Imagine that you had a final exam the next day and you never studied for it. This is when you may start to experience a feeling of guilt. Guilt is a very powerful emotion to be reckoned with. It can be used to help us, for instance it may motivate you to start cramming for that exam. However,it is usually there to destroy us, if we let it. In Khaled Hosseini’s, The Kite Runner, we see an example of guilt’s destructive power in the life of the main character, Amir. Specifically, guilt plays a major role in the book by influencing Amir’s personality and actions over and over again.
In The Kite Runner, guilt has an affect on Amir’s personality in many instances throughout the book. One way that his personality is affected by the guilt is his
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attitude towards Ali. When Ali tries to figure out what happened to Hassan the day after the incident happened, Amir says he doesn’t know what happened to him when in reality, he does. Ali tries to persist and Amir’s attitude immediately changes. He says, “‘Like I said, how should I know what's wrong with him? … Maybe he's sick. People get sick all the time, Ali. Now, am I going to freeze to death or are you planning on lighting the stove today?’” (Hosseini, 81). Prior to the incident, Amir never spoke to Ali in such a rude manner. Therefore, we can conclude that his guilt over the incident is changing his attitude. Another way that his personality is affected by the guilt is his attitude towards Hassan. A few days after the incident, Hassan tries to rekindle their friendship and asks Amir if they want to go the bakery together. Amir tells him no, and Hassan asks why they never play anymore and asks what he could do better. Amir responds saying, “‘I want you to stop harassing me. I want you to go away.’” (Hosseini, 88). We can see here that Amir’s guilt is so strong that he can’t stand being around or thinking about Hassan because that will remind him of the incident. Amir wanted out of this guilt so badly that he would go as far as treating his best friend poorly to get relief from the regret. In The Kite Runner guilt has an affect on Amir’s actions many times in the book.
One way that the guilt has an affect on his actions is Amir trying to help Hassan stand up for himself, but ends up making his own guilt worse. A few days after the incident, Amir and Hassan take a visit to the pomegranate tree, their favorite place to read and play. Amir decides to try to help Hassan by making him stand up for himself. Amir starts hurling pomegranates at him, hoping that Hassan will eventually throw one back to act as a punishment to Amir. Hassan takes all of the hits and doesn’t do anything in return. Amir gets upset and says, “‘Hit me back, goddamn you!’ I wished he would. I wished he'd give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night. Maybe then things could return to how they used to be between us… Then Hassan did pick up a pomegranate. He walked toward me. He opened it and crushed it against his own forehead. ‘There,’ he croaked, red dripping down his face like blood. ‘Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?’” (Hosseini, 78). Amir is the never a person to hit his own best friend. The guilt inside of him has grown so much that he is willing to do anything to get rid of it. He would even go as far as hurting his best friend to get rid of the guilt. Since Amir never hurts his best friend, we can conclude that his guilt is having an affect on his actions. Another way that the guilt has an affect on his actions is in his decision to frame Hassan so he will
get kicked out. A few weeks after the incident happened, Amir has had enough of the guilt that has been inside him that he wanted Hassan gone from his life, hoping that the guilt would disappear. The book describes what he does. It says, “I went downstairs, crossed the yard, and entered Ali and Hassan's living quarters by the loquat tree. I lifted Hassan's mattress and planted my new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under it. I waited another thirty minutes. Then I knocked on Baba's door and told what I hoped would be the last in a long line of shameful lies.” (Hosseini, 105-106). During a conversation with Baba, Ali, Hassan, and Amir, Hassan says that he did steal the watch and money. Baba then unexpectedly forgave him. We can see here that Amir’s guilt is very strong that he can’t stand having Hassan in his life. So he was willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of it. In this case, he was successful in getting rid of Hassan, which calmed his guilt for a period of time. In conclusion, guilt is having a major effect on Amir because of his change in actions and his change in personality. We can all be consumed by this guilt, but only if we let it to. In this case, Amir couldn’t stop thinking about the guilt that it ended up consuming him. Changing him to a different person. Thus, the guilt that Amir was shown to have has a dramatic effect on his personality and his actions.
Guilt is a powerful emotion that can affect the path of a person’s life. Dunstan’s character in Robertson Davies’s “Fifth Business” experienced guilt at an early age and stayed with Dunstan throughout his life, and continually affected his relationships with Mrs.Dempster, Boy and Paul into an unhealthy one. Dunstan took the blame for the snow ball entirely without acknowledging boy was at fault. “I was contrite and guilty, for I knew that the snowball had been meant for me” (Davies, 11). From that point in his life, his guilt had the dynamo effect. He took blame for every tragedy that happened to the Dempster family since. Dunstan’s battled guilt ultimately controlled his action and relationships.
Moral ambiguity is lack of clarity in decision making. Basically, moral ambiguity is when you have an issue, situation, or question that has moral or ethical elements, but the morally correct action to take is unclear, due to conflicting. The author of The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini, the book is about a boy named Amir and how much of a easy life he has at first, but near the middle of the book his life is horrible from there to the end of the book.
When a person does something that hurts others, one will likely experience regret for the harm their actions. In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the theme of guilt and its effects on your behavior, self-image, and your interactions with others is explored. Gene, in the beginning, sees Finny as his best friend, and relies on him for support and friendship; however, after Gene causes Finny to break his leg, his guilt causes him to change is personality and self-image. Their friendship is damaged by Gene’s guilt.
... Finally, Amir chooses to redeem himself by opting to protect Hassan’s son Sohrab. The guilt which estranged Amir from his childhood friend in a way manages to reunite him with Hassan, albeit in a different manner. Thereby, the two works that are Macbeth and The Kite Runner not only present before the humanity, the immense power and potency of guilt, but also emphatically reveal the eventual consequences of the guilt traceable to an evil act or an act of cowardice or betrayal. These two works expose the psychology of guilt in a very vivid and threadbare manner, which explains their appeal and the human interest they accrue.
Throughout The Kite Runner this theme is shown many times without this aspect and understanding of this part of the book it would be incomprehensible. Amir eventually learns how to cope with his own guilt and his
Guilt acts as one of the strongest and most prominent emotions humans feel throughout their lives. Guilt can cause people to help others, push through obstacles, or make friends. Guilt, however, may not stop one from doing amoral actions. This can happen as a result of a perceived bonus outweighing the negative feeling one may experience from completing the action, or a heat of the moment action, where one may not fully understand the consequences of their actions.
There is one human emotion that can paralyse us, lead us to lie both to ourselves and others, to take action that we don't like, and to cripple any rational thought processes. It is self perpetuating if allowed to get out of control. Its side effects are either anger, aggressiveness or fear and reclusiveness. Its symptoms are irrational behaviour, lying, anguish, lack of self-esteem, and in extreme cases, thoughts of suicide. It is guilt. In The Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies, guilt is a reoccurring theme throughout the novel and is a major force in one’s life. Davies demonstrates this by having one character feeling guilt while another who does not.
The presence of guilt has been felt by all human beings. As guilt grows in a
To atone for his past sins, he embarks on a journey back to Afghanistan to redeem himself to Hassan for not treating him the way he was treated. He redeems himself by saving Sohrab and giving him a safer and enjoyable life in the Untied States. Amir tyres to attain redemption to baba for being the cause of his mother’s death as he believes. Gaining his fathers love and care will make him feel redeemed from all of the resentment and lack of care that his father shows to him. He must prove to Baba that he is worthy of spending time with everyday because he feels the hatred that his father shows to him. One way how he gets redemption from his father is by winning the kite running tournament to prove to him that he is worthy of being his son. Amir’s path of redemption is not only directed to other people but personal redemption for himself. He attempts to redeem himself by building an orphanage with his wife Soraya and giving Sohrab the childhood that is safer and more suitable for a young boy to grow up in. Amir has to realize that the past doesn’t define who someone is although you can’t forget the past, the actions that they decide to do to redeem themselves from the past mistakes defines who someone is. If Amir’s mother did not die at birth would he be resented from his father greatly and have to make great
Guilt is a result of sin, and sin is a result of misaction. In the novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the protagonist, Amir, goes on a journey to redeem himself for his sins. When Amir was 12, he witnessed his best friend, Hassan, get raped in an alley. Instead of standing up for his friend, Amir ran away in selfishness and cowardice. The guilt of his choice plagues Amir for the rest of his life, until one day, he gets a call from an old uncle, who tells him that “there is a way to be good again.” (2) The Kite Runner follows Amir on his odyssey to redeem himself for his hurtful actions. Through this journey, Khaled Hosseini delivers the message that sins and guilt can always be atoned for.
Over the course of the novel, Baba implies that he is not proud of Amir and the only reason he knows Amir is his son, is because he witnessed Amir 's birth. He states to Rahim Khan that he thinks Amir needs to stand up for himself more often. Countless times during the novel, Amir feels like he has to fight for his affection, that he has to earn Baba’s love. In order to prove himself worthy of affection and to redeem himself for not being a son Baba could be proud of, Amir yearns to win the kite runner competition. He reminisces on a memory, when all “I saw was the blue kite. All I smelled was victory. Salvation. Redemption” (65). In the aftermath of Hassan’s rape, Amir got rid of Hassan so he would not have to face the cause of his guilt on a daily basis. Amir buries the secret of the rape deep within him, where he hopes that it will not come back to haunt him, which is not the case. “We had both sinned and betrayed. But Baba had found a way to create good out of his remorse. What had I done, other than take my guilt out on the very same people I had betrayed, and then try to forget it all? What had I done, other than become an insomniac? What had I ever done to right things?” (303). As mentioned earlier, Amir is not one who stands up for himself. In order for Amir to redeem himself for betraying Hassan, and not standing up for him earlier,
Occasionally we ignore the guilt we are feeling because it's something that seems to have no harm to anybody else. For example, in The Scarlet Ibis the kid never thought or realized that he was in a way always putting doodle into danger. He always let his pride cloud his guilt.
Amir also committed a sin that affected him negatively throughout his life. This sin occurred when Hassan, Amir’s best friend during his childhood, was getting raped by Assef. This situation occurred when the children were chasing kites. Hassan got the kite first, but Assef insisted that he wanted the kite. Assef also had a racial and religious prejudice against Hassan.
During The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini reinforces the theme of the loss of innocence and redemption. Many characters lose innocence or are the cause of another character losing theirs. Amir both loses his innocence and that of others. His innocence is stolen by his father. In the novel Amir overhears Baba saying, “‘If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son’” (Hosseini 24-25). This affects Amir for his entire life as he tries to compete with Hassan for his father's attention. He does not realize that in doing so, this crumbles his world as he knows it. It makes Amir resentful, calloused, and even cruel, all of which are characteristics of someone who has lost their innocence. In turn, Amir’s loss of innocence causes other to lose their innocence because of his lack of courage and disregard for others feelings.
Guilt acts as one of the strongest and most prominent emotions humans feel throughout their lives. Guilt can cause people to help others, push through obstacles, or make friends. Guilt, however, may not stop one from doing amoral actions. This can happen as a result of a perceived bonus outweighing the negative feeling one may experience from completing the action, or a heat of the moment action, where one may not fully understand the consequences of their actions.