Theme Of Guilt In The Kite Runner

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.

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” – Voltaire. Guilt is an emotion that comes from believing that you were responsible for a particular mistake (usually the violation of some moral code) whether or not this guilt is accurate. In the novel The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the main character Amir portrays guilt as being destructive. Amir’s experience leads to him feeling guilty for the rest of his life. This guilt breaks up the relationships he once had, it also affects the people around him. In the novel The Kite Runner, Khlaed uses Amir to show how violence leads to betrayal, then guilt and at some point destroys relationships between people. This is mostly proved in the novel by the impact of violence on Amir which

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.

Guilt has the incredible power to change an individual’s perspective and affect them for the rest of their life. The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a world-renowned novel published in 2003 that tells the story of a young boy named Amir who grows up with the guilt of having failed to fight the group of boys who raped his closest friend. One of the main themes Hosseini emphasizes in the novel, is the powerful affect of guilt on one’s self. Different characters such as Amir, Sanubar and Baba use the guilt that exists in every one of them as a motive to their actions to further develop the plot. Amir, the narrator of the novel, witnesses his closest friend, Hassan, get bullied by an older boy named Aseef and decides not to

The beginning of Amir’s journey causes him to feel guilty enough that he causes a chain reaction where he inflicts more cruelty upon himself and others. Amir and Hassan used to live a simple life with the biggest negative in Amir’s life being the fact that his father liked Hassan more. Right after a kite tournament that Amir won, Hassan goes to run the kite for Amir, and Amir finds him being abused by Assef in an alley. Amir decides to do nothing and feels guilty about it for most of his life. Although the initial cruelty is inflicted upon Hassan, it is Amir who is hurt the most. His guilt causes him to inflict cruelty upon Hassan in order to cause Hassan to “give [Amir] the punishment [he] craved, so maybe [he]’d finally sleep at night” (92). Amir’s cruelty leads Hassan and his father to walk out of Amir’s life, leaving Amir and his father, Baba,

“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.

Amir has had to deal with his guilt for years. Every time Amir seen Hassan he had to get reminded of what he had seen and did nothing about. In the article of how to deal with guilt it states , “what was done can't be undone , but the guilty one doesn't need to continue to be identified with the sin” (Century 1). This means that Amir's actions can't be undone , but he shouldn't feel guilty within himself after it's already happened and Years have past. Amir shouldn't have to live with that guilt throughout his life it was a careless

As quoted by Khaled Hosseini, “What happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.” This quote encompasses the theme of everything an action being taken will affect your whole lifetime. This can be seen very well with the actions Amir has decided to take in his childhood and carrying it on into his adulthood. One thing that he carried throughout almost his entire life was the guilt and in turn seeking for redemption. Amir’s greatest struggle was to get rid of the guilt he had every time he made a mistake. But, realized that sometimes, even though he tried to redeem himself, it does not work, there is still the heaviness of guilt in him. The concept behind the feeling of guilt is that it will grow stronger and stronger, later having an impact on the person, as seen in Amir’s character. However, through his guilt and flaws it allows sacrifice to be opened by giving an opportunity for redemption, honor, and self-respect to occur.

Throughout The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the author shows us a major theme pertaining to forgiveness and how we feel guilt when we have not been forgiven. When developing this theme, the writer makes a strong link to the theme of immigration, and the feelings that immigrants feel when they leave behind their past to start a new future. Hosseini emphasizes throughout the book that the relationship between Amir and Hassan is stressed mainly by the feeling of lost forgiveness Amir feels, added to the fact that he left Hassan in Afghanistan while he and Baba left to America. These themes of immigration and forgiveness are placed in the forefront by Hosseini through the deepening of Amir’s internal feelings, beliefs, and conflicts, added to how Amir copes with the feeling of leaving Hassan.

Guilt can simply take over a life, but how much guilt is enough for one person to endure? In The Kite Runner, The Scarlet Letter, and The Things They Carried, the authors use guilt as a unifying device for displaying theme. In The Kite Runner, Amir’s guilt creates the ability to consume every aspect of his

Guilt is the most powerful theme in The Kite Runner. Not only does guilt push the plotline and the characters relationships forward, it also brings Amir and Baba redemption from their pasts of sin and betrayal. Firstly, guilt advances the plot line drastically at numerous points in the novel. From multiple memories in the first few chapters, Amir recalls the most influential and guilt-ridden moment in his lifetime- when he witnesses Hassan’s assault.

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.

On page one, Amir foreshadows the novel by stating, “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.” Amir is narrating about the experience that changed his life forever, watching Hassan being sexually abused, and looking back with guilt for the rest of his life. Clearly, one of the predominant themes in “The Kite Runner”, written by Khaled Hosseini, is the idea of living life with regret, as Amir has done ever since peeking into the alley and not taking action to save Hassan.

Throughout the book, Amir mentions how he mistreated Hassan despite Hassan’s loyalty towards him. Firstly, his guilty conscience can be traced back to

Betrayal is the action of disloyalty towards one’s country, a group or a person. Sometimes betrayal can be considered a form of sin and this ends up occurring in The Kite Runner. During majority of the novel, Amir attempts to deal with his guilt by avoiding it. As time goes by this clearly does nothing towards him redeeming himself and therefore his guilt remains. This is why Amir crouches in fear every time he hears Hassan’s name being mentioned. “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years” (Hosseini 1). This quote from the novel hints at the main point of the story and the reason he is telling it. To anyone as a reader the quotation is almost a teaser. It triggers a spark in the reader’s mind of what it could be without telling exactly what Amir is talking about. Later on in the story it then explains that the deserted alley Amir refers to is the place where Hassan was raped and Amir has not stop thinking about it since. This is what metaphor Amir used means how the past tries to claw its way out, because Amir had so much guilt the whole time. He kept trying