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Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Ian McEwan’s Atonement are novels that entice readers with characters that display universal truths about human nature. The Kite Runner introduces Amir, the son of Baba, living in 1960s Kabul, Afghanistan. Amir betrays Hassan, his best friend and the son of his servant, Ali. Amir and Baba escape to America amidst increasing violence in Afghanistan, leaving behind Hassan and Ali. Years later, Amir returns to Afghanistan in an attempt to correct his mistake. Atonement introduces Briony as a thirteen-year-old aspiring writer who misinterprets a scene between her older sister, Cecilia, and the son of the family servant, Robbie, as rape. Due to Briony’s ignorance and testimonial, Robbie goes to prison and serves in the army, as punishment for his supposed crime. Many years later, Briony uses literature to correct her past error in judgment. After Amir and Briony’s sins, they carry guilt with them about how unjustly they treated Hassan and Robbie, respectively. Indeed, they learn that even in their pivotal moments of personal success, their past casts a shadow onto their present. These characters demonstrate that sometimes we are unable to directly ask for forgiveness from those against whom we sinned, but self-redemption can still take place in alternate forms. Essentially, the insistence of these two characters’ past sins allows for the process of self-redemption and betterment. Amir belongs to the respected, wealthy ethnic group of Pashtuns, while Hassan is a poor Hazara who is looked down upon by the Pashtuns. Although Amir has the opportunity to intervene in Hassan’s rape by the neighbourhood bully, Assef, he chooses not to. Amir thinks, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay…to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (Hosseini 82). The reason Amir uses to justify his selfish conscience and validate his choice to not help Hassan, was that Hassan was a Hazara. This one decision of his, rooted in pride for his ethnic group, makes him the man he is in the present (Hosseini 2). However, Amir is haunted by his guilt, even right about the incident takes place. During the night while everyone is sleeping, he admits out loud that he raped Hassan and he thinks, “A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn’t have to live with this lie anymore” (Hosseini 91). However he realizes that he will have to live with his guilt. He even states that he was the monster that “grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the murky bottom” (Hosseini 91). Even years later while Amir is married, he realizes that the reason why he didn’t care about his wife’s past was because he understood that he has a past of his own, a past of unatoned sins. He states, “I knew all about regret” (Hosseini 190). This quote shows that Amir still feels guilty for what he did to Hassan, even though that was years ago in a different country. Guilt is something that Briony must also deal with for the rest of her life, which prompts her self-redemption. Although Briony did not see the face of the person who raped Lola, her cousin, she still insists that the rapist was Robbie, stating: “I know it was him…Yes. I saw him. I saw him” (McEwan 181). It is only years later during Lola and Paul’s wedding that Briony realizes the rapist was actually Paul, who is her brother’s wealthy friend. However, no one in the family, including Briony, ever considers Paul to be a potential suspect because he is wealthy and of a respectable social class. Since Robbie is of a lower social class, coupled with Briony’s wild imagination, she is convinced that he is the rapist. Her guilt for sending Robbie to prison follows her into adulthood: “…however well or hard she did it…she would never undo the damage. She was unforgivable” (McEwan 285). In this passage, Briony acknowledges that no matter what she does, or even if she helps wounded soldiers, she will never be able to take back her accusation. Essentially, her guilt becomes her shadow that she lives with for the rest of her life even as she comes a successful writer. Even many years later amidst their personal success, Amir and Briony are both constantly reminded of their past sins, no matter how much they attempt to avoid it. For example, Amir initially believes that living in America and being far from Hassan will allow him to forget about his past. He states, “For me, America was a place to bury my memories” (Hosseini, 136). However, the insistence of Amir’s past is seen during his graduation, one of the proudest moments in his life when Baba mentions that he feels Hassan’s absence: “‘I wish Hassan had been with us today,’ he said. A pair of steel hands closed around my windper alive. Essentially, when Amir rescues Sohrab, and when Briony becomes a nurse and also allows Cecilia and Robbie to unite in her novel, they do so as a way to redeem themselves. Thus, their lives were plagued by the guilt they felt it is this insistence of their guilt and sins that encourages atonement and self-redemption.