Atonement

Atonement is basically redemption or reconciliation for the bad that one may have done. I do believe that you are able to achieve atonement for past sins and mistakes because everyone makes mistakes, and if no one was able to be forgiven for those mistakes, then they would live their life in permanent regret. Their life would be miserable and they would probably continue to sin. Everyone should be given a second chance, at least. In order to the atoned though, the person must make some sort of an effort to fix the wrong they have done. Otherwise, if they act like they do not care, they will not be forgiven. I personally have a habit though, of if someone does something bad to me that hurt me, or something of that nature, I do not wait for them to try and fix what they did. Instead, I simply forget about it. It never truly fixes anything, but to me, it takes too much energy to be mad at someone. I would much rather just forget it ever happened. This is bad for both me and the other person, because the other person may not feel like they did anything wrong, or worse, if they do feel like they did wrong, they may feel bad that they never made it up to me. It hurts me because I never truly forget I never bring it up to that person, but if a person continues to hurt me, I begin to be sick of it, and will get upset. Instead of working it out with them earlier, I let everything build up inside, which is not a good thing to do.

Amir seeks atonement for not helping Hassan, being jealous of his father's love for Hassan more than himself, and for framing Hassan, so that in the end, he lost his closest friend. In all cases, I think you can put what he has done under the category of envy. When he was watching Hassan being raped, I think he was scared of being hurt, but in away, he wanted to get back at Hassan for being more well liked by Baba then his own son was. I think that in a way, he could gain atonement, but it is going to take more than just becoming "good again". I think, in order for Hassan to give Amir forgiveness, Amir would have to, in a way, be willing to stand up for Hassan, and do basically whatever Hassan wanted, just as Hassan did for Amir when they were younger.