What does Amir's dream of Baba fighting the bear symbolize?

• A. Amir's guilt and his struggle to come to terms with his past.
• B. Baba's physical strength in front of the neighborhood.
• C. Sohrab's future behavior in the aftermath.
• D. The dream has no symbolic meaning.

Answer: (A)

The scene tests how dreams can reveal a character’s hidden guilt. Amir’s dream of Baba fighting a bear uses that fierce, primal image to show the weight of what he did—or didn’t do—and how that guilt sits with him long after the incident with Hassan. The bear stands for uncontrollable violence and the moral crisis Amir feels, while Baba represents strength and protection—the very ideals Amir wants to live up to. Yet Amir feels he fell short, failing to defend Hassan and to protect the family’s moral order. Seeing Baba wrestle with the bear in a dream makes this conflict personal: Amir recognizes that his own actions have strained or even damaged the relationship with his father and with Hassan, and the dream becomes a subconscious call to confront and seek redemption for the past. So this symbol points to guilt and the struggle to come to terms with what happened, which is why that option fits best. It’s not about Baba’s public strength, not about Sohrab’s future behavior, and it isn’t without symbolic meaning.