, or “God willing,”because he feels it sounds “insincere” and “phony” coming from him. Baba even goes as far as saying that there is no God.

Hassan stands in stark contrast to this. He says Inshallah and it comes off almost as a prayer; it sounds sincere. When running kites for Amir its like he acts on faith alone, just waiting and opening his arms to the kite. Where Hassan’s faith becomes most apparent, though, is in his letters to Amir. He begins his first with “In the name of Allah….”, frequently states that he is praying for something, and ends his last with “May Allah be with you always.” Religion is central to Hassan’s life, and it clearly means something to him.

The question is why. Why is there such a difference between Hassan’s faith and Amir and Baba’s? I think the answer lies in their sins or lack of sins. Every sermon I have ever attended emphasizes God’s holiness, his purity. He is perfection, and no sin has ever blemished him. This description of God has always had the opposite effect on me than what I think was the pastor’s intent. Instead of making me want to get closer to God this description makes me feel small, dirty, and I put up mental barriers, separating me from even the idea of God’s perfection. And while I know Islam is not the same as Christianity, they hold the same views of God.

If my own personal experience is anything to go by, it makes sense that Hassan easily connects with his faith. He is pure and sincere and the very opposite of duplicitous. Hassan is so innocent that he reminds Amir of a sacrificial lamb. Hassan connects so easily with God because God’s holiness does not seem so foreign to Hassan, who is by his very nature pure and guiltless. Amir, however, is saturated with guilt and self-deprecation. It makes since that he does not truly care about religion if every time God’s goodness and purity is mentioned he is reminded of the guilt he has tried so hard to escape and forget about.

Amir’s guilt comes to a head at the hospital when Sohrab has just slit his wrists and now is in surgery. Amir is desperate, helpless, and scared. He has come so close to atonement, so close to absolving his guilt, and that chance for peace is dying on the table. So he does the one thing he can do, something he has not done since his innocent childhood, he prays. He prays that his sins have not caught up with him, that he will not have more blood on his hands. He prays so that God will absolve him of his guilt.

Once Hassan pulls through, and Amir and him return to America, there is a seemingly throw-away scene where Amir gets up early to do morning prayer. For me, however, this one paragraph showed that Amir no longer felt guilt, that he felt he atoned for what he did, or more aptly, did not do in that ally back in Kabul. He feels pure and guiltless enough to finally be able to approach God with confidence and sincerity.

For many of the people I have spoken to, the most emotional scenes in Kite Runner were when Baba died, when Sohrab slit his wrists, or the end when Sohrab finally smiles and Amir runs the kite for him, but the scenes that brought tears to my eyes were the scenes where Amir finally prays. Because these scenes show a man that has let go of his fear and guilt and worked up the confidence to truly connect with God, and that is something that I have always wanted to do.

(After proofreading this I realize that this blog seems to imply that I have some huge guilt hanging over me just like Amir. I assure you that is not the case. It is only my raging insecurity that you see peeping through.)