Denial In The Kite Runner

Ben Franklin wrote “Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” This philosophy refers to more than work assignments, but to emotions as well. Pushing away complications is a frequent side-effect of being human. This is evident even in the steps to acceptance, in which the first is denial. This tendency to ignore pain is seen in more than just society, but in its creations as well. In literature, characters often deny the existence of certain feelings and problems, which later results in a confrontation when their issues can no longer be ignored.

In The Kite Runner, Amir tries to deny his crushing guilt, but this leads to severe depression and loneliness. After a kite competition, some neighborhood bullies rape Hassan in an alley.

Unbeknownst to them, Amir witnesses the whole incident, but makes no endeavor to stop it. Both children are scarred, but their solution is to pretend it never happened, “Baba held me close to him, rocking me back and forth. I his arms, I forgot what I’d done. And that was good” (Hosseini 79). However, despite his best efforts, Amir is still affected by what happened.

About a week later, Amir, Baba, and some others go on a trip to town. On the way, everyone talks about the recent kite competition. They congratulate Amir on his win, but he gets horribly nauseas because all he could see was Hassan, “Little shapes formed behind my eyelids, like hands playing shadows on the wall. They twisted, merged, formed a single image: Hassan’s old brown pair of corduroy pants discarded on a pile of old bricks in the alley” (Hosseini 84). Time passes on, and he even finds love, but silence is a stalker Amir can’t seem to shake. He wants so desperately to reveal his secret, especially when his fiancée shares hers, but he can’t. It even seems to be a bit of a wedge between the two, “I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and almost told her…But I didn’t. I suspected there were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was just one of them” (Hosseini 165). Soraya revealing her trauma is the perfect excuse for Amir to open up about his past, but he can’t. He has become used to the pain, and is even convinced he deserves it. When he and Soraya later marry and are unable to have a child, Amir sees this as his karma. If he couldn’t

save his friend, he could never protect his own child. When he finds out that Hassan and his wife died, leaving their child an orphan, Amir decides to go to Afghanistan and save the child himself. This leads to one of the greatest character developments in the book, Amir telling Soraya the whole story. When he finishes explaining, Soraya simply tells him that he must bring the child back to America to live with the couple. Amir has been weighed down by this secret for years, thinking himself irredeemable, but is shown by his wife that he’s not incorrigible. Yes, he made a terrible mistake, but redemption is possible. Amir is one of the lucky few, who when facing their bottled up emotions, ends up the winner. Instead, he conquers his demons and lives a happy life with his wife and adopted son.
Unlike Amir, Anna of Anna Karenina has a confrontation that ends with her taking her own life.

Rich, beautiful, and married to a successful man, Anna should be the height of happiness. And she is, until meeting the handsome Vronsky who steals her heart, though she won’t admit it. Even when he professes his love to her, she can only respond with, “’If you love me as you say,’ she said, ‘then let me be at peace’” (Tolstoy 166). Whispers have been going around about the two of them, and this request from Anna shows that she’s truly making an effort to hide her feelings and have the perfect life. With the risk of unpleasantness from both society and her husband, becoming a man’s mistress is out of the question. However, for a single night, Anna pushes aside her hesitations to be with Vronsky, which later results in Ana becoming pregnant. Now facing the realization that she is going to have a child not of her husband, Anna decides to come clean with Karenin, “I love him, I’m his mistress, I can’t bear it, I’m afraid-I hate you…You can do whatever you like with me” (Tolstoy 254). With the truth finally out, and the lovers listening to their hearts, perhaps everyone could have a happy ending. Except that Anna soon becomes afraid that she is losing Vronsky’s love, and becomes frantic. The crushing blow for Anna was knowing it wouldn’t get better. She risked it all, her husband, her child, her status, and her way of life for a man she thought cherished her above all else. To believe

that this man had betrayed her, no longer loved her, Anna couldn’t stand the thought of it. Her solution: step in front of a moving train while still pregnant with Vronsky’s child, the ultimate revenge.