Guilt In Khaled Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner'

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The Kite Runner Essay

Guilt. A cancerous thing, spreading through your body, manipulating your thoughts, working as a deterrent for any type of long term vivacity. As seen in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner one of the main themes is seeking redemption. We see that in order to seek redemption and earn it, you must have the self-motivation deeper than other people pushing you.

For the longest time, Amir is plagued with having a heart full of guilt. It seems hopeless for him, like a shadow following him around, lingering, and sometimes making itself so oblivious, eradicating any ounce of serenity he could have. “How could I, of all people, chastise someone for their past?… I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my …show more content…

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.”(165) When Amir decides that he is not going to share his long held secret with his wife to be after she just shared a very personal part of her life with him he digs his hole deeper. At this point is another time in the book where you can feel the hope for Amir’s redemption becoming lost. “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.” Giving up on himself slightly he admits that what he did was worse than being a coward, it was betrayal; betrayal to himself, Hassan, his father, etc. In a way it loops back to the ultimate sin “stealing” in …show more content…

The climax for his journey was here when after all of the emotional pain that went on you see for the first time him truly happy. Truly satisfied. “For you, a thousand times over,” I heard myself say. Then I turned and ran. It was only a smile, nothing more… A tiny thing… But I’ll take it. With open arms.” Going back to what Hassan said to Amir in the beginning of the book we are seeing repetition with Amir and Hassans son. It is heartwarming to Amir that he finally got a smile out of Sohrab after the pain they’ve both experienced. Subconsciously he goes back to his good memories, the ones that allowed him to feel loved by someone who shouldn’t have. I believe he says that for Hassan, giving him a slight bit of

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