The Kite Runner Guilt Quotes

The quote,“Guilt is to the spirit, what pain is to the body” said by Elder David A. Bednar, really proves that guilt can be very painful and it is especially painful for Amir because he dealt with the guilt of choosing to not help Hassan his whole life. As soon as Amir decided to run away instead of trying to help Hassan and stop him from being sexually assaulted by Assef, he immediately felt guilty and that stuck with him for the rest of his life. The author really shows Amir’s guilt throughout the novel through different negative events that always seem to happen to Amir, he uses the idea of “full circle” throughout the novel to express Amir’s guilt. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini shows the motif guilt by adding important details throughout the novel: these include how Amir continues to feel guilty for the way that he treated Hassan throughout their childhood, he never stood up for Hassan when he needed him the most, and even when Amir tried to get rid of his guilt by bringing Sohrab back to America, he still felt guilt for everything he had done to Hassan.

Selfishness is the concern for oneself or to act to one’s own advantage (“Selfish”). Humans are naturally selfish and they tend to want the best for themselves. In Khaled Hossieni’s novel The Kite Runner, Amir is the son of a wealthy businessman that lives in Kabul, Afghanistan who only thinks about himself. Amir shows this through his actions towards Hassan. Amir struggles to call Hassan his friend due to the social standards in Afghanistan. Amir’s selfish actions are exemplified; this is proven through the pressure from society, the jealousy and insecurity felt due to his lack of a loving father and the actions that ultimately lead to his unfaithfulness to Hassan.

The expression "riddled with guilt" is a good way to describe the main character's life, Amir, in the book The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner is a story about an Afghan boy, Amir, who has many hardships throughout his life as he grows from a boy living in war-torn Afghanistan, to a successful writer living in America. Amir experiences many events that caused him to carry a great amount of guilt throughout his life. So much guilt that it even turned him into an insomniac. He needed to find a way to make amends which would allow him to forgive himself and hopefully, one day, be able to sleep soundly again.

Eventually, Amir received a call from his old mentor, who told him to come back to Afghanistan because "there is a way to be good again." What Amir learned while he visited his mentor would lead him to what he considered redemption. Hassan had been killed, which Amir partially considered his fault, but Hassan's son, Sohrab, was still alive. With the idea of giving him to a good placement organization, Amir set out to save Sohrab. Amir found Sohrab in the possession of a Taliban member, the same man who had raped Hassan when they were children. In order to save Sohrab, Amir had to fight the man, and he was injured very badly in doing so. Despite his injuries, he felt better about himself. He felt free, at peace. He finally had the courage to tell his wife about what he had done, and that took a weight off of his shoulders, as well. Even though Hassan had forgiven him long ago, Amir refused anything less than Hassan's fate.

Amir went through a tough battle with guilt. He saw his friend get raped and did nothing about it, he blamed himself for his mother's death and he felt bad for thinking that he wanted another man as his father. All this guilt he kept inside. But one day he ran into Assef, Assef and him got into an altercation. He got vanquished by Assef, the man who raped Hassan. While he was he felt relieved of the guilt that he had, another way he helped himself relive his guilt is by taking care of Hassan's child. Nevertheless everyone has felt somewhat guilty once, we all handle our guilt differently, yet we shouldn't act badly. We should do good, fix our wrongs and should have the idea that guilt can make you do good

The quote, “Guilt is a destructive and ultimately pointless emotion” (Crilly, 2012), shows the effect of guilt on a person. Guilt can control a whole person’s life at times, and constantly causes them to think about events that caused the emotion. Two characters in The Kite Runner, Amir and Baba, constantly experience guilt due to important events that occured in their lives. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the motif of guilt is shown when looking at how Amir lived with the death of his mother, how Amir responded to the attack of Hassan, and how Baba dealt with being the biological father of Hassan.

This one decision left a stain on Amir for the next thirty years. A quote on pg. 88 states “I wish someone would wake me up, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore” This quote explains how guilty Amir felt after seeing Hassan get raped as he desperately sought for anyone to find out but didn’t chose to tell anyone the actual truth. Another example from the text is when Amir tries throwing pomegranates at Hassan, as an attempt to get Hassan to fight back and punish Amir for choosing to leave Hassan. However, Hassan refused to throw any pomegranates at Amir, but instead smashed one into his face. A quote on pg.94 states “I wanted Hassan to fight me back for the way I failed him” This quote indicates that Amir wanted Hassan to fight him back, so he could have the “punishment [he] craved” (93) This demonstrates that Amir wanted to feel the act of being punished for his wrongdoing, similar to how Hassan was brutally raped due to Amir’s apparent mistake. Amir’s guilt forces him to travel across two countries to seek redemption for the mistake he made. 15 years later, Amir’s guilt led him to make the hefty decision of returning to Afghanistan “to be good again” (189) by rescuing Hassan’s orphaned son, Sohrab, from the terrible conditions he was left to face in Kabul. Amir sees this as an opportunity to redeem and free himself from

He has traveled to Afghanistan to save his nephew he never knew. At this point Amir knows the dangers he faces in the war riddled country but he must seek a way to forgive himself for what he did to Hassan. In his quest to make things right again, Amir confronts Assef, ““WHAT’S SO FUNNY?" Assef bellowed. Another rib snapped, this time left lower. What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this.” (Pg. 289) This is a large turning point in the novel. Amir can finally feel like he is doing right by everyone and gaining redemption for his

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do,” Voltaire once said. Every choice in life comes with a consequence that follows. A common consequence is guilt, a bad feeling caused by knowing or thinking that you have done something wrong. Amir, the main character in The Kite Runner, discovers the consequence of guilt after making decisions throughout his childhood that were destructive. Khaled Hosseini describes the destructive ability of guilt to consume one’s life through the the relationships of Amir and Hassan, Baba and Ali, and Amir and Sohrab.

Once back in Kabul, Amir takes steps he would never have imagined, which truly define his character. On his venture back to Afghanistan he learns the truth about Hassan’s connection with Baba. After hearing this Amir feels robbed of the truth and is angry at how his own father could hold this back from him. Despite his feelings, Amir realizes he must not only pay for his betrayal of Hassan but for Baba’s betrayal of Ali too. Amir knows he must face his fears and he understands this when he reveals, “I remembered Baba saying that my problem was that someone had always done my fighting for me" (Hosseini 239). Following this he undertakes a personal mission to find Sohrab and finds the courage to stand up to the Taliban, nearly dying in the process. During his quest Amir comes face to face with the disturbing Assef and fights him for Sorab, the ultimate sacrifice for his dead half-brother. While he is beaten he begins to laugh, which angers Assef even more. Amir explains that, “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace" (Hosseini 303). After successfully bringing Sohrab back to California, Amir defends his Hazara nephew when General Taheri insults him. Over the dinner

Not only did Amir risk his life by going back to Kabul, but he also saved Sohrab from Taliban officials and brought him back to Pakistan. After Amir went back to Kabul, he found out that Sohrab was being held at one Taliban official’s house. When he went there to get Sohrab, he found out that the Taliban official was Assef; the guy who raped Hassan. Assef agreed to let Sohrab go in exchange for a fight with Amir. While Amir gets beaten, he thinks about the day when he asked Hassan to punish him by throwing pomegranate at him. But Hassan did not and Amir felt like he wasn’t punished. After Assef beat him up, he felt that he was redeemed because he needed to be punished for his sins. On page 289, Amir narrates his fight with Assef, “What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this. – My body was broken – just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later – but I felt healed. Healed at last.” Amir felt that he was healed because he finally was punished physically for what he did to Hassan. He was physically damaged but at the end he was able to recover and take Sohrab back to Pakistan.

Conversely, Amir grows up to be a man who achieves holistic atonement. As a child in Kabul, he overheard his father tell Rahim Khan, “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything” (Hosseini 22); however Amir

Both of these characters are similar regarding the trait of forgiveness. Although Amir never really apologized to Hassan for all of the evil things he did to him, Amir forgave himself and truly attempted to makeup for the mistakes he had made in his childhood, by making a new life for Hassan's son, Sohrab in his adulthood. One of the attempts Amir did to makeup for the betrayal of Hassan is to take a beating from Assef. When getting beat up by Assef, Amir feels good that he is standing up for himself and Sohrab, just like Hassan stood up for him in the alleyway. Amir also redeems himself from the guilt he had felt toward Hassan. An example of Amir feeling as though he stood up for Sohrab and redeems himself from the guilt or jealousy toward Hassan is when he says,” "He got mad and hit me harder and the harder he kicked me, the harder I laughed" (Hoseini,297). Hassan forgives Amir for betraying him in the alleyway by not bringing it up to Amir and throwing it away like nothing happened. In the end, both characters found a way to forgive one another for the main conflict within story, The Kite

When Amir and his wife, Soraya, can’t seem to have a child, Amir believes that it is because of his wrongdoings in the past. Right up until Amir is in his 30’s does he confront his mistakes. It takes a call from Rahim Khan to persuade him that there is ‘a way to be good again’ (Pg. 2). Amir knows that he needs to make up to Hassan for the wrong that he did all those years ago, and so by confronting his mistake and trying to redeem himself by rescuing Sohrab, Hassan’s son. Amir’s confrontation with Assef when he is getting back Sohrab made him feel like he was confronting his mistakes and gaining redemption ‘For the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt at peace… In some nook in a corner of my mind, I’d even been looking forward to this.’ (Pg. 265). This is the punishment and redemption that he has been waiting all these years for, because Hassan wouldn’t punish him all those years ago when they were under the pomegranate tree.

Hosseini shows that it is Amirs immense guilt that drives him to want to make things right and to earn redemption. We learn the basis Amir's guilt through his memories. It is caused by a lack of response at a time when his loyal servant and close friend Hassan is in trouble. Amir makes a conscious decision to hide in the distance and just watch, not because he was afraid. He sacrifices Hassan in order to earn his fathers attention and affection. This decision results in Hassan suffering though a traumatic experience and is the root of Amir's lasting regret.