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Amir's Response To The Theme Of Guilt In The Kite Runner

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Have you ever felt guilty? Guilt can be a terrible weight to carry. If not dealt with, it can pick at you, and drag you down. Guilt can invade your subconscious, and affect your behavior without even knowing it. You might even avoid others in an attempt to hide your guilt, or only use your emotions instead of your head and act out irrationally. The book The Kite Runner talks about Amir, an Afghan boy who has guilt following him around most of his life. Amir is faced with many conflicts which all develop into guilt. These conflicts lead Amir to grow and develop as a person. In The Kite Runner, Amir's response to conflict introduces him to the theme of guilt, which eventually leads to his redemption. In chapters 1-9 of The Kite Runner, Amir’s …show more content…

This guilt leads Amir to run away from difficult situations like seeing Hassan. This completely broke Amir and Hassan’s friendship, leaving Hassan lonely and having no clue why. This betrayal made the whole atmosphere of the house negative. Later in the novel, readers find that Amir “lifted Hassan’s mattress and planted his watch and a handful of bills” (104). Amir’s guilt grew so overwhelming, that it steered toward betrayal instead of talking through the situation. Amir develops a behavior of avoidance and only sees ways to get out of problems versus attempting to face and solve them. This causes him to create bigger conflicts overall, leading to more betrayal of the people he loves most. Which eventually developed into Hassan and Ali leaving, breaking Baba’s heart and ruining their family life and relationship. Overall, Amir’s response to conflict results in the theme of guilt resulting in betrayal. In chapters 11-14, Amir's response to Soraya not being able to have kids continues to develop the theme of guilt and regret. After treatments and treatments nothing worked. The reader learns that Amir “can almost feel the emptiness in Soraya's womb and it has seeped into the marriage, that emptiness, into laughter”

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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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654 Words | 3 Pages

Amir finds himself seeking redemption with his father and with Hassan. Amir and his father don’t have the best relationship. At the beginning of the novel, Amir tells us that he understands why his father doesn’t like him. He says it is because Amir killed his wife during childbirth and now he resents him for it.

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907 Words | 4 Pages

Amir makes hassan look like a thief by “planting [his] new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under [the mattress]” (Hosseini 104). Hassan knew of Amirs intentions that Amir wanted him to leave so Hassan lies and says that he stole it in order to remain loyal with his friend Amir. Thus, Hassan and his father Ali, feel like they can no longer serve Baba or Amir anymore and leave forever; Amir never sees him again. It was then that Amir realized how much of a horrible person he was and how undeserving he was to have Hassan. His father realized it was him and forgave him even though his father said “theft is unforgivable.”

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1129 Words | 5 Pages

His failure to defend Hassan lives with him, causing Amir to accuse Hassan of stealing. He did this to shrink his feeling of deep shame. Amir uses Hassan as a scapegoat for his feelings of guilt and shame. This causes an even bigger impression on their relationship as it eventually divides them. Amir's loyalty to Sohrab is demonstrated through his efforts to protect, stand up, and be there for him as Hassan once did for Amir.

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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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1709 Words | 7 Pages

Throughout the novel we see Amir grow in maturity, which eventually leads to him accepting the opportunity to atone. Through Rahim Khan we see that Amir must complete his journey to achieve redemption by confronting his past cowardice and at last feels a sense a healing by rescuing Sohrab. Early on, Amir strives to redeem himself in Baba’s eyes, primarily because his mother died giving birth to him, and he feels responsible. Baba says, “a boy who doesn’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” (Khaled 123). In order to redeem himself to Baba, Amir

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332 Words | 2 Pages

Amir starts off as a cowardly character, but his desire to achieve redemption from his past sins pushes him to perform acts that require tremendous amount of courage. Amir’s sin is when he betrayed his loyal friend Hassan. Amir witnessed Assef sexually assaulting Hassan, yet offered no assistance due to the fear of what may occur to him if he interfered. Amir’s failure to gather up courage in this situation forced him to commit a series of horrible acts that is the opposite of what he truly desires to do to escape the guilt that is taking over him. The guilt that Amir felt ,will continue to haunt him throughout his life until Rahim Khan said “There is a way to be good again”.

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734 Words | 3 Pages

Guilt is a major theme that intertwines the luxurious novels, as both the protagonists Amir, from The Kite Runner, and Piscine who is known as Pi, from Life of Pi, struggle due to guilt. To begin, in The Kite Runner the main protagonist Amir, a conflicted boy, makes some rash decisions which leads him to feel guilty. The reason why guilt eats Amir’s soul is because he sees his best friend/step-brother,Hassan, get rapped right in front of his eyes, and Amir did nothing about it. The reason why Amir is nothing to stop this horrendous act from taking place is because he was angry at Hassan for stealing Baba’s, Amir’s father, affection from him.

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800 Words | 4 Pages

Everyone has wronged someone in their past-- whether it was with an unkind word or with a betrayal. In Khaled Hosseini’s 2003 novel The Kite Runner, the main character, Amir, has to live with the guilt of wronging his servant, best friend, and secret half brother, Hassan, by watching passively as he gets raped. The Kite Runner tells of Amir, an upper class Afghan, and his childhood, immigration to America due to the Russian invasion, return to Afghanistan, and subsequent settling of debts. Amir’s guilt from not preventing Hassan’s rape causes him to drive Hassan away, and the guilt from both of these actions follow him throughout his life until he finds and adopts Hassan’s son and his nephew, Sohrab.

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265 Words | 2 Pages

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is about guilt and reveals how the main character feels after the demons of guilt scratch at him making him want redemption from his unatoned sins. In the winter of 1975 Amir sees a future transgression behind that crumbling mud wall, not knowing what to do he hid from it causing the guilt demon to eat at him. The redemption he seeks lies in a hard path of fatherhood and pain, eventually leading to an escape freeing him from the monsters who once lied within him, but not fully getting rid of them. Amir states in the first chapter that he became who he was at a young age: “ I became what I am today at the age of twelve.” on a frigid winter in 1975.

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515 Words | 3 Pages

Walt Whitman, who is a major poet and an outstanding person when it come to the history of America. He was born in West Hills , long island in New York. Whitman had many views about teaching and education. Everyone has their own opinions on teaching and how they should be taught. Continue to read and I will share my opinion and thoughts along side with Whitman's thoughts and his opinions as well.

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1425 Words | 6 Pages

Thus, glancing towards either direction to make sure that ‘the coast is clear’. He deprives Hassan and Ali from the house they have served faithfully for a long time, thereby stealing the truth from Hassan and depriving them of a home they knew well. Amir is driven by both the greed for his father’s attention and the guilt of being helpless when Hassan was raped. The reason why he couldn’t remain under the same roof as Hassan was because he felt guilty that he hadn’t tried to stop the rape and save his friend. The reason why he couldn’t step in to save his friend was because he was not strong enough and wanted to please his father at any

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1355 Words | 6 Pages

However, he also turned out to be someone who tried his best to confront his sins and redeem them by building orphanages, fixing Hassan's harelip, and helping others in general (Li Cunxin, Levy98's Blog). Unlike Baba, Amir was afraid of confronting his sins. In the novel, Baba, with reference to Amir, says, "A boy won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything" (page 22, chapter3) which foreshadows how Amir was unable to face his sin, unlike

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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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