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Internal Conflict The Kite Runner

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Thomas Crum wrote, “The quality of our lives depends not on whether or not we have conflicts, but on how we respond to them.” Conflict consumes the world around us due to the decisions of every day life. While every dispute seems diverse, there are only two genuine outcomes. People can grow from their conflicts or continue to repeat their past. In the novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Conflicts change the character Amir. Several of the conflicts include the fight with Assef, his internal battle with guilt, and the struggle of going to Kabul. A particular event that changes Amir is the conflict with Assef. During his childhood, Amir faces conflict when Assef confronts him. Shortly before Hassan steps in, Assef is harassing Amir, and …show more content…

After watching Hassan’s assault, Amir battles his guilty conscience. Amir shares his secret while his relatives are asleep but then realizes, “A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.” (Page 86) Amir is conflicted about his lack of assistance during his best friend’s assault. In the moment, it was easy for him to stand idly by, but his crime haunts him. Although Amir knows what he did was wrong, he isn’t afraid of punishment. Any consequence would cleanse him of his guilt. Furthermore, Amir’s internal battle plays a big role in his development as a person. The guilt of betraying Hassan leaves an immense impact on Amir. While thinking about his past, Amir realizes that he has not grown from his early mistakes, “Because the past claws it's way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” (Page 1) Time hasn’t freed Amir of his guilt. Although years continue to pass, Amir is constantly reminded that he is still the cowardly boy who failed Hassan. Amir lives his life in shame. He’s ashamed of the boy he once was and the man he still is. After Amir wrecks countless relationships and past decisions, the change in his life starts to benefit

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As everyone sleeps, Amir is trapped between thoughts about betraying his friend and his guilt. Amir wants to be accepted for his mistake, yet is left alone to be thinking about his foolish action.

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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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Unfortunately, Amir, one of the victims, had not been young enough to not understand. As a child, he made the mistake of not helping out his half-brother, Hassan. Even if he could have done something, he didn’t because of his cowardice, which was followed by selfishness. Betrayal made Amir the perpetrator. Due to his act of cruelty, he carried stones of guilt over his shoulder which were never shared with anyone but his own mind.

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1089 Words | 5 Pages

Amir first realizes the depth of his cowardice as he watches Assef rape Hassan in the alley and thinks, “I could step in into that alley, stand up for Hassan—the way he stood up for me all those times in the past—and accept whatever happened to me. Or I could run” (Hosseini 77). He has an epiphany that he could choose to be brave and selfless like Hassan and step up to Assef regardless of any physical consequences. However, despite his understanding that the noble choice would be to interfere and stop Assef, Amir is unable to act on it because his fear of Assef overwhelms him. The guilt that consumes Amir in the weeks following Hassan’s rape indicates that he understands the extent of his selfish behavior and needs to resolve it before he can forgive himself.

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1953 Words | 8 Pages

This conflict is a little of both because what happened previously with Hassan getting raped was external, but now that Amir wants redemption its more internal cause hes dealing with his emotions and the little voices in his head. Amir wants to find a way to stop feeling guilty. Once Amir got the call from rahim Khan and he said “theres a way to be good again” Amir knew this was his opportunity to gain redemption and get over what happened in his past, just Amir doesn’t quiet know what hes getting himself into.

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1553 Words | 7 Pages

This guilt and shame follow Amir throughout his life, causing him to struggle with happiness and personal redemption. Ultimately, Amir finds a way to healthily make amends with his past, finding healing and closure from the past. After returning to Afghanistan, Amir encounters the one person that was capable of causing such unimaginable trauma, Assef. By this time, both Amir and Assef were grown adults but they never moved past Hassan’s assault.

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The realisation that Amir gained was the boost of energy he needed to face the consequences of his past by going back to Afghanistan. This was the first step towards redemption: acceptance. Before this, he never thought of the need to justify his past actions, and so, Amir attempts to purge his guilt by commencing a journey back to Afghanistan, in which he would entirely redeem himself later on. In addition, Amir pardons himself by fighting a person he should have fought many years ago—a boy named Assef. Assef is a malicious, tight-fisted character who assaulted Amir’s friend, Hassan, in an alleyway 27 years ago.

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Brooke Ketterer Mrs.Elsbree English Lit AP 27 April 2023 The Kite Runner Q3 Essay Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner features a character's guilt leading to a constant search for redemption. As Amir, the novel’s protagonist, attempts to make amends for his past injustices, he undergoes several acts requiring courage and compassion readers had yet to have seen from him in the novel.

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807 Words | 4 Pages

It’s human nature to want to be liked by everyone. Obviously, though, is impossible. Amir feels neglected and unloved and strives to change this. He focuses on his father 's interests and as a result of this Amir changes. He matures and values intelligence more.

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1067 Words | 5 Pages

Novels can augment our perspective on the nature of mankind. One such book is Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner. The book follows a character named Amir as he goes through life as a child as well as his deep friendship with a boy named Hassan. A series of unfortunate events escalate a conflict prompting Amir with the need to resolve them. The book begins in medias res, until a phone call prompts the book to start back in the years of his youth.

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726 Words | 3 Pages

Although, Amir shows many acts of kindness and selflessness, in the end, he was not able to truly redeem himself. To begin, Amir started his journey to redemption with conviction and confession although he was not very successful. The guilt bothered Amir very often even in his adulthood when he believed he had been denied “fatherhood for the thing [he] had done.” (188) Almost immediately after Amir watched Hassan get raped he believed he had done something wrong. He believed he could not have children with Soraya because he did not help Hassan, but he does not confess until more than fifteen years later.

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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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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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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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