Rosemary Conant
Asia
English 1-Period 1
1/31/23
Amir’s Wrongdoings
Many of us have felt a sense of self loathing or guilt after doing something we are ashamed of, but the character Amir reminds us that it is possible to atone and become a good person. Khaled Hosseini demonstrates in his novel The Kite Runner through the character Amir, a young Afghani boy growing up in Afghanistan before and while the Taliban took control. He spent much of his childhood with his father, Baba, and their servant, Hassan, who was a Hazarah. Throughout the novel, Amir learns to take responsibility for his actions and to fight to protect those who he cares about, demonstrating that it is possible to learn from mistakes and wrongdoings to ultimately become a better
…show more content…
One moment where he felt overwhelming guilt because of his past, is when he is running away from Afghanistan, due to the invasion of the Russians. As MiG soviet aircrafts flew above his head, he “wondered where Hassan was. Then the inevitable. [He] vomited on a tangle of weeds, [his] retching and groaning drowned in the deafening roar of the MiG” (113). Here, Amir gets sick when a thought of Hassan, the boy whose life he ruined in more ways than one, pops into his head. Amir is predicting that Hassan may be unsafe due to the Russians being brutal towards others, especially people of Hassan's guilt. Even though he feels guilt about what he did, he goes to America, leaving Hassan behind. Another example of Amir feeling shame about is when his soon-to-be-wife, Soraya, tells Amir about the things she is ashamed of doing in the past. After telling her that he accepts her wrongdoings, he “almost told her how [he had] betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali” (165). However, he did not take action to atone for his wrongdoings by coming clean, but instead acted with cowardice, ignoring the reality that he had done more harm than good to those around him. At this point in Amir’s journey, he felt incredibly guilty for his actions as a child, but tried to ignore his feelings of guilt, self loathing, and disgust at the person he was because he was scared of what would happen if he stopped hiding the truth from those around