The Kite Runner-Shame

Derek Wheater
English 11
McKay

Prompt: In The Kite Runner, shame is a destructive force

Killer of the Psyche

. “Shame is a soul eating emotion.” This quote by Carl Gustav Jung perfectly sums up many of the struggles the main character Amir, as well as Sohrab, go through in the novel, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. From the start to the end Amir struggles with the destruction that shame causes in his life. This begins with his relationship between him and his father, it then continues to escalate in the event that takes place later in his life through the raping of his best friend Hassan. Shame also has torn apart Sohrab emotionally because of all that he has been encountered. This novel does a wonderful job of making a point that the feeling shame can be a terrible and taunting emotion that can destroy your life from the inside with very little you can do about it.

From the very start of Amir’s life his relationship with his father Baba is not a very healthy one. The two of them have personalities that make them very different from one another. Baba on the one hand is more of a stereotypical “man”. On the other hand Amir has a personality that seems to be lacking something in his life and he drowns himself in his poetry and writing. This worries his father. Baba expresses these thoughts in a conversation he has with his friend, “A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything.” (Hosseini pg. 24) By saying this Baba strongly outlines one of his great concerns with Amir. Amir recognizes that his father is ashamed of him and this causes him to be very ashamed of himself and he becomes obsessed with trying to please his father. Just like anyone else in this world Amir’s shamefulness turns him into a very reserved person and in turn, somewhat of a coward. This cowardliness ends up only causing Amir to experience more shame with events that transpire later on into the book.

When the raping of Hassan takes place this sends Amir’s life into even more of a downward spiral. Resulting from his relationship with his father Amir’s trait of being a coward causes him to do nothing but sit there and watch while his best friend gets raped. Contrary to his best efforts Amir to forget about the event and just move on, but he cannot seem to overcome it. Later on he fully admits that he “ran because [he] was a coward. [He] was afraid of Assef and what he would do to [him]. [He] was afraid of getting hurt.” (Hosseini pg. 77). It is clear that this event still torments Amir mentally even years after it took place. Many people may be able to relate to the fact that the shameful events in one’s life can linger and affect our self image. Our characteristics and personality traits can be formed and may also be haunted by such events.

Amir is not the only character throughout the course of the novel that experiences shame, Sohrab does as well. Sohrab had felt tormented by a feeling that he was dirty because Assef and his men had molested him. Unlike Hassan Sohrab never does seem to move on from the event. It haunts him and ultimately defeats him. Hosseini does a beautiful job of describing how “Sohrab's silence wasn't the self imposed silence of those with convictions, of protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and tucked them under.” (Hosseini pg. 381). This quote paints a stunning image of the amount of pain shame can bring to a person and how hard it may be to overcome an instance involving shame.

The entire novel The Kite Runner is full of shame in many different aspects as well as in its characters. Although most of the characters experience shame in different forms one thing is constantly the same. As in everyone’s life, shame can be a particularly crippling and troublesome feeling to have slow you down. Amir encounters this in two different situations. Firstly with his relationship with his father evidently turning him into even more of a coward then he naturally may be. This correlation leads Amir to leave his friend behind in a time of need which follows Amir for the rest of his life and he never fully seems to be able to overcome. Finally, Sohrab experiences a different kind of shame, he feels ashamed of what has happened to him in his past and is unable to overcome it. This book has made it abundantly obvious that shame is a disease that can never truly leave you.