2 Truths and a Truth

Truth. Why is it important? What’s the worst that can happen if you lie anyway? Are you really hurting others by lying? These are all important questions that we face every day. In a world without truth, nothing good will come out of it. There will only be unnecessary pain and death. The Kite Runner helps us visualise what could happen with just one lie. One that was considered insignificant by one, but was life-changing for another. 

In The Kite Runner, the truth was kept from the main character, which led him to live a life that he considered to be a lie. Amir was born into an upper-class family and had a servant, Hassan, who was part of the lesser race, the Hazaras. Amir noticed that his father, Baba, would be much more supportive of Hassan while being a lot more hard on him. In the story, we can see that all Amir wanted to do was make Baba proud. We can see how Amir then betrays Hassan so that he could make Baba proud. As Amir himself said, “Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.” (Hosseini 77). This then spirals to 20 years of drama. Amir frames Hassan, forcing Hassan to leave his family, breaking Baba’s heart. Later on,  Hassan has his own family. However, he is then killed by the Taliban. He leaves a son who then becomes a sex slave, and Amir is finally able to redeem himself by rescuing and adopting him. All this happened because Amir never understood why he would never seem to make Baba proud. It was because he and Hassan were half brothers. If Amir had known, then he would realise that Baba was just simply ashamed. Rahim Khan states in the letter that the fact that Baba could not love Hassan the way he wanted, which led Baba to take it out on Amir, who represented the riches that he inherited and the “sin-with-impunity” that came with it (Hosseini 301). If Baba had just let the truth out, it would have led to reconciliation, and they would have lived a happier life. Presumably in the US, because the Taliban still would have come to Afghanistan

Baba must have had his reasons for stealing the truth from Amir. In fact, it was all because in Afghanistan, they only had their honor. In the book, Amir recalls that when he and Hassan were younger, they would often go shopping for bread. They would snap a branch off a tree and every time they bought something, the shop keeper would carve a mark onto the stick, and at the end of the month, Baba would go and pay the shop keeper. No questions asked (Hosseini 128). This showed the merit and trust-based system of the town. So basically, Baba must have thought that keeping the truth from everyone was a sacrifice he was willing to make so that he would still be the guy that was credible and looked up to by the people of the city. Just like in the crucible, John Proctor was willing to die instead of signing a false confession that would tarnish his name. John says in his iconic speech: “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies!”(Arthur Miller). Well in this case John was innocent, but that’s not the point. The point is that those people only have their name and will do anything to keep it clean and respected. Baba never thought that everything would have gone so wrong. In fact, if Hassan was never raped, they would have all stuck together and would be living a good life in the USA. However, the thing is that when you hide the truth, you just raise the chances of something catastrophic happening, and in the book, it is exactly what happens. 

In the book, we can clearly understand the worldview that Baba preaches. Baba explains how there is only one sin, and that is theft. Everything that you do to hurt someone is a variation of theft. Like if you lie, you steal the truth (Hosseini 18). This means that Baba was basically a massive hypocrite for stealing the truth from Amir and Hassan. As a Christian, I believe that God made it very clear in the Bible that we are not to lie with the intension of only benefitting ourselves at the cost of others. Doing so will only result in others, as well as ourselves getting hurt(in the end). When we lie with those intentions, we are basically disobeying God and hurting the people that you are lying to. So in a sense, the book and I have the same worldviews about truth and lying to some extent, but I do not believe that the root of all sin is stealing. I believe that the root of all sin is knowing that you aren’t supposed to do something, and with full awareness of the consequences, you still continue to do that thing that you aren’t supposed to. This is basically thinking that you know better, and you only serve yourself. There is a correlation here though, because you see, the Kite Runner does not act on one’s own desires, but acts to serve someone else unconditionally. Hence, I believe that we should strive to be just like the kite runner. 

In conclusion, a lie is a lie, no matter how small. If you lie, you could face consequences of magnitudes that you never would have imagined. A world full of lies like the lies in the book will definitely cause mass chaos that was never necessary, to begin with. In The Kite Runner, a lie caused a rift between friends and family, a rift that took 20 years to resolve.. In the harsh reality of things, we cannot go back in time to change the mistakes that we made, so it’s best to just try your best not to make mistakes that you will regret in the future. 

Works Cited:

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books, 2004.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Oxford University Press, 2019.

Link to writing process

Reflection

I have really enjoyed reading the Kite Runner. Even though I had to read the book in the middle of my exam week. Thanks Mr. Nollan :). Ok apart from that… I felt like this book was really well written, and I really wanted my essay to properly explain why it is important to tell the truth. The books whole story revolves around a lie, and it is able to trigger a lot of emotions for the reader to experience. I highly highly recommend reading this book. I have been able to take away some very good ideas and lessons from this book, and i hope you will too.