The Kite Runner: Post Four

At the start of The Kite Runner, Rahim Khan, a friend of Baba and Amir's, calls the grown-up Amir from Pakistan, and at the end of the call, he says, "There is a way to be good again" (Hosseini 2). The story then shifts to Amir's childhood, and it comes to appear that there is nothing Amir could possibly do to make up for his wrongdoings. The story now catches up to the beginning, however, and the right action for Amir to take to resolve his internal conflict is revealed.

Rahim Khan asks Amir to visit him, so Amir flies to Pakistan. When they finally meet face to face, Khan tells Amir about what has happened to him and Hassan since Amir left. When Khan came to Pakistan six months earlier for medical treatment, Hassan was taking care of Baba's old house with his wife, Farzana, and his son, Sohrab. A month ago, however, Khan received the news that Hassan and Farzana were killed by the Taliban, and Sohrab was placed in a Kabul orphanage. Khan asks Amir to go to Kabul and bring back Sohrab so he can live in an American orphanage in Pakistan. At first, Amir refuses, but eventually his conscience persuades him to return to Afghanistan. He thinks, "I wished Rahim Khan hadn't called me... But he had called me. And what Rahim Khan revealed to me changed things... There is a way to be good again, he'd said. A way to end the cycle" (Hosseini 226-227).

When Amir finds the orphanage, however, he learns that Sohrab has been taken by a Taliban official, whom Amir discovers is the bully from his childhood, Assef, who raped Hassan. Amir finally does what he should have done then: he fights Assef. He is injured horribly in his losing battle, but he and Sohrab manage to escape together.

Upon returning to Pakistan, however, they are unable to find the American orphanage Rahim Khan had described. After a few days, Amir thinks of a solution: he and his wife, Soraya, could adopt Sohrab. They go through many trials before they can adopt Sohrab and bring him to the U.S., but eventually, they achieve their goal.

By standing up to Assef and taking in the only remaining family of Hassan, Amir finally atones for his inaction 26 years ago. If he had only confessed and tried to mend the hurt he had caused right away rather than try to hide from it, he might not have had to bear his guilt for so long.