I wrote this essay a few weeks ago, and I forgot about you, blogger.
-This was and essay explaining one of the many feelings that the book "The Kite Runner" is based upon.
When someone engages in an act of crime they rarely think about that they are doing while they are in that state of mind. Afterwards, when they are alone they think about what they have done and usually feel the emotion of “guilt”. They feel responsible, and sometimes regret, for what they have previously done, whether it is real or imagined. In the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, guilt is a major theme throughout the story.
Amir, the narrator of The Kite Runner feels guilt almost for the whole duration of the book. He feels that he is responsible for his friend Hassan’s hardships that happened while they knew each other. In a way Amir is guilty, he did not always treat Hassan as a friend, sometimes picking on him because he did not have the knowledge that Amir did. The thing that Amir seems to show the most guilt for is that he did not stand up for, and help Hassan when he needed it most. The lack of things that he did for Hassan haunted Amir. Soon that was all he could think of whenever he saw Hassan. It destroyed their friendship. Almost all of his social and emotional relationships were tainted with this burden that Amir had felt since he was a child.
One character in the book, Assef, was a horrid individual. In the emotional use of the word, Assef did not feel guilt. However, by the definition of “guilt” (dictionary.com) “the fact or state of committing an offense, crime or moral wrong-doing” Assef was indeed guilty. This character has engaged in disgusting acts that hurt the people around him, such as murder and rape. From what we can tell in the story Assef does not feel any moral guilt. I think that the author used Assef to show the ways that “guilt” makes people act, whether it is moral or physical.
Baba, who is Amir’s father, had a major part of the “guilt theme” that is embedded in this book. Baba hid an important fact from his son Amir and Hassan because he was “ashamed of himself”. This was a tie between Amir and Baba because the guilt that they both carried affected them all throughout their lives. Amir says in one of the last chapters of the book that “Baba and I were more alike than I had ever known”. Baba did not know of Amir’s guilt while he was alive, Amir also did not know of Baba’s guilt. This kept a barrier between the father and son. Although, I believe Baba had the greater guilt because he had full knowledge of what he was doing. Amir did not.
In a way the burden of guilt that all of the people in this story have made them the strong or weak characters that make the book what it is. In some cases the guilt leads to redemption, in others the guilt leads to their demise. This book has many other strong themes of redemption, betrayal, loss and forgiveness. However, these themes would not be present if not for the stream of guilt
