I can never escape our past in the novel the kite runner, the narrator Amir is forced to face his” past of betrayal”. When Amir was a child, he has conflicted feelings about his father, Baba, and his playmate, Hassan. Often, Amir is jealous of the way Baba treats Hassan. Amir struggles between the logical and emotional sides of his being. His obsession and guilty conscience, along with his adult life looking back on childhood events.
He says that Jim “was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches” (Twain 6). Huck got his habits of prejudice and rebellion from his pap, who despises people who are well-educated. Huck was taken away by pap because he hated how Huck decided to get an education, believing that it was an attempt to get away from him. But after suffering through pap’s abuse, Huck decided to fake his death and flee to Jackson’s Island, where he finds Jim who ran away from being sold. Huck and Jim decided to travel together in a raft to Cairo; however, they get into arguments with each other.
He watched in fear as the neighborhood bully (who was demented) brutally raped his best-friend and servant, Hassan. He was haunted by the fact that he did nothing to help his friend, who has consistently stood up for him and helped him get out of trouble. To make matter even worse, he chose to get rid of Hassan (who he didn’t know was actually his half-brother) by planting his watch and money under Hassan’s mattress – all so that he wouldn’t be reminded of the instance and his lack of courage. This was a much worse sin than not doing anything to help his best-friend. This time, it was a transgression committed on purpose instead of just the lack of courage for the first time.
Choices and Consequences Life comes with no instruction manual. One has the choice to either face their problems head on, or to run away from them, and then face the consequences of their choice. In Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, the main character, an Afghani male named Amir, shrouds his life with guilt and regret after a tragic event turned his life completely around. Amir witnessed his best friend, Hassan, get raped. Instead of stopping the rape, Amir simply turned his back on the incident, and tried to forget it even happened.
For example, when Assef, the village bully, tries to set Amir straight for socializing with a Hazara boy named Hassan, (Amir’s best friend, housekeeper, and brother), Hassan comes to Amir’s rescue with his slingshot and threatens to shoot Assef with his slingshot if he hurts Amir. Preventing Assef from hurting Amir caused Assef to later seek revenge for Hassan’s courageous act. This is when the entire chain of violence is created in “The Kite Runner.” Revenge is another very important aspect of the story’s purpose. Without revenge, the violence would either occur once and end, or not occur at all. Assef’s revenge took place in front of Amir’s eyes as he “…unzipped his jeans, dropped his underwear.
Amir is always jealous of the way Hassan is treated by his dad, and how his dad buys him a lot of valuable gifts for his birthdays. So, Amir starts hating Hassan more because of the better life he has. One day, Amir watches Hassan getting raped by Assef and he does not do anything about it. “I watched Hassan get raped … I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.”(Husseini, #). This quote shows how Amir is admitting watching Hassan gets raped without doing anything, and how he thinks he is going to get away with it.
In each case, both characters experience guilt due to a past breaking of faith and both hope to reconcile these acts with themselves and with others. Perhaps a direct result of Amir’s role as the narrator, the most significant act of betrayal in The Kite Runner is Amir’s betrayal of Hassan. Amir failed to stand up for his best friend and half brother Hassan, because he feared Assef, and he feared for his own fate. He did not want to risk the chance for him to be a victim of sodomy as well. “I opened my mouth, almost said something.
When Hassan runs for Amir's tournament-winning kite, the notoriously evil Assef and his friends confront him. Contrary to the bravery Hassan showed earlier in the novel in protecting Amir from Assef, Amir chooses self-preservation over assisting the vulnerable Hassan. Hassan subsequently is raped and Amir
Nicole Zurita Ms.ibarra-Sdoeung World literature 03/28/14 Guilt Leading to Good “A person who sacrifices to seek redemption finds freedom and peace” (Unknown), the message of the author explains that guilt usually imprisons our hearts from living a peaceful life, such as in the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, A boy named Amir who has ghosts following him throughout his whole life since the winter of 1975 when he sacrifices his best friend Hassan and later on known as his half-brother, from being raped by some bullies to win his father’s love and acceptance, showing his father the kite Amir won. Since that day Amir remembers saying” In the winter of 1975 I saw Hassan run a kite of the last time” (2). In fact it is a life changing
This reveals his sacrificial, committed selflessness to Huck. For example, when Huck and Jim find a floating house, Jim tells Huck to “[c]ome in…but [not to] look at his face- [because] it’s too gashly” (48). Jim is also righteously angry and scared when Huck plays tricks on him and causes him stress with his immature jokes. Jim feels very afraid when Huck “gets lost” as he explains to Huck that “…[h]is heart wuz mos’ broke bekase [Huck] wuz los’, en [Jim] didn’ k’yer no mo’ what become er [Huck] en de raf’” (80). Of course, another of Jim’s qualities rises to the surface here as the reader sees him forgive Huck.