Amir's Flaws In The Kite Runner

Life is a rollercoaster of events and emotions that supply us with a myriad of obstacles and experiences. Every human being is flawed or scarred whether by a situation they had to undergo or something they view about themselves that they consider being ‘imperfect’. In literature, characters are usually portrayed as a deeply human and flawed person to emphasize and depict real people in reality. In The Kite Runner the protagonist, Amir, is shown as a profoundly conflicted and flawed character. Amir’s most tragic flaw is his perpetual silence throughout the novel and he is able to overcome it by doing a heroic action in order to save someone else’s life.

Amir’s silence has caused him to undergo traumatic situations and the most pivotal one was

when he kept quiet when Hassan was getting raped. Hassan a gentle, loving Hazara was attacked and sexually assaulted by Assef, a town bully, for not giving Assef a kite which signified Amir as the champion of the Kabul kite flying tournament. Amir was in the background the whole time seeing the atrocities that Assef was doing to Hassan, but his silence engulfed him and he had to remain with the guilt of not standing up for Hassan. As the novel, The Kite Runner states, “ That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” This silence of not defending Hassan led him to constantly think about his guilt of Hassan’s rape and feel unworthy of everything he had for a quarter of a century because he knew at the end of the day he caused Hassan’s despair by remaining silent when he was in that alley.
Amir’s silence about the way he felt about Baba’s relationship with Hassan was a stimulant to many horrible events that occurred in the novel, therefore, it was his most tragic flaw. In the novel The Kite Runner it says, “ Because the truth of it was, I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? The least I could have done was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I hadn’t turned out like him. Not at all.” Amir’s intense jealousy stemmed from his differences between his father and him, and how his father felt about those differences. Once Baba had stated that Amir never stood up for anything or for himself, unlike Hassan and Baba who did then caused Amir to become troubled and insecure. This whole concept led Amir to develop an extreme, sinister jealously towards Hassan. However, if he wouldn’t have kept quiet about the way he felt he might have found out the secret that Baba had been holding deep within him. The secret was that in reality, Hassan was not Ali’s son but actually Amir’s half-brother. Then, this would have probably resulted in Amir’s jealousy to disappear and then maybe Amir would not have had remained silent as Hassan was getting raped because he would not have had needed the kite to prove himself to Baba. Amir would have finally had the confirmation that Hassan was a part of his own blood so he would have done everything differently and he would not have had sought redemption for his tragic sin.
There was a vital event that served as the catalyst for Amir to try to make everything right and finally redeem himself after twenty-six years of perpetual guilt.

In the Kite Runner, the following is stated, “ Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up.” When Rahim Khan said this, he basically meant that there was a way for Amir to redeem himself and the only way would be to go to Afghanistan to save Sohrab, Hassan’s son, from the awful things occurring there. Amir taking the dangerous decision of going to save Sohrab in Afghanistan with all the trials and tribulations he was certain to face served as the catalyst to make everything right. Amir does redeem himself by the end of the novel because he rescues Sohrab from the vicious, treacherous grasp of Assef and takes Sohrab into his home as his son. He evidently redeemed himself because Hassan would have most likely done anything in his power to keep his beloved son from harm and Amir left his fear and cowardliness behind to save his nephew. Also when Amir went to rescue Sohrab, Assef was attacking him with powerful punches and Amir laughed because he finally felt the relief of redemption. He had felt that relief because he had stood up and fought for Sohrab which proves he had redeemed himself to Hassan. Although Hassan was not there to see it for himself, Amir had proven how guilty and sorry he had felt for his silence with valuable actions rather than with insignificant

words.
As the literature work of The Kite Runner has taught us from the journey it has lain before us to read, characters can be as deeply flawed and human as all of us in reality. Amir, the protagonist in the novel, shows us that his most significant sin is that he always kept everything within himself and sought refuge behind the shadows of silence. Amir remained silent in situations when his input would have changed the course of events in positive ways, therefore, his silence is percieved as his most tragic sin. Amir seeks to redeem himself at the end and the catalyst that drove him to do this is when he decided to rescue his nephew to feel the guilt his silence provided him with to finally be released. Evidently, the novel concludes that Amir finally accomplished to redeem himself by a heroic action. Life guarantees every human with trials and tribulations just like characters are guaranteed the same in a novel, we seek redemption just as Amir sought his own.