The Kite Runner: Accepting Mistakes You've Made

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT

I've been reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I've never been a fan of books set in wartime, but I've wanted to read this since I discovered I wasn't allowed.  Five years later, I finally got around to it and I have to say, I love it.  The Kite Runner is about Amir, a rich boy growing up in Afghanistan. Amir would do anything for his father, and his Hazara servant and friend, Hassan, would do anything for Amir.  One day, Hassan is chasing after a fallen kite for Amir (more information on that here: http://www.afghana.com/Entertainment/Gudiparanbazi.htm) when he encounters a group of Hazara-hating boys (mainly Assef, the neighborhood bully) who assault and rape him.  Amir, while searching for Hassan, watches the scene from afar but is too afraid to do anything about it. Things sour between the two, and soon Hassan and his father leave the mansion.  Years later, when Russians invade, Amir and his father escape to America.  Amir gets married in America and his father dies from cancer.  Eventually, Amir's father's old friend, Rahim Khan, calls him with the enthusiastic promise that there is "a way to be good again". Amir travels to Pakistan, where he learns that Hassan married and had a son, Sohrab.  He and his wife are now dead, but their son is in an orphanage.  Amir also discovers that Hassan was his illegitimate half-brother. Amir is tricked into rescuing Sohrab and ends up in a bloody fight with Assef.  As far as I've read, Amir succeeded in rescuing Sohrab and is now recovering in a hospital in Islamabad.  Now that Sohrab is safe, Amir doesn't know what to do with him.  I've concluded that Amir and his father both make mistakes that haunt them for the rest of their lives, but the way they deal with them differs.  Although both characters make bad decisions, dealing with these mistakes are what help them to grow and mature.

As Amir's life goes on, he comes to understand that he has made an irreparable mistake.  By protecting Sohrab and living by Hassan's moral code, Amir can find closure and peace of mind.  I think that Amir goes through three stages throughout the book.  First, while he's still in Afghanistan, he refuses to admit that he did something wrong.  Assef later compares Amir to himself, and in this part of the book, you can see why: they're both acting selfish and cruel, but for different reasons: Assef acts out of racism and Amir acts out of fear.  Amir not only ignores Hassan's plight, he provokes him by hurling pomegranates at him and avoids Hassan whenever he wants to play.  Amir doesn't want to confront his responsibility to make things right, meaning that this is the part of the story where he's acting the most childish.  In the second stage, when Amir is in America, he avoids thinking about the subject but still feels remorseful about what he has done.  It's good that Amir admits to himself that what he did was wrong, but he is judging himself far too harshly without actually trying to make amends.  In this section, Amir is acting more mature, but still isn't ready to fix his mistake.  Lastly, Amir returns to Afghanistan.  At first, he's only saving Sohrab for Rahim Khan's sake, but as he searches, Amir realizes that standing up for Sohrab represents standing up for Hassan, and therefore he is able to find closure.  The way Amir dealt with his guilt made him a better person, and now, as an adult, he is stronger and at peace with himself.

Amir wasn't the only character dealing with guilt.  His father had to make a difficult choice--whether or not to accept his illegitimate son, Hassan, and face the consequences of his actions.  Because of society's mindset in Afghanistan in the 1970s, it wasn't realistic to expect Amir's father to admit that Hassan was truly his son.  I think he wanted to be able to treat his sons equally, but he valued his reputation in the community more than he valued an open father-son relationship with Hassan.  This is not purely a selfish decision; Amir's father's reputation allowed him to open an orphanage and do good in the community. Because Amir's father was such a benevolent person, he tried to repent for his mistake by doing general acts of heroism.  For example, when leaving Afghanistan, Amir's father couldn't bring Hassan with him to America.  In what I think is an unconscious attempt to counteract this with a good deed, Amir's father stands up to a Russian soldier, risking his life for a stranger in the process.  I think that Amir's father would like to believe that if he acts this way, maybe some stranger out there will be willing to risk his life for Hassan.  Amir's father's heart is in the right place, but once he made the decision to hide Hassan's true parentage from the world, he realized bringing the truth to light would do more harm than good.


Both Amir and his father learn to deal with their past mistakes throughout the book, Amir through acceptance and his father through attempting to be a paragon of moral rectitude.  Neither may be perfect, but in complicated situations like these, it's hard to find a perfect solution. One thing I haven't discussed though, is that I haven't finished the book!  It's hard to make a complete comparison between the two characters without finishing the book, but after thinking long and hard about it, I think I've done alright.  I assume Amir will take Sohrab home to live with him and his wife, which I think will turn out in one of two ways.  Either his wife will be mad and Sohrab will be traumatized and have a hard time adjusting, or they'll become a happy family together. If this were a realistic story, I'd bet on the first, but considering the commercial success of this book, it's probably more along the lines of the second.  Of course, that's just my thoughts as of now; it could go anywhere!