he tells us the story about how Hassan's (his servant's son) first word was Amir. Amir and Hassan were really close and you would think that they were friends, but their religions didn't allow them to call themselves that. Amir was a Sunni Pashtun, and Hassan was a Shi'a Muslim Hazara. Despite these ethnic and social differences, we could tell that Amir was fighting hard to not call him a friend or even a brother given that they had grown together. "There was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break."(page 11) That is one of the biggest themes in the novel so far. Ethnic and social differences.
Another theme in the novel is guilt. Guilt is shown in chapter 7 when Hassan gets raped by Assef (a bully) and Amir watches everything but doesn't do anything about it. He had an internal conflict on whether or not to defend Hassan but he chose to stand back and watch. "In the end I ran because i'm a coward" (page 77). This changed the way Hassan and Amir acted. It was the event that Amir told us in chapter 1 would change his whole life. He began growing apart from Hassan simply because he couldn't look at him in the eyes. They reminded him of the look the lamb does when it is going to be killed. In my opinion, I'm glad that Amir feels guilty about no helping poor Hassan when all Hassan has done in his life is serve Amir and protect him from everything, but it is sad that two lifetime buddies are separated because of this inconsiderate act on account of Amir.
