The Kite Runner Guilt Analysis

Words: 1191
Pages: 5

When Guilt Leads to Good
Guilt is defined as a feeling of regret, often associated with a great act of sin. This emotion is experienced daily, whether that’s feeling guilty for not working out, texting while at work, forgetting someone’s birthday, the list goes on and on. But what if you felt guilty for more than just eating the last cupcake? What if you encountered guilt that drove you to insanity? The inequity Amir witnessed made him carry this toxic guilt, creating the basis of the novel. Despite his claim that Hassan “was just a Hazara” and that running was the best choice, this guilt encompassing his journey would not be evident if he truly thought so (Hosseini 77). Amir realizes his wrongdoing, causing this feeling that can evolve into
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The incident of Hassan being taken advantage of, a direct result of Baba and Amir’s broken relationship, stalks Amir’s morality throughout The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini revealing a burden of guilt on Amir’s conscience, in order to show the toxic guilt that can destroy your human state of mind and develop a way for you to …show more content…
By the end of the novel Amir experiences the catharsis he has needed to finally feel redeemed. When he admits his sins to Soraya he moves forward in forgiving himself, Dr. Marlo Archer a psychologist from Down to Earth enterprises says in her article, “Shame and Guilt” that “[people] get stuck in the guilt because the only way to make guilt go away is to fix what you’ve done and you can’t fix what you’ve done if you won’t admit...that you did it”. Amir revealing what he did to somebody so important as his wife, relieves this guilt off his shoulders so he doesn’t feel like hiding it anymore. Also when him and Assef fight, Amir claims he feels “healed at last” because he finally got what he deserved for what he witnessed happening to Hassan (289). A reader of The Kite Runner in a personal interview, explains how she feels Amir finally redeemed himself when he made the decision to go back to Kabul to rescue Sohrab (Gillette). Hassan had passed away so Amir did not have the chance to admit to him what he did. Sohrab comes in as a second chance for Amir to finally help Hassan out the way he did all those years for Amir, creating this full cycle by the end of the novel and gaining this redemption to relieve himself of his