The Theme of Guilt in The Kite Runner
If you disguise or mask a sin or wrong doing, it denies the option of staying true to one’s self and the guilt will eventually set in. guilt is one of the many themes presented in the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Characters are challenged and struggle with the theme of guilt. Some take the guilt and convert it to make positive changes in their life to somewhat right the wrong they have done. Others keep the guilt to themselves, which prevent them from making a positive change. Both Amir and Baba lived with guilt for most of their lives, but when the opportunity came to make things right both Amir and Baba seized that opportunity. Sanaubar, who feels guilty that she was not a part of Hassan’s life differs to Amir who still grieves over his dead mother and does unreasonable things to gain the likings of his father. Following this further Rahim Khan feels guilty that he hid a secret from Amir about his past which compares to Amir who did the same thing to his wife Soraya.
The first two characters that use the feeling of guilt to motivate them to make positive choices in similar ways are Baba and Amir. The first character that will be examined first is Amir. “I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. I was afraid of getting hurt. That’s what I told myself as I turned my back to the alley to Hassan.” (Hosseini 82) Amir receives his guilt here at this moment. Amir has just witnessed Hassan being raped in the alley by Assef. Instead of jumping in and trying to help he ran from the alley and ultimately ran away from doing the right thing. Although the guilt of this event ate away at him for most of the book, he used the guilt as a way to make a positive choice in his life. “A way to end the cycle. With a little boy. An orphan. Hassan’s son. Somewhere in Kabul.” (Hosseini 239) this is an example of how Amir uses that guilt that he harvested inside of him to make a positive change in his life and the life of a young boy named Sohrab, who is Hassan’s son. Here is where he is convinced to go find Sohrab in Kabul even though going back to where he grew up wasn’t his best interest at heart, especially when the after math of war has made Kabul a place of poverty. He volunteered to take Sohrab out of the orphanage he was living in, to somewhere where Sohrab will be safe and live a better life. The second character that will be examined is Baba “He loved you both, but he could not love Hassan the way he longed to, openly, and as a father. So he took it out on you instead- Amir, the socially legitimate half, the half that represented the riches he had inherited and the sin-with-impunity privileges that came with them. When he was you, he saw himself. And his guilt.” (pg 316) Baba felt guilty that he could not father Hassan like he fathered Amir, and that he deprived Hassan of living a happy filled childhood. He even betrayed Ali, who he thought of as a brother, by sleeping w...
