Passage K Commentary

Analysis of “They’d both been crying… His plea, the fear”; page 91-93
“The Kite Runner” is a novel about friendship, love, guilt, betrayal, disappointments, sin and loyalty. Through out the book, we see all these various aspects in the characters of Amir, Hassan and Baba. Although Hassan is not a character that remains present throughout the book physically, he is constantly present in Amir’s mind, never straying too far from his thoughts, even though Amir had so abruptly ‘freed’ himself of Hassan when he was just 12 or 13 years old. In this particular passage, we witness a scene that contains all kinds of emotions, the scene in which Hassan leaves Amir’s life, never again to return.
Throughout the novel, we see that Amir does hold a lot of power over Hassan, and most importantly, he holds Hassan’s unconditional love and unwavering loyalty. And Amir, who does love Hassan, also holds against Hassan a certain grudge, begrudging any affection that Hassan receives from Baba, because Baba never seems to approve of Amir, except for the one time when Amir wins the kite tournament… which he did only at the price of Hassan being raped. Amir is completely aware that Hassan will sacrifice anything for him, that Hassan loves him so deeply that he is willing to go through any levels of pain just so that Amir would be truly happy. This realization does not allow Amir to be happy; instead it fills him with self-loathing, guilt and anger. Amir looks at himself as a coward, and a monster, like the monster that pulls Hassan down into the lake to drown him, in Hassan’s childless, meaningless dream. Amir already feels like a great sinner, for he did not rescue Hassan, when Hassan would have rescued him, instead he left him to be raped by Assef, something for which he would never be able to forgive himself for. He knew even then that he should have rescued Hassan, that he should have been brave and stopped Assef before he hurt Hassan, but is plagued by his guilt because he did not...