Amir's Guilt

It is only natural for humans to make mistakes, but it is how mistakes are resolved that will dictate one's fate. In Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the character Amir, with the events that occur in his life, knows a thing or two about making mistakes. The events that take place in the story causes Amir to struggle in finding redemption for those mistakes. Amir’s feeling of guilt and need for redemption becomes a great part of Amir’s path to growing up. Any person who has endured similar experiences will evolve as a person just the same. Through Amir’s actions, he builds up a great amount of guilt, but through his later actions and gained knowledge, Amir does redeem himself. It can be proven that Amir achieves redemption when one learns

There has been a great deal of guilt that follows. The start of Amir’s “downfall” is when Amir watches Hassan get raped by their childhood bully, “... ‘I’m letting you keep the kite, Hazara. I’ll let you keep it so it will always remind you of what I’m about to do” (Hosseini 78). Assef rushes at Hassan and then the most tragic event of both Amir and Hassan’s childhood occurs. The most important factor of this incident to Amir is the fact that he could do something to stop Assef. But, has decided not to, “I bit on my fist. Shut my eyes” (Hosseini 78). While Amir’s best friend is being raped by their “bully, “ Amir tensed up and tried to avoid looking, not even turning his head. Not being able to fight for Hassan becomes one of Amir’s greatest regrets. His immense guilt soon leads to the close bond being even further ripped apart by when he decides to remove Hassan from his life completely. After Amir’s birthday, he feels guilty with all of the gifts he has received. This guilt, plus the guilt from Hassan’s incident “forces” Amir to try to remove Hassan from their house by putting his new watch and money under Hassan’s bed. Baba then asks Hassan, “Did you steal that money? Did you steal Amir’s watch, Hassan?” (Hosseini 111). Hassan then “admits” to stealing the watch and surprisingly is forgiven by Baba. This is even more devastating because Baba has once said how theft is the worst crime and Amir has framed

Rahim Khan tells Amir that, “There is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 2). Early in the novel, this immediately tells the reader that the narrator has done something wrong in this character’s point of view atleast, but there is a way to redeem himself from his past mistakes. Amir, at this point, has carried on with his life and is living in America with his wife. Even though Amir has a great future as a successful writer, past still haunts him as he has told no one about what happened on those two occasions. He can not get over what has happened and wishes things could have gone differently. When Amir learns about this possibility of feeling forgiven, he decides he must take it. In chapter seventeen, Amir learns all about his old friend Hassan and how he grew up with a family and a wife. But, Hassan and his wife were both killed and only their child, Sohrab, remains. Rahim Khan tells Amir that he has to be the one to take Sohrab back with him. Amir then asks why it should be him and Rahim replies with, “I think we both know why it has to be you, don't we?” (Hosseini 233). For Amir, this proves to him that someone knows and that he knows that Amir feels guilty about it. Amir grants Rahim his wish and sets out to find Sohrab. There is also a little moment where Amir finds a little self redemption and