Identity and Self-Worth in The Kite Runner

📌Category: Books, The Kite Runner
📌Words: 860
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 08 February 2022

Identity and self-worth are greatly influenced by one’s view of themselves and their actions. When one does something wrong, the shame and remorse from that can significantly affect them and their mental health. Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner displays how the burden of guilt can cause people to lose their sense of self and question their moral identity, and how redemption can help mend those wounds through the journey of the main character, Amir. The trauma and shame Amir experiences from Hassan’s rape follows him throughout the novel, adversely affecting him in many ways but mostly negatively influencing his self-perception. He regains his lost self-respect and mends his views when he finally redeems himself through Hassan’s son, Sohrab. 

Guilt has many adverse effects on a person’s consciousness; they lose their identity and start viewing themselves negatively. Early on in the book, Amir, tired of his guilt, tries to frame Hassan by hiding money under his bed. After doing so, he says, “I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. And I would have told, except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be able to breathe again (167).” This excerpt reveals how Amir’s guilt is so intense that he no longer cares about his conscience or morality and is willing to do anything moral or immoral to escape his suffering. This quote displays how one goes through extreme measures to eradicate guilt and shame. These actions end up doing the contrary by generating more shame and remorse, which aggravates one’s mental health even more. Guilt and shame are essentially a never-ending cycle that slowly chip away one’s identity bit by bit. In this excerpt, Amir also says that he wants to “breathe” again, implying that his remorse is almost suffocating him and not allowing him to live. Later on in the book, Amir feels those same sentiments. Upon hearing about Hassan’s death, Amir unwillingly starts to play out his death scene in his mind. He describes what he sees in detail, “His hands are tied behind him with roughly woven rope…He is kneeling on the street…He lifts his face. I see a faint scar above his upper lip…I see the barrel first. Then the man standing behind him. He is tall, dressed in a herringbone vest and a black turban…The rifle roars with a deafening crack. I follow the barrel on its upward arc…I am the man in the herringbone vest (239).” This excerpt reflects how guilt can often lead one to remorse that they start to see themselves in a horrendous light. In this quote, Amir subjects himself to Hassan’s murderer and as a member of the Taliban, demonstrating how truly immoral and wretched he started to view himself after the event. His one wrongdoing has compelled him to believe that everything and anything wrong that happens to Hassan is due to his bad judgment and mistakes, even if he has nothing to do with it. Something to be noted here is how Amir describes this scene. His perspective is of someone who is there and does not know what is about to occur. His slow pan to the murderer’s face and the realization that the murderer is him shows how this figment of his imagination is created solely by his unconscious mind. It reveals that he does not willingly think of himself as such a “murderer” after the event, but rather the guilt that’s made its way so deep in his unconsciousness forces him to feel this way.

    However, this guilt does not last forever. Redemption is shown as the cure for guilt, as it helps Amir feel true to himself again and regain his lost self-respect. We see this clearly towards the end of the novel during Assef and Amir’s fight. Both of them fight for hours over Sohrab, and Amir says in between Assef’s powerful blows, “My body was broken—just how badly I wouldn’t find out until later—but I felt healed. Healed at last (303).” This quote exhibits both how guilt can break a person and how redemption can help mend those wounds. When Amir says he feels healed, he implies that after Hassan’s rape, he was essentially a very broken, run-down version of himself, crippled by the burden of his guilt and remorse. Him saying “Healed at last,” reinforces this, reflecting a tone of longing to be healed and complete again, after all this time of being broken. This displays how guilt can heavily influence one’s life and shows how Hosseini plays with irony throughout the plot. After Hassan’s rape, Hassan was the one who was broken physically and mentally, while Amir’s mental health only suffered from the guilt of not choosing to fight Assef and receive his share of punches and kicks. Now that Amir has gotten what he deserved and the score is even, the guilt sizzles out, and he feels “healed.” 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini illustrates how guilt can ruin one’s conscience and have distressing effects on their life, to the point where one starts to have a demented perception of themselves. Redemption is the only way to liberate one from all the shame and remorse and help one feel like their authentic selves once again.

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