The pomegranate tree and its symbolism The effects of guilt, by Dr Jennifer Minter
After the rape scene, Amir experiences considerable guilt at the fact that his best friend, Hassan, suffered such a degrading experience.
The incident under the pomegranate tree, when he pelts his friend, reveals the extent of his deep anger and the betrayal of his most loyal friend.
After walking up the hill with Hassan, Amir pelts his friend with the pomegranates and hopes that his friend will retaliate. Hassan’s face becomes smeared with the red juice. When he stops he looks like “he’d been shot by a firing squad” and still he does not retaliate. “I wished he’d give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I’d finally sleep at night”. Maybe then things could return to how they used to be between us”. The ultimate insult occurs when Hassan crushes the pomegranate on his own forehead.
Hassan is covered in blood – the blood that symbolises the sacrifices of the lamb as he pays the price for his ethnic difference.
Amir’s conflict becomes evident when he pelts Hassan with the pomegranates. The angrier he gets, the more he pelts his friend and the guiltier he feels. He feels guilty because he has abused the trust and taken advantage of his friend. Amir wants him to fight back because this will help allay/relieve his feelings of guilt.
Hassan does not fight back because of his conditioned sense of servitude as a Hazara.
As a youngster, he feels an intuitive sense of shame but he cannot understand his conflicting emotions. He needs to get rid of Hassan, because he cannot deal with his deep sense of shame. As a man, he clearly articulates this shame.
Amir’s return to Kabul
The first thing Amir does when he returns to Afghanistan/Kabul is to stand under the pomegranate tree that has so much significance for him during his childhood. In his letter, Hassan writes about the “wilted” and “leafless” tree, which has not “borne fruit in years” and which reflects their empty relationship and loss of contact. Also, the lack of sustenance in Kabul.
Standing underneath this tree, Amir recalls many of his childhood moments of bliss. As a token of his poignant memories, Amir finds the “carving” of “Amir and Hassan. The Sultans of Kabul.”
When Amir confronts Assef in Kabul to regain Sohrab, he is the one drowned in blood in a reversal of fortune. Assef pelts Amir in a brutal act of gratuitous violence. Fragmented sentences reflect Amir’s wounded state: “Lying on the floor, blood from my split upper lip staining the mauve carpet”. The sound of my ribs snapping like the tree branches Hassan and I used to break to swordfight”.
There is a role reversal and Amir occupies the place of the victim (the Hazara).
However, this time, Amir feels a sense of peace wash over him as he remembers that pomegranate scene in the winter of 1975. He says, “I felt at peace”. This is because he finally feels what it is like to be pelted for no reason. He remembers the “red juice soaking through his shirt like blood”, just as Amir’s presently. “I felt healed”. He feels as if he has been given the beating that Hassan should have given him, because he deserved it as a traitor.
The slingshot
Amir is saved by Sohrab’s skills with the slingshot. He targets Assef and the brass ball becomes stuck in his “empty eye socket”. He is paralysed and in agony.
This recalls Hassan’s earlier attempt, after the overthrow of Daoud Khan, to threaten Assef and his frivolous comment to turn him into “One Eyed Assef”. On that occasion, Amir had backed down and promised “that he’d get us both”. Now he had “got” them both. He has completed his “unfinished business” and proves that nothing comes “free”. Assef warned Amir that there was a price for Sohrab and this is almost Amir’s life.
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