The Kite Runner Character Analysis

Amir is a person with darkness looming inside of him. Since he was a boy, he faced his darkness, his guilt, differently from when he was a boy compared to his adulthood. In Khaled Hosseini’s book, The Kite Runner, Amir at first glance does not seem to grow in character. He lived a privileged childhood, but did not take advantage of it because he was overcome by the anguish of his inner guilt of taking his mother’s life by being born. His guilt of taking his mother’s life was an excuse to abandon another life, which was his relationship with his close friend and servant, Hassan. Amir’s betrayal of Hassan, who has always been loyal to him, leaves another guilt in place inside of him. Amir does not make any effort to atone for his betrayal,
Hassan was dead and Amir could never gain peace of mind face to face with him. He was offered another solution however, which was to go find and take Sohrab to the US. Amir did not have anyone else to rely on anymore, both Baba and Hassan were gone, so he went on this journey with only his influence alone. His first step was to get into Kabul, which he did. The next was to get Sohrab from Assef, the person who originally assaulted Hassan who was now a ranking Taliban official. Confronting Assef, “[Amir] felt at peace, [he] laughed because [he] saw that, in some nook in the corner of [his] mind, [he had been looking forward to this” (303). Amir receives the punishment which he desired for his decision to betray Hassan. He finally felt satisfied because he got beaten up trying to save Sohrab, rather than cower away like he did many times before. Amir finally took on burden to free himself from his guilts, to save himself while saving another. Although all of Amir’s actions were for his own redemption, he was taking on pain for Sohrab, like how Hassan did for him, so he could finally feel satisfied with
In his childhood, he was casted into the shadow of Baba which made him think the reason was him taking his mother’s life during birth. He carried that guilt and tried getting rid of it by receiving acknowledgement from Baba, but in the process betraying Hassan. Amir then tries placing the burden from his betrayal onto others, so he could take punishment as an accusation rather than a confession. He finally receives his redemption by finally taking the burden for others and as what he saw as punishment for his actions. Amir grew as a human throughout his years because he learnt from his mistakes and freed himself from the guilts of his