A way to be good again.

SummaryIn the summer of 2001, after living for many years in America, Amir receives a telephone call from Rahim Khan, his father’s old friend. Rahim tells Amir that he is ill and needs him to come to Pakistan. Amir senses there is some other reason, so he agrees to return to the East. A chance phrase at the end of the phone call makes Amir think about the past: "There is a way to be good again." For many years, Amir has kept secret the fact that he saw Hassan be raped and did nothing. Then, to assuage his guilt, he planted money and his watch under Hassan’s pillow. Amir accused Hassan of theft so that he would be sent away. With that one phrase from Rahim, however, Amir knows that it is not really a secret. Rahim knows all that he has done and that he has lived concealing the secrets of his acts of cowardice. Rahim knows his true character. With this return, Rahim is offering Amir a chance for redemption.

Essential Passage 3: Chapter 25

I looked at the photo. Your father was a man torn between two halves, Rahim Khan had said in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of Baba’s guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Baba’s other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son.

I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab’s door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Summary Amir has rescued Sohrab, Hassan’s son, from Assef. After many hurdles and difficulties, Amir has brought him to America, to be adopted by himself and Soraya. Sohrab, thinking that Amir was breaking his promise to him and placing him in an orphanage, had attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. Although Amir assured him that he was not going to the orphanage but to America with him, Sohrab does not talk, and will not talk, for almost a year. As Amir watches Sohrab asleep that first night in his new bed, he sees the photograph of Sohrab and Hassan that Amir had given to him. Long feeling angry at the secret that Baba had kept from him, that Hassan was not just a servant but his son and Amir’s brother, Amir finally is able to forgive his father. Baba had told him long ago that lying was the greatest sin because it was a theft. When Amir discovered that Baba lied for years, he develops a cold anger at the theft not only of the truth but of the brother that he could have had all these years. He realizes that he no longer feels the pain of anger that he has felt toward his father.

Analysis of Essential PassagesIn The Kite Runner, the main character, Amir, is well on his way to being a classic tragic hero through his fatal flaws of fear, unresolved guilt, and unforgiveness. From his childhood until well into his adulthood, Amir must battle the character weaknesses that have marked his life, even in the midst of happiness.

Amir’s cowardice, bred by insecurity in his father's love, leads him to make choices that not only damage his own life but also result in the greatest tragedy for others. His father, Baba, frequently recognizes instances in which Amir will not make the brave choice but remain where he is in the safety of a risk-free environment. In the conversation that Amir overhears between his father and Rahim, Baba states that Amir, who will not stand up for himself, will eventually not stand up for anything. It is this very characteristic that leads to the breakdown of the family, with the rape of Hassan and Amir’s failure to intervene. Although Hassan has consistently protected his friend, Amir chooses to hope for a surface appreciation from his father at the expense of Hassan. At the risk of losing the kite that he has won in the tournament, Amir stands by and allows Assef to rape his friend. Not only does this action have consequences for Amir himself, but it sets the stage for the departure of Hassan and his father from the household. Their banishment causes them to be left behind during the Russian invasion and subsequent takeover by the Taliban, which results in their murders and the abduction of Sohrab. The hospital scenes, where Amir is treated following his fight with Assef and Sorhab’s recovery from his suicide attempt, are the direct results of Amir’s fear.

Although Amir believes that he alone knows that he stood by and allowed Hassan to be raped, the guilt that he suffers forces him to withdraw from Hassan, eventually lying about the supposed theft of his watch and his money by Hassan. Though the object of his guilt has been removed, the inner secret continues to eat away for years to come. Physical pain results whenever anything reminds him of Hassan, who had once been his best friend. The betrayal of friendship will color every relationship that he has from then on, particularly with his father as well as with Soraya, his wife. It is only through Rahim, who has known his secret all along, that Amir may at last find redemption, a “way to be good again.”

The betrayal of Hassan is mirrored in Amir’s life by the feeling of his father’s betrayal by not telling him that Hassan was his brother. The lecture that Baba gave him once in childhood—that lying was the greatest sin because it was a theft of many things—leaves Amir unable to forgive his father for the theft of the truth and for the theft of a brother. Whether or not his childhood choices would be different if he had known is unclear, but his focus is on this flaw in his father whom he had for so long tried to please. Only the rescue of Sohrab and his adoption bring restoration of Amir’s faith in his father.

Amir’s road to redemption is a lifelong process. As philosopher William James says, “When you have to make a choice, and do not make it, that in itself is a choice.” The choices that Amir made, beginning in his childhood, show what he truly is. Total redemption is not possible: the dead cannot be saved. However, through his search for Sohrab and bringing him home, Amir manages to make peace with himself.