Secrets In The Kite Runner

Secrets always have consequences, and sometimes if not most of them have disastrous consequences. This can be seen in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner where secrets not only affect the people that keep them but those they keep them from. The past can seem to always have a grip or hold on a person, especially if it’s filled with regret and guilt. This is true for Amir, the main protagonist in Khaled Hosseini’s novel. Amir is haunted by the secret that he allowed his best friend and half-brother to be sexually assaulted to elevate himself in the eyes of his father. “One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan – the way he'd stood up for me all those times in the past – and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run. In the end, I ran.” Khaled uses Amir to show the motif of regression in time. Amir’s entire narrative in the Kite Runner is a look back at the past and how it’s shaped his future. What he fails to do is realize and

From the point which he committed his sin until the day he dies his secret was known only to those involved and his two closest friends. His secret is one that is three times as shameful. First because it is one of infidelity, secondly because it is one that fathered an illegitimate child, and thirdly because the two previous acts were with a woman of a lower social class than him. These three factors paired with his immense pride and social standing mixed with guilt lead him to never reveal this secret. “...your father was a man torn between two halves, Amir jan: you and Hassan.” This quote alludes to the internal conflict he faced as a result of this secret, revealed to Amir by his father's closest friend. The author uses Baba to show the theme of the persistence of the past. Baba is constantly plagued by his past mistake that in fact is detrimental and responsible for the downfall of both of his