Chapter 17

The major part of evil within these chapters must be when Hassan was shot in the back of the head for living where he did. The Taliban claimed that Hassan was lying when he said he lived with Rahim Khan, even though many neighbours knew it was the truth. Hassan protested in leaving because that was his home, his place that he was supposed to keep safe until Rahim Khan returned. The Taliban came and took him into the street, made him kneel and shot him in the back of the head. When his wife, Farzana came out screaming, they shot her too. This definitely refers to the Oxford Dictionary definition of evil because the Taliban "did or intended to do harm, mischievous, or prejudicial". Mainly, the reason the Taliban did not believe Hassan is because of what kind of person he is, Hazaras were all killed, and because the Taliban did not believe one of them could live in that big beautiful house, they killed him.


The neighbours, people in town and others knew the truth about Hassan living in that
house though, and nobody came forward. "Most of it was fear of the Taliban" (232) and that is why none of them spoke a word about it, because they feared what would happen to them if they did. That's the worst cowardly behaviour that anyone could ever witness, letting someone take the punishment for something that they didn't do. None of the people came forward because they did not want to risk anything, especially for a pair of Hazara servants. This is moral evil, because the people in the neighbourhood knew that not confessing the truth was wrong, but the fear inside them allowed them to choose wrong morally, leaving a sad fate for Hassan and his wife, death.


Rahim Khan has just told Amir that Hassan is his brother, because Ali was sterile and
could not produce children. Amir is extremely upset at this because he feels as though his whole life has been one big lie that no one had the right to tell him about. He is ashamed and angry. Hannah Arendt says that "evil is the absence of rights" and in this case, Amir was not given the right to know about Hassan being his brother, so does that mean Ali and Baba are evil for keeping the truth from him? In that sense they are. Especially because Baba always told Amir, that when you lie, "you are robbing someone of the truth" and stealing is the biggest sin of all. And by keeping the truth from Amir, they robbed him of the truth in knowing that Hassan was his brother all these years.

Brothers