The Role of Guilt in Amnesty

 The human psyche is affected by the ego and the perception of the self.  Guilt is a strong sentiment that can influence one's behavior towards doing the morally right thing--either one commits the selfish act and suffers from guilt, or they act on the guilt and do the morally right thing to relieve them.  In the second half of Amnesty, Danny struggles even more with his guilt that he knows Prakash is Radha's killer.  For Danny, he is stuck in this relationship with his guilt while he is connected with Prakash.  For example, on page 151, Danny addresses his connection with Prakash: "he tightened his grip on Danny's right hand, and that grip said: You and me are connected, Cleaner.  You know my secret, and I know yours."  Danny and Prakash are essentially figuratively bound together by their secrets, and as Danny's guilt festers within him, it eventually serves as the means by which he pulls from Prakash's grip.

Danny's guilt initially drives him to tell Sonja of his secret and pull from the grasp of Prakash, who essentially emotionally held him hostage in threatening to share his secret.  If one secret is told, the other would be told.  This contributes to Danny's internal conflict of whether to do the selfish thing or the 'right' thing.  Danny's and Prakash's secrets are intertwined, and Danny considers them as such when thinking through what he will explain to Sonja: "First, in two minutes, let me tell you that I am an illegal and how I became one; and then, in another two or three minutes, let me tell you about the murder I am mixed up in today" (187).  It is important to consider the amount of time he plans on sharing both pieces of information; both are nearly equivalent, about two minutes per story.  This further emphasizes the fact that both are connected in some way and of equal criminal importance in this society.  Danny's guilt moves him toward admitting both crimes and the fate of Australian justice--deportation and incarceration for murder.

Lastly, guilt plays the role of driving him towards acting for justice, because it fuels his intense focus on the immorality of the murder.  He desperately wants to stay in Australia, but he is aware that if he accuses Prakash of the murder crime to the police, he, too, will be punished for his illegal action.  Guilt does not allow him to forget about the murder because his conscious does not want to hold that internally for the rest of his life.  He tries to convince himself to ignore this guilt on page 196: "he felt the pulse pounding against his sore throat.  That made him want to go back to Sunburst and lie down on the sofa.  But see, it also made him think of Radha's throat and Justice."  He realizes he cannot live peacefully while constantly thinking about Radha's murder, so he knows that his only way out of his guilt is to turn in both crimes, being that they are intertwined in the situation.  He can only achieve justice and release of guilt by sharing his knowledge of the murder and in turn admitting his illegal status.

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