Common Themes In The Kite Runner And Oedipus Rex

When you think of blindness you think of sight and when you think of ignorance you think of knowledge. Throughout the play Oedipus, sight and blindness imagery is very noticeable, along with ignorance and knowledge. Sophocles creates Oedipus as a character of ignorance, confidence, and good insight. The story starts out as Oedipus is the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta. The oracle told the parents that their son would kill his father and marry his mother. The parents refused to let this happen and sent the servant to pin Oedipus’s feet together and leave him on the mountain to die. The messenger knew this was not right and stepped in immediately to help the poor child. As Oedipus grew older he found out the truth about his life and why certain things happened. Over time, Oedipus's blindness shows him the lack of knowledge he knew about his true life story.

It is amazing how two literary works from different time periods and different cultures can portray the same theme. A major theme in both The Kite Runner and Oedipus Rex is the limits of free will. The way Khaled Hosseini portrays the theme in The Kite runner is the way that the majority of Pashtuns treat the Hazaras, they are either treated as objects that people can do whatever they want with, they are treated as second class citizens or they are servants to the Pashtuns. In Oedipus Rex, the way that the theme is portrayed is that Oedipus is bound to a prophecy that he heard when he was a child.

In many works of literature the author manipulates a character’s relationship with the past to contribute to the work as a whole. Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, executes this through his main protagonist, Amir. Majority of the novel dwells on Amir struggling with inner demons that haunt him because of things that took place when he was a child, for instance Hassan’s rape by Assef. Rahim Khan cleverly uses his mysterious knowledge of Amir’s past to string together the plot. By using Amir’s guilt of the past Rahim Khan is able to get Amir to return to a war torn Afghanistan to be cleansed of his past transgressions.

An important theme that relates to the physical journey in The Kite Runner is the past. The influence of the past affects Amir in his life as we see from the very first sentence of the book until the end. “I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of the 1975… That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years,” (Hosseini 1). Throughout the book, Amir’s past haunts him in every action he takes and the journey for his redemption. To Amir, the past defines who he currently is. All of his feelings of guilt stimulate him to make up for his mistakes. For example, he feels responsible for the events leading up to Hassan’s murder by the Taliban because he pushed Hassan and Ali out of Baba’s house. So, years later when he goes back to visit Rahim Khan, Amir is told to make amends by finding his nephew, Sohrab. The past is mentioned in many parts of the book in his quest, Amir faces many obstacles from his past.

“Who am I?” This has become the essential question asked in each literary work The Kite Runner and Oedipus Rex. Striving to find who they are the characters, Oedipus and Amir, try to figure out what they have become through their separate journeys. Most of their conclusions rely on the fact that both characters continue to look back into their past. The constant theme in both the novel and the tragedy is continuously looking into the past. Both characters constantly look at the past in ways such as their relationship with their father, the wrong choices they have made, and the secrets that lie in the family.

The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini is a novel with multitudes of themes but the theme most integral to the story concerns friendship, guilt, and redemption. This theme was most important to the novel because the conflict in the book is intertwined with this theme, following the life of a man haunted by regrets. The book is told from the perspective of Amir and this is something he deals with for the entirety of the book after the incident with Hassan. Amir, even as a middle-aged man, is still haunted by what he hadn’t done for Hassan all those years ago. Amir’s entire life takes a certain path because of what he did or didn’t do during and after Hassan’s assault. Amir’s decision affected not only himself, but also Hassan. Their lives forever changed. Amir and Hassan were each other’s best friends and they grew together like brothers, though they didn’t know at the time. Amir feels as though he broke the sacred bond they had and he decided to make it right by finding Sohrab. This is the last thing he can do for Hassan. He cannot tell him he is sorry anymore. He doesn’t have any other paths of redemption.

Throughout the story The Kite Runner an important central theme displayed by the other is the idea that it is important to be able to confront your past mistakes or else those mistakes will torture you for the rest of your life. Many of the main characters came face to face with this idea and each of them dealt with their mistakes in different ways. Despite this, it was made clear that the characters that were able to deal with their problems ended up much better off mentally than those of them that were unable to. Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, teachers the reader that confronting past mistakes is better than running from them through Amir’s feelings following his betrayal of Hassan, how Soraya felt after telling Amir about her past, and Amir’s reaction to finding out Baba was Hassan’s father.

Themes tend to be presented in a work of fiction, rather than in nonfiction and are much more obscure. For example, a drama or tragedy such as Oedipus Rex has the theme of not being able to escape fate, rather than having a brusquely stated thesis statement. The theme must be deduced by the reader/watcher after finishing and reflecting upon the play. Themes also tend to be an idea or message that is given to the reader.

symbols such as kite flying, his mother’s death, and the characters’ facial scars, the author asks readers to question their own internal strifes and if they too have demons. In The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the search for redemption is symbolized, time and time again, showing that redemption is the driving force behind self­discovery. Everyone is plagued with internal strifes; however, none more that Amir. The author brings Amir and Hassan together by making them fly kites with one another every year. After Hassan’s sexual assault, Amir never flew kites again. That was until Amir saved Sohrab, Hassan’s child. Amir states just how long it has been since he had last flown kites “ I hadn’t flown a kite in a quarter century, but suddenly I was 12 again and all the old instincts came rushing back.” (Hosseini 368). By having Amir fly kites with Sohrab in the end of the novel, the author shows that dishonesty is redeemable,

Throughout the novel, “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini, Amir is haunted by memories of his past. The theme has been, betrayal, loyalty, guilt and honor. The tone throughout is confessional. Amir the main character, is constantly troubled by his memory of Hassan’s rape and believes “he became what [he] is today at the age of 12,” because of his own cowardice at not stopping Hassan from being raped. After Hassan’s rape, Amir spends the rest of his life trying to redeem himself for his betrayal of his loyal friend. The rape leads Amir to his final quest for redemption when he is told “there is a way to be good again.” The climax of “The Kite Runner” is when Amir seeks to rectify the wrong he did to Hassan and finally finds Hassan’s son, Sohrab.

In the novel Kite Runner the past plays a major role throughout the story, the main character Amir’s actions that were made during his childhood would follow him throughout the rest of his life. No matter how hard he tried to escape the events of his unfortunate past, he was plagued with unending guilt and regret. The story truly begins when a childhood friend calls asking Amir to return to the war-torn nation of his childhood, offering an opportunity to make up for his past and to “be good again.” This truly show that even if someone moves thousands of miles away, the past will continue to exemplify its persistence and catch up, no matter how long it takes.

What Khaled Hosseini says to us about the significance of memories from our past in his novel The Kite Runner, is that only when we acknowledge and accept all the events that have shaped us into who we are, can we be at peace and no longer afraid of those memories. When the novel first begins Amir is telling the reader about his past, he is reluctant and afraid to look back. What happened in the winter of 1975 when he was 12 years old has made him into who he is now. Amir then begins to tell the story of his past, starting with the phone call he received last summer from long time friend Rahim Khan, who asked him to come back to Pakistan and then tells Amir that there’s a way for him to be good again. The first portion of the book is Amir giving us an inside look at his homelife.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini tells the coming of age story of the main character Amir. Throughout the novel, many themes are apparent as Amir gets older and deals with the events of his past. One of the main themes is regardless of any action there is always a way to redeem yourself. There are many examples of this theme in The Kite Runner, like when Rahim Khan tells Amir that he can redeem himself, another would be when Assef beats up/hurts Amir but he feels healed, finally were Amir is flying a kite with Sohrab and he smiles. The theme of redemption is present throughout the events of the novel.

Betrayal is the action of disloyalty towards one’s country, a group or a person. Sometimes betrayal can be considered a form of sin and this ends up occurring in The Kite Runner. During majority of the novel, Amir attempts to deal with his guilt by avoiding it. As time goes by this clearly does nothing towards him redeeming himself and therefore his guilt remains. This is why Amir crouches in fear every time he hears Hassan’s name being mentioned. “That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years” (Hosseini 1). This quote from the novel hints at the main point of the story and the reason he is telling it. To anyone as a reader the quotation is almost a teaser. It triggers a spark in the reader’s mind of what it could be without telling exactly what Amir is talking about. Later on in the story it then explains that the deserted alley Amir refers to is the place where Hassan was raped and Amir has not stop thinking about it since. This is what metaphor Amir used means how the past tries to claw its way out, because Amir had so much guilt the whole time. He kept trying

In the Greek tragedy, we see that Jocasta state that it is natural for human being to dream about sleeping with their mothers. She is right in the sense that we gain a sort of attraction and love for our parents. These natural feelings has come to be known as either the Oedipus or Electra complexes. There is a common command against incest that is both needed and jus due to the fact that it is morally wrong and disgusting. The command against incest is needed because it keeps citizens and most of all the kingdom morally in check. For someone to take their mother or father to bed and wed them is viewed in most societies as disgusting and unjust. This is portrayed in the play with the curse on the kingdom and Oedipus having no knowledge of his incestuios actions, however Jocosta knew what was going and viewed the situation as inevitable due to the wrath of the gods.