I was assigned to read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini in my Honors Composition class. I was super excited to read this book and once I dove in I was totally enthralled by the complexity of the book. The Kite Runner is a story about two best friends who are torn apart by a tragic event. Amir is the son of Baba who is a wealthy business man. Ali is Baba’s servant and Hassan is his son. Amir and Hassan did everything together and Hassan’s love for Amir was unmatched. Hassan did everything for Amir. They lived in Afghanistan where the sport of kite running was very popular. Amir and Hassan were a great duo. Amir would cut the kites out of the sky and Hassan would run them down. One time, Hassan was running down the last kite for Amir when he got caught up with three bullies and was brutally raped due to his ethnicity. Amir watched this happen and then had to live with the guilt for the rest of his life. This is the story of his journey to be good again.
The first thing that caught my attention was Chapter One of the book. Amir receives a call from his childhood role model Rahim Khan telling his there is a way to be good again. This shows that Amir is clearly living with ghosts that he hasn’t been able to rid himself of. We find out in Chapter Seven that Amir witnessed his best friend Hassan getting raped in an alley and instead of standing up for him he ran away like a coward. Amir has to live knowing what he did for the rest of his life. This event single handedly destroyed the friendship between Amir and Hassan. Hassan was oblivious to why Amir couldn’t stand to be around him anymore. He didn’t understand what he’d done to ruin their relationship. Little did he know that Amir’s guilt was the thing ruining them. After he ran away like a coward he could barely stand to look at Hassan, let alone be his friend. There is a part in the book after the rape that Hassan and Amir walk up the hill to their favorite spot under this tree and Amir begins to pelt Hassan with pomegranates while screaming at him to throw them back, to do something to hurt him. Hassan simply picks one up and smashes it on himself and asks if Amir is satisfied? Hassan loved Amir so much that he would do anything to make him happy and this scene shows that. Finally, towards the end of the book Amir is back in his homeland trying to make things between him and Hassan right once and for all by rescuing his only son. Hassan and his wife were murdered by the Taliban therefore leaving Sohrab (their son) orphaned. Amir encounters the nightmare from his childhood, Assef, who is holding Sohrab hostage and raping him whenever he pleases. Assef proposes a fight for the boy and Amir agrees and then is brutally beaten. During the fight, Amir begins laughing because for the first time in his life he feels at peace. He was finally getting what he deserved after all those years. The guilt was finally lifted off of his shoulders.
Everyone in life, including myself has done something they regret or feel guilty about. I believe when we do something wrong, the reason we feel guilty is because our conscious knows that what we did wasn’t right. Guilt is like a burden that everybody carries around and until you get forgiveness and then forgive yourself it doesn’t go away. Forgiving yourself is the hardest part. In the book, Hassan forgives Amir for what he did because he loves him. But Amir can barely stand to look at him after what he did. A good example would be a time when I made my brother lie for me. My little brother loves me so much that he is willing to get in trouble and take the blame when I mess up. One time I threw away a perfectly good oatmeal cream pie and my mom found it in the trash and asked who did it. I lied and said I didn’t so Nathan took the blame and got grounded. I ended up admitting the truth to my mom and taking the punishment because of how bad I felt. The power of guilt can persuade you to do good as well as bad.
Feeling guilty, in a way is a part of human nature. We all do bad things and therefore we all feel guilty at one point in our lives. This letter is for anyone and everyone who has ever felt guilty and anyone who has chosen the easy way over the right way. An old statistic says that, “With-in three years of being released from jail, two out of every three inmates wind up behind bars again-“. But new research is showing that certain inmates that feel guilty about certain behaviors are more likely to stay out of jail later on in life. Guilt does drag some people down but it can also cause change for the better.
I hope this letter helps persuade people to do the right thing. We almost always feel guilty after doing something wrong or taking the easy way out. Amir took the easy way out by running away but we don’t have to do the same. Take situations where you’ve done the wrong thing and learn from them. Taking the easy way out may seem like the best option in the beginning but living with the guilt of what you did can ruin your life. Do your conscious a favor and do the right thing.
Amir’s life changed drastically with one wrong decision. He chose to take the easy way out and ended up living with an immense amount of guilt for the majority of his life. But Amir is not the only one who has ever made a bad decision. We all do things we regret. Amir chose to right his wrong and by doing that one wrong he used the rest of his life to do many rights. Don’t let guilt drag you down. Try to make the best decisions possible in life and when you do the wrong thing, make it right. Use guilt as a learning tool. It can help you to realize you never want to feel that way again and therefore persuade you to do what’s right.
