In the novel the Kite Runner, the main character is taken over by guilt due to what he didn't do as a child. It ends up haunting him his entire life. This helps the meaning of the novel to really be brought out to the attention of the reader.
The main character witnesses his best friend being raped, and does nothing about it. Everyone knows he witnessed it and he could have stopped it. But he chose not to because he was afraid of conflict. so he avoided the situation and it ended up that he best friend had to move out of town. They broke all contact before the age of 10. They didn't end up rekindling their friendship until they were both full grown men but the friend had died from a sickness. This realization destroyed the main character.
The friend is a minor character. He role in the novel is small, but his role in the meaning of the novel is huge. He was the reason why the main character couldn't sleep at night and couldn't really ever move on past the terrible scene he witnessed as a young boy. He had troubles trusting people after that. He moved to America with his father and that helped him to forget, but it was always there in the back of his mind. To say that it ruined his life is an overstatement, but it for sure made a large impact.
This single event in the novel of the main character choosing not to stop the rape and choosing not to tell an adult about it helps to illuminate the central meaning of the work because it shows that what you do as a child will come back and hit you as an adult. What seemed like such a small decision at the time ended up being the biggest decision of his life. Yes, he ended up living happily ever after, but it took him 30 years to get to that point of being truly happy. All due to a lack of communication and lack of compassion as a child.
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