Amir and Baba's Relationship Through Locks

Amir and Baba look very different at face value, despite how they may have tried to work with each other to improve their relationship. Amir is weaker, as can be seen in the deteriorating red lock, while Baba is stronger, prideful, and willing to risk his life to save others, as can be seen in the shiny new lock. People admire Baba, while they tend to look down on Amir because of his incapability to live up to his father. Even though they are very different on the exterior, Baba and Amir share the same deep regretful secrets inside, just as the locks hold in their secrets, and are very unwilling to share. They keep these secrets almost under lock and key. Their guilts burden them, but both are terribly unwilling to speak of them and let go, for fear of how it will come back to affect them. Baba's was more hostile to his son, because when he saw Amir, "he saw himself. And his guilt"(301). The fear affects Baba so drastically that he is willing to defy the one thing he believes is the worst sin, to lie, and hide things from the children that he bases his life around.
"When he saw you, he saw himself. And his guilt...  when your father was hard on you, he was also being hard on himself. Your father, like you, was a tortured soul, Amir jan"(301).