The Kite Runner, written by Khaled Hosseini, is a book about the life of Afghan boy named Amir who lives in the town of Kabul where most people live humble, simple lives. But for Amir, his father, Baba, is very wealthy and so he lives a sheltered life in a nice house with nice cars. Though this may seem like a huge bonus when living in a poor country such as Afghanistan, Amir’s sheltered life would prove to be his down come and would affect his relationships with friends and family. Soon enough he would be stricken with guilt which would take him down a dark path. In this essay I will pinpoint the weaknesses that lead Amir in a bad direction, those being the way he treats Hassan and his selfishness, and the strength that helps him overcome his guilt; his bravery.

When the story starts we see Amir as a harmless kid who enjoys doing things any normal child his age would do. It isn’t until a bit later in the book that Amir’s true self is revealed. His first weakness would be the way he treats Hassan. There is a key scene of the book which shows the nature of their friendship. When Amir and Hassan go up to the pomegranate tree for the last time together it is a last chance for Amir to make up with Hassan and put the past in the past but Amir doesn’t see that as an option. When Amir pelts Hassan with the pomegranates from the tree he releasing his frustration with himself but on someone else. He wishes for Hassan to fight back but to no avail. Instead Hassan crushes a pomegranate on himself and says “Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?”. This quote is quite ironic as this action would just make Amir more and more filled with guilt. The way he has treated Hassan over the years has made Hassan look up to Amir as higher than him and eventually has come back to bite him. Soon after this Hassan and Ali leave and Amir would be stuck with this guilt with no way to resolve it. This guilt would drive Amir to go back to war-ridden Afghanistan and save Sohrab.

The next of Amir’s weaknesses is his selfishness. As a kid Amir is seen as a very self-centered kid. His selfish traits are brought to the surface when you look at his and Hassan’s friendship. Amir’s father, Baba, is very critical of him as a child and many of Amir’s actions are to redeem himself in his fathers eyes. This makes him very selfish and causes him to do horrible things to Hassan. The main example of Amir’s selfishness is the alleyway scene in which Hassan gets raped by Assef. In this situation Amir has the chance to intervene and save Hassan but this would mean the loss of the kite. Deep down Amir doesn’t care as much about Hassan as he does for Baba’s love. The quote “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay in order to win over Baba” shows Amir’s selfishness. Amir is so selfish that he would let his lifelong friend get raped just so he could appease Baba. This quote is a very malicious one as Amir compares letting Hassan being raped to killing a lamb. It shows that Amir sees Hassan as his follower or his sheep and he sees himself as the leader; the shepherd. His selfishness is one of his bad traits that added to the guilt he would feel as an adult. Without these selfish traits he wouldn’t feel the need to seek redemption later in life.

Although, as a child, Amir could’ve been seen as a malicious, selfish boy. He grows up to become a selfless, loving person. His bravery is one trait that sticks out from the rest and ties in with the idea of guilt. Amir shows his brave side when Rahim Khan asks him, over a phone call, to go back to Afghanistan and save Hassan’s boy Sohrab. Just before hanging up the phone Rahim Khan says the words “Come, there is a way to be good again…” this sentence brings up Amir’s past and all the wrong things he did. This fills him with guilt and makes him realise that he needs to be brave and face the guilt by going back to his war-ridden home town. By far the bravest thing Amir does in the book is face his childhood enemy Assef, as an adult, to save Sohrab. This scene shows how Amir has changed as an adult and instead of cowering behind Hassan like he did as a child, he faces Assef though the odds are stacked against him. Amir realises that he needed to be brave and face his fears to get rid of his childhood remorse which is shown by the quote “My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed”. After all the years of being selfish and wronging Hassan, Amir has received no punishment. When Amir gets beaten up by Assef he finally feels like he has been punished. As a child Hassan would always take the beating or the blame for Amir and now Amir is taking the beating for Hassan’s child. He finally feels like he has gotten what he deserves and now he is free from his guilt.

Amir’s life as a child heavily affected his life as an adult. The things he did and the words he spoke eventually came back to bite him. His selfishness and his attitude towards his lifelong friend Hassan combined to leave him with a huge regrets and profound feeling of guilt. He would need to realise that being brave and facing that guilt was the only way to overcome it. Amir learns from his past and attempts to fill in the gaps he made as a child. We can all learn from Amir’s mistakes as no one wants to live their life regretting something they did as a child.