The Denouncing of Radical Evil

     When Amir first sees Hassan’s son for the first time he is a slave/entertainer to a Taliban man who has the boy wearing mascara and bells around his feet. The swinging of bells symbolizes the extremes of good and evil, death and immortality. Sohrab symbolizes the good in this situation while his master is the complete opposite. The irony unfolds when Amir learns that Sohrab’s master is Assef and he has been sexually abusing Hassan’s son, just like he did to Hassan. This is an example of moral evil that we talked about in class. Assef is deliberatly projecting evil onto Sohrab in a way to inflict suffering. Assef had a choice when buying Sohrab as a slave and he chose to walk down the wrong path that caused him to receive pleasure as another person received torture. We also talked about torture in class as being the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment in order to force them to do or say something; great physical or mental suffering. Likewise, Assef took on the role to inflict suffering upon Sohrab for pleasure. 

      When Amir encounters this evil he is surprised when this evil hits him in the face but he responds to it differently than when it happened years ago when his friend was raped. Instead of ignoring evil he acts in dangerous ways to stand up for what he should have years ago by denouncing radical evil. 

Amir does not let his mixed motives get in the way of his scheme, and has his mind on saving Sohrab from human wickedness. This contrasts Kant’s theory that all humans are rooted in evil because Amir chooses to separate himself from the bystanders. Furthermore, in Sohrab’s case it justifies M. Desjardin’s theory that suffering is unpredictable. It affects the innocent and has a didactic and spiritual purpose behind it. Sohrab is targeted because he was an orphan and a Hazara but the suffering that he endures will have an influential impact on his life because good things always come out of bad.