Theme of cruelty in Chapter 22. Discuss the idea please.

Chapter 22 is the climatic confrontation of Amir and
Assef.  Amir has come to this place on a mission to get Sohrab, but it won't be that
simple.  He first must confront the physical and psychological cruelty of Assef.  The
psychological cruelty comes in many small and large
ways:

1.  He must enter the room alone, and he is
surrounded by armed men who pat him down and are very
intimidating.

2.  He must sit and silence, observing a
Talib man who is had blood from the morning execution still on his clothing and who
speaks positively about the idea of public executions.

3. 
The Talib and the others pull off his fake beard, exposing him to be an American, which
they ridicule.

4.  The men in the room tell terrifying and
gruesome stories about the Hazara massacre after the Taliban take
over.

5.  They taunt Amir and tell him he should be
frightened right now.

6.  They bring Sohrab in and his
resemblance to his father is so striking that it almost takes Amir's breath away, but
this only heightens Amir's need for this rescue to be successful.  Failure is
frightening.

7.  Amir's long-lost enemy/bully, Assef, comes
into the room and recognizes Amir from their
childhood.

After Amir processes all of this psychological
torture, he then must endure the physical torture of a the beating he receives from
Assef.  Assef uses brass knuckles to deliver the terrible blows as Amir swallows broken
teeth, gets hurled against the wall, hasribs and facial bones broken by the brutality of
Assef.  The final straw for Assef is Amir's breaking into laughter over it all.  This is
not joyful laughter, but the laughter that comes when a person is actually feeling full
out terror for his life.  The cruel beating ends when Sohrab, so much his father's
son, uses his slingshot to take out Assef's eye -- exactly like Hassan had threatened to
do it when they were all youths.

The mix of psychological
and physical cruelty in this chapter creates an immense amount of pathos in the reader,
and we are as relieved as Amir when the chapter(scene) finally
ends.