Amir's Guilt Quotes

Everyone has done something that they regret. Everyone has made mistakes at some point or another in their lives. Those who are sound of mind would feel many emotions due to these events. Regret, remorse, anger, and most of all, guilt, are created by these. Everyone has experienced these emotions at one point in their lives, barring only those that are not sound of mind. What does not stay the same is how people react to them. Guilt can cause anyone to do the greatest of deeds and the worst. Amir’s guilt was caused by a very simple action, or lack thereof. When Hassan was being raped, who was too afraid to save his half-brother. Instead, he stood and watched, before finally running away in tears. The guilt from this began to eat him up inside.

There was a monster in the lake It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him the the murky bottom. I was that monster” (86). In the end, though, it wasn’t Amir’s refusal to help Hassan that made him the monster. It was his actions after. It was the way Hassan enacted his feelings of guilt. He did not try to repent. Instead, he did things that were quite terrible: “‘I want you to stop harassing me. I want you to go away,’ I snapped. I wished he would give it right back to me, break the door open and tell me off” (88). Except that wasn’t something Hassan could do, so Amir went even further: “I hurled the pomegranate at him. It struck him in the chest, exploded in a spray of red pulp. Hassan’s cry was pregnant with fear and pain. ‘Hit me back!’ I snapped” (92). Amir wanted things to go back to normal, but all he really did was break their relationship down, piece by piece, brick by brick. Hassan wanted things to go back to normal, but ironically, Amir, the one who had wronged him, refused. Hassan offered forgiveness, redemption, but Amir was too swamped in guilt to recognize it. In the end, Amir decided to get

While in Kabul, he funds and plans an orphanage by himself, solely out of the goodness in his heart. When Hassan “steals” Amir’s watch and some money, he forgives them. While leaving Kabul, he prevents a Russian soldier from raping a stranger’s wife. He’s shown constantly to be an extremely benevolent and kind person, never looking for rewards for his actions. When he died, many people showed up at his funeral. Amir hears, “‘…helped me build the house in Taimani…’ ‘…bless him…’ ‘…no one to turn to and he lent me…’ ‘…found me a job… barely know me…’ ‘…like a brother to me…’” (174). Almost all of them had kind words to say, and Amir admits that he blocks most of this out. Of course, this doesn’t mean that His dad was a perfect person. There’s still the matter of why he harbored so much guilt. When Amir learned of what his Baba did, he felt a kinship between them that he never knew they had: “As it turned out, Baba and I were more alike than I’d ever known. We had both betrayed people that would have given their lives for us” (226). This kinship and similarity only goes so far, though. As stated before, the way they reacted after the event that caused them so much guilt differed greatly, and showed the true character of each person. Amir grew up a very troubled child with many character flaws, cowardice not being the least among them. His dad was brave, more