Lost & Misrepresented Voices of Afghanistan Chapter 2 Page 17

rape to himself for over a decade, but Rahim Khan is fully aware of what occurred by hinting that Amir can put certain parts of his life back into a positive mode by cleansing himself of his past mistakes. The haunting of Hassan’s death as we later learn does lead to a final acceptance of correcting the past and indeed Amir is able to move forward with his life. Abraham and Torak’s state that “Melancholics seems to inflict pain on themselves, but in fact they lend their own flesh to their phantom object of love” (Abraham & Torak, 1994, p.136−7). If this analogy is to be used in reference to The Kite Runner, then one can see how the character of Amir is in fact consumed by ‘phantoms’ or ghosts from the past that do indeed continue to ‘inflict pain’ by the haunting memories they release