Change of Mind: The Dialectics of Choice

So far, in the Kite Runner an underlying theme has emerged. Choice. Baba chooses to not understand Amir. Amir chooses to run away from the atrosity that transpired in that alley. Hassan chooses to keep his mouth shut and be loyal to Amir until the very end. Without the choices these characters make there would be no story. Without the choices they make, there would be no reason for this book.

Prior to reading this book, I thought that good people, when confronted with a life-altering choice in which right and wrong were lucidly apparent, would always choose to do the right thing. If they didn't? They, simply put, weren't good people. And I hate, bad people. Looking back on the chapters we have already read in Hosseni's fake memoir, I'm struck by two incompatable feelings, that of the former and that of bottomless empathy for Amir, a phenomenon in its own right, because I am quite often the one who critizes the character and despises their choices. Yet, for some odd reason, I don't hate Amir. I don' think that he's an indulged, pompous brat. In fact, I think that he is genuinely a good person. We've actually had some heated discussions on the bus about him, and I'm the only one who's playing defense. I know that Hosseni is intentionally creating an enviorment where the reader thrives off of their hatred for the main character, but I'm just not taking the bait. I hate his pipe-smoking, soccer-loving, overtly goddless, hipocritically philanthropic father, but I sympathize with Amir, the story-writing boy who stood by and watched his childhood-playmate get raped.

So then how can I still believe that good people always make the right decision when faced with adversity? There, lies the key to my change of mind. I can't. There's no way that I can fully believe in that and Amir's righteousness. Consquently, I have come to the dialectic conclusion that good people, which I believe Amir to be, will make the blatantly wrong choice in some grave situations. Yet, the defining characteristic of their true virtue versus malevolance, is that they recognize their error and its gravity, it haunts them, and from that disturbance, they grow. Amir, I can confidently say, has picturesqly exemplified this, giving a story for those mere words.

I honestly don't know how this realization will affect my daily life or interpretation of literature. But, in terms of the Kite Runner I hope that it will give me solice in my compassion for Amir. Hopefully, I will no longer feel hypocritical in my unwavreing loyalty for the bookish boy who made the wrong choice, and belief in his morality.