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Amir's Guilt In 'The Kite Runner'

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How would you release the guilt that has taken over you, of something you did morally wrong in the past? This question arises in the book The Kite Runner and greatly affects the main character. In the beginning of the book Amir sees something happen that he does nothing about. He continually after lies and betrays the ones he love. The feeling of guilt and regret of that one moment of the past takes over his life. He has to figure out how to forgive himself for what he did and try to feel forgiven by the ones he hurt. The answer of this question is answered later on in the book when Amir can find a way to fix the past. In the beginning of the book, Amir lives with his Baba and is best friends with their servants Hassan and Ali. Amir and Hassan …show more content…

Amir has to find ways to cope, and undo what he did. Throughout the rest of the book Amir goes through some major changes in his life. He loses so many people in his life because of the Taliban, including Hassan. How could Amir redeem himself when the one person he truly hurt was dead. How could Amir live life knowing he couldn’t make up for what he did to someone he loved. Now Amir has to face the guilt of what actually happened and now has to deal with the guilt of not forgiving himself. “ ‘Hassan protested again. So they took him to the street----’... ‘-----and shot him in the back of the head.’” (Hosseini). Even though Amir hasn’t quite forgiven himself, he doesn't find one way to some what relieve the guilt that has bottled up. Amir goes and fights endlessly to retrieve Hassan’s son Sohrab. He gets beaten up by Assef, struggles to even get Sohrab back to the US with Amir, but eventually, Amir succeeds and gets to try to build back up the relationship he had with Sohrab. Amir almost feels like he got his punishment for what he did to Hassan. Amir felt that him getting severely beaten up by Assef was his way of Hassan forgiving him. Amir also gets to live the life he wants with his dear friends son. “ ‘For you a thousand times over,’ I heard myself say. Then I turned and ran.”

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Amir can not be forgiven for how he treats Hassan because Hassan is loyal to Amir but Amir isn’t loyal and wouldn’t help him with anything as shown in the book. Amir just stood at the end of the valley while Hassan was rapped. Hassan stood up for Amir when kids were bullying him. Hassan shot one of the bullies in the eye with a slingshot. This is said in the book “But perhaps you didn’t notice that I’m the one holding the slingshot.

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480 Words | 2 Pages

This guilt haunts Amir throughout the entirety of the novel as an obstacle that he constantly tries to overcome as shown when he finds out the truth and says, “I felt like a man who awakens in his own house and finds all the furniture rearranged , so that every familiar nook and cranny looks foreign now. Disoriented, he has to reevaluate his surroundings, reorient himself,” (Hosseini 224). This is the beginning of Amir finding out who he was as a person,and it is a big step to finding his own identity. When Amir finds out it seems as if “every familiar nook and cranny looks foreign” because what he has always used to defend himself was that Hassan was just a servant, but now he was his brother. Amir’s selfishness soon turns unjustifiable and as he now feels that it is time to finally get over his guilt and “reorient himself.”

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844 Words | 4 Pages

The author provides the reader with mixed feeling about Amir. In his childhood in Kabul Amir comes off as heartless person. He is this because he has done evil stuff in his life. In the beginning of the story something bad happens to Hassan, Amir says,¨In the end, I ran.

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490 Words | 2 Pages

He can not bear the scrutiny so he humiliates hassan in public by not defending him or protecting him and he humiliates him when they 2 are alone by telling petty lies to him. But the ironic thing is that the very shame he tries to avoid, becomes a worse self loathing shame latter from all his guilt. However, eventually Amir finds himself in a situation where a sense of family, redemption and belonging comes over him and is able to push his instinctual self preservation tendencies away and pay his respects to Hassan by defending and protecting his child. Coincidentally, where Amir prefered to be accepted, Hassan was never given

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907 Words | 4 Pages

Firstly, one of the many unforgiving things that Amir did yet was still forgiven for, was the fact that Amir did not stand up for his friend who got beat up and raped by a group of boys in an alleyway. This happened because Hassan stood up for Amir and did not give the kite to the

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1089 Words | 5 Pages

In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, Amir struggles to cope with his inaction during Hassan’s rape. Overwhelmed with guilt, Amir devises a plan to get Hassan and Ali dismissed so they would no longer be a constant reminder of all the times Hassan had protected him and his failure to do the same. The guilt of betraying Hassan burdens him for years, and even after he and Baba move to America, he carries the weight of his actions with him. However, after he accepts Rahim Khan’s request to rescue Sohrab and bring him to safety, Amir strives to leave behind the selfishness and cowardice he had previously succumbed to. Amir progressively begins to forgive himself for his injustices towards Hassan as he recognizes his evolution from a coward

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491 Words | 2 Pages

People in our life can influence us in many ways. People like our family, friends or close relatives can influence us. In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Amir’s character has been shaped and heavily influenced by Baba, for shaping him into the man he is, also Hassan for showing him that forgiving is important and Sohrab for helping him redeem himself. Sohrab was one of the few characters that influenced Amir because he helps him redeem himself. When Amir goes to Pakistan because Rahim Khan tells him that he is sick and wants to see him, Rahim tells him, “I want you to go to Kabul.

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522 Words | 3 Pages

After rescuing Sohrab from Assef, Amir feels like he is making up for not being there for Hassan. Amir did something that was truly brave and noble. By saving Sohrab and giving him a better life in America, Amir was able to find a way to be good again. Just like Rahim Khan said he would over the phone. Amir will never be able to fully forgive himself for what happened in the winter of 1975, however, by working to become a better person, he can slowly redeem himself and move forward with his life.

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1128 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, there are many different important conflicts throughout the story. These conflicts are brought upon by the recurring motifs, such as redemption and loyalty. The different dissensions support the ideas of characterization by how they react to the sudden adversity in their lives. Amir attempts to redeem himself through Hassan’s son, Sohrab, by saving him and giving him a better life. Further developing the meaning of the story, connoting the mental struggle and the way priorities change over time, keeping readers mindful of the motifs and how they impact each character.

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806 Words | 4 Pages

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner shows that guilt will destroy any life, no matter what a person tries to do to fix it. The Kite Runner demonstrates that guilt will destroy any life. No matter what someone has done it can stick with them for their entire life and ruin themselves. For example, in the novel, Amir

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794 Words | 4 Pages

Culture and traditions show who you are and what you believe in. There are different cultures all over the world, you could be the same race but grow up with different traditions. The kite runner is set around the time that the Afghanistan's monarchy had failed , The exodus of the refugees to Pakistan, the rise of the Taliban regime. Culture plays a part in this book and teaches us more about Afghanistan and how things were ,we get first-hand knowledge about what goes on and what different traditions they have. When people get married it is a tradition to ask the future bride's father for her hand in marriage which is not a tradition in my family it is the respectful thing to do

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1498 Words | 6 Pages

The true relinquishment of guilt does not happen only by forgiving self, but being forgiven by a person sinned to. As Amir loses Sohrab’s trust, he confesses “[he has] done a lot of things [he] regrets in his life and maybe none more then going back on the promise [he] made [Sohrab]” (374) and tells Sohrab he will wait until he is ready to forgive. Amir sincerely apologizes for what he has done to Sohrab instead of avoiding like as he did during his childhood. Through his confession, Amir acknowledges that he is the one to blame for Sohrab’s tragic action.

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955 Words | 4 Pages

Guilt is an emotion that comes from believing one was responsible for a particular mistake whether the assessment was accurate or not. (Powell)It can be described as “a bothered conscience” or “a feeling of culpability for offences”. One feels guilty when there is a feeling of responsibility for an action one regrets. (Barker, Guilt and Shame).A wrongdoer must deal with guilt by making atonement- by making reparation and penance. How a person deals with guilt long term is what really affects their future.

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421 Words | 2 Pages

To undo this guilt he does different actions in the positive way that show how his actions are now used for positive good deeds. Amir grows to become someone willing to die for Sohrab and believes Sohrab to be a part of his family which is ironic because Hassan was never able to become a part of their family due to social pressures. After Amir recognizes that Hassan knew all along Amir has a bigger feeling of guilt which is only washed away through constant deeds. One service is when Amir places the crumpled money for a positive outcome rather than to chase someone out, “ Earlier that morning, when I was certain no one was looking, I did something I had done twenty-six years earlier: I planted a fistful of crumpled money under a mattress ( 242) ”. As Amir grows as a character after ridding himself of different guilts he develops and grows by changing different actions that he has committed in the past as a sin.

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882 Words | 4 Pages

It might be thought that Amir did not revert his wrong to Hassan and did not redeem himself. Amir was able to do this in various ways throughout the book, especially towards the end. The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini shows that Amir is able to redeem himself from the wrong he did to Hassan by putting himself in danger to rescue Sohrab, by receiving a scar from the fight with Assef signifying his redemption, and finally by bringing Sohrab back to United States with him. Amir is able to redeem himself by putting his life in danger to rescue Sohrab.

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