Amir witnesses the brutalisation of Hassan and does nothing to stop it.
Shortly afterwards he says:
“It shouldn’t have felt this way. Baba and I were finally friends….Except now that I had it, I felt as empty as this unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into.” (Pg 74)
Amir always wanted Baba’s attention, but he did a really bad thing to get it. feels guilty and what he has done is haunting him to the point that he is physically sick. He now feels that he doesn’t deserve Baba’s attention.
Would you – confess? Try to keep hiding from it? Is it going to continue to haunt you?
What we will see is that Amir will spend the rest of his life trying to live with what he has done, and he will finally go on to redeem himself – he tries to make up for what he did to Hassan.
“Hassan milled about the periphery of my life after that….when he was around, the oxygen seeped out of the room….Everywhere I turned I saw signs of his loyalty, his goddamn unwavering loyalty”
Amir says of Assef – “But to me, his eyes betrayed him. When I looked into them, the facade faltered, revealed a glimpse of the madness hiding behind them.” aAssef gives Amir a biography of Hitler for his birthday.
About his birthday gifts – “…it was all blood money; Baba would never have thrown me a party like that if I hadn’t won the tournament.”
Amir decides, after seeing Hassan serving Assef and Wali at the birthday party – “Maybe it would be for the best. Lessen his suffering. And mine too. Either way, this much had become clear: one of us had to go.”
Amir plants his new watch and some money under Hassan’s mattress – “I waited another thirty minutes. Then I knocked on Baba’s door and told him what I hoped would be the last in a long line of shameful lies.”
