Guilt In The Kite Runner

The Power of Guilt

Guilt doesn’t disappear, for anyone. It can be relieved or forgiven but never forgotten. In Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner,’ the main character, Amir, struggles with leaving the guilt from his childhood in the past. During his youth, he was raised with a family servant, Ali, and his son, Hassan. Throughout the years the boys spent together, Hassan remained forever loyal to Amir, whereas Amir took Hassan’s kindness for granted and eventually pushed him out of his life. His heavy heart follows him throughout his adulthood and leads him down an unexpected journey filled with nostalgia and redemption. As Amir grows up, his guilt motivates him to be a better person by growing from his mistakes and learning from those around

After Soraya admits to running away with an Afghan man when she was young, Amir is jealous of her relief. “I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her how I’d betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a forty-year friendship between Baba and Ali. But I didn’t. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them.” (165) This passage makes clear that Amir still carries the weight of his secret on his shoulders, which has begun to get in the way of other relationships in his life. Even years later, Amir shows deep regret for the selfishness he showed Hassan in their youth, and it continues to haunt him throughout his adulthood. This is shown when Amir is catching up with Rahim Khan, and Amir is reminded of his childhood with Hassan, and the impact his decision made. “It hit me again, the enormity of what I had done that winter and the following summer. The names rang in my head: Hassan, Sohrab, Ali, Farzana, and Sanaubar. Hearing Rahim Khan speak Ali's name was like finding an old dusty music box that hadn't been opened in years; the melody began to play immediately: Who did you eat today, Babalu? Who did you eat, you slant-eyed Babalu? I tried to conjure Ali's frozen face, to really see his tranquil eyes, but time can be a greedy thing--sometimes it steals all the

When Amir travels to Pakistan to find Sohrab, he has an unexpected run-in with Assef, the boy who sexually assaulted Hassan in their youth. During their encounter, a fight breaks out between the two. Instead of punching back, Amir starts to laugh. Assef only gets angry, demanding to know why. “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975,1 felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in corner of my mind, I'd even been looking forward to this. I remembered the day on the hill I had pelted Hassan with pomegranates and tried to provoke him. He'd just stood there, doing nothing, red juice soaking through his shirt like blood. Then he'd taken the pomegranate from my hand, crushed it against his forehead. Are you satisfied now? he'd hissed. Do you feel better? I hadn't been happy and I hadn't felt better, not at all. But I did now. My body was broken--just how badly I wouldn't find out until later--but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.” ( 248) During their fight, Amir is met with relief when he doesn’t fight back. It brings him self-satisfaction to resolve a conflict that had begun in his childhood and ended in his adult life. Even with all the years since Hassan and Assef’s fight, Amir still holds onto the guilt from his selfish actions. To correct them, his selfishness transforms into selflessness. An example where this is shown is when he and Farid are at the orphanage