Within chapter twenty two, Amir
confronts the Taliban about Sohrab, insisting he is to take the boy within him.
However, the chapter then takes a surprising and dark turn, as he realizes the
man guarding Sohrab is no other than Assef. Assef, now an older and crueler man,
agrees to free the boy. However, Amir “had to earn him” as they had “unfinished
business…Assef had promised that in the end he’d get us both. He’d kept his promise
with Hassan. Now it was my turn.” (pg. 286) Amir realizing that he could no
longer run had to face his past and fight Assef. As Amir describes the fight he notes it can
back in flashed unsure “if he gave him a good fight” (pg. 287) He recalls the
fight as bloody and gruesome, him getting knocked around, his bones breaking,
and skin bleeding. However, he states something significant. He said “I don’t
know at what point I started laughing, but I did. And the harder I laughed, the
harder he kicked me” (pg 289) Assef demands to know what is so funny and Amir
says “Since the winter of 1975,” the year Hassan was raped and he considered
himself a coward, he “felt at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some
hidden nook in a corner of my mind, I’d been looking forward to this…I felt
healed” (pg 289). Amir recalled the day he pelted Hassan with pomegranate, demanding
him to fight him because he felt so guilty. Hassan had refused and in some
twisted way, Amir felt as though he should have been punished, that he should
have felt the pain Hassan felt. When Assef fights Amir, he feels as thou he is
finally receiving his punishment and that the pressure and guilt he has felt
has been lifted. The significance of the fight scene is Amir’s in chapter
twenty two is to illustrate Amir’s burden being lifted. Amir can now let go of
his past, and although it might still haunt him, he can now move on.
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