How does the theme of guilt manifest in The Kite Runner?

Guilt is a powerful theme in The Kite Runner.  The central character, Amir, struggles a great deal with guilt, and he finally overcomes it at the end.  An essay on guilt could discuss his guilt and his struggles with it, until he redeems himself. Let's look at what Amir has to be guilty about and how he does redeem himself.

Amir treats Hassan very poorly, doesn't he? We see him constantly looking down on Amir and treating him more like a servant than a friend. He betrays Hassan by not rescuing him when Hassan is raped by Assef and Assef's friends. Then he betrays him again by letting Baba think that Hassan is a thief. And Baba and he run away from Afghanistan, leaving Hassan and Hassan's ostensible father to die there.  So you see, there is a great deal to write about when it comes to Amir's feelings of guilt. 

When Amir finally returns to Afghanistan as an adult, he is able to face down Assef and rescue the son Hassan left behind, Sohrab. He is finally making up for all the wrongs he did to Hassan, and this redemption allows him to live a better life. 

To write an essay about all of this, you will need to write an introduction, to introduce your reader to the book a little, the name of the book and the author, as well as a sentence or two explaining what the book is about, where it takes place, for example, and who the main characters are.  You can end your introduction with a thesis statement, which should state what your main idea is about guilt in this book and list the points you are going to discuss about guilt. 

Then you can write a body paragraph about each point, perhaps one about each reason Amir feels guilty and then one about how he redeems himself.  Each paragraph needs to stick to just one point, and you can use evidence from the story about that point.

Finally, you will need one more paragraph, a conclusion, to remind the reader what your main idea is and the points that you made in your body paragraphs.

If you think about this, you will probably be able to find many examples of why Amir feels guilty about how he treats Hassan in this story.  I have listed a few, but really, there are many more.  The important thing is to state your opinion about guilt and then support it with evidence from the book. 

What does The Kite Runner teach us about guilt?

In the story The Kite Runner, the narrator, Amir, is guilt-ridden about the rape of his best friend and half-brother, Hassan. Amir could have run to Hassan's rescue but chose not to out of cowardice. The guilt over this incident, at first, causes Amir to wish for Hassan to be gone. He is unable to play with Hassan as he used to, and the two friends stop seeing each other altogether. Finally, in his determination to make Hassan leave, Amir takes his birthday money and watch and puts them under Hassan's mattress to set him up as having stolen these items. When Hassan takes the fall for this ploy, Hassan's father states that they must indeed leave. Amir also realizes that Hassan had been aware of his cowardice during the rape incident all along, in the same way in which he deliberately takes the fall for Amir's setup.

What The Kite Runner teaches us about guilt is that it can cause us to avoid and unconsciously harm those people we feel guilt-ridden about, as a defense mechanism. What the second half of the book shows us is the narrator, Amir, atoning for his guilt in near self-destruction.

By the end of the story, Amir has returned to Afghanistan in search of Hassan's son. He admits to himself and the audience that Hassan was his half-brother, and he returns to a broken country in a dangerous climate to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab. Amir locates Sohrab in the home of Hassan's rapist, Assef, and is nearly bludgeoned to death while trying to leave with Sohrab. It is during this fight that Amir finds himself healed from his guilt over Hassan:

“My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn't find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed.”

In conclusion, The Kite Runner shows us the terrible things human beings can do to each other out of guilt. It also spends a significant amount of time teaching us how a human being—in this case, Amir—can spend his life guilt-ridden, seeking ways to make amends for his mistakes.