Macbeth and The Kite Runner has a lot of similarities between the characters in both of their work. One of which is the problem and challenges that Amir and Lady Macbeth both face. Their stories are similar but has a different ending. Macbeth features the story of a well respected general and his wife who betrayed their friends and the kingdom. Meanwhile The Kite Runner is about a man who betrayed his childhood friend and seeks redemption. In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare and the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, the theme Betrayal will punish one with immeasurable guilt is presented through uses of character and tropology. These ECDs are chosen by both authors as they best convey the subject of Guilt and Betrayal with the context of the surrounding paragraphs.
Firstly, Character played a big role in convincing and portraying the theme. Lady Macbeth’s actions, thoughts and interactions constantly remind her of the guilt that keeps building. She said, “The thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?—What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that. You mar all with this starting” (5. 1. 30-33). She talks to herself while sleepwalking about the cleanliness of her hands as she knew that her actions were immoral and played a big part in the betraying King Duncan. This caused her to suffer from the guilt of it all. Her washing her hands to rid the dirtiness of her actions and pretending to be clean kept the guilt building till the point where she cannot contain it anymore. Hence the sleep walking to ventilate some of it. Lady Macbeth has shown that her character has been influenced by guilt and betrayal. Her actions, thoughts and interactions are all done out of guiltiness or trying to prevent the guilt. Now as for Amir, he also reacts by trying to forget his actions and uses the same reasons as Lady Macbeth when faced with the situation of mounting guilt. Hassan replied to Baba’s question with “a single word, delivered in a thin raspy voice: ‘yes’. I flinched, like I’d been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the truth” (Hosseini 111). Amir chose to bury the guilt at the back of his mind and rid himself of Hassan, who constantly reminds him of his guilt. After he had betrayed Hassan, Amir is overwhelmed by the amount of guilt that has burdened him and let that influence his decisions. This guilt also almost caused him to blurt out the truth that he is trying to forget. His actions are not normal when reminded of his betrayal as if guilt had possessed him to control him. This allows him to create poor decisions that would keep haunting him later. At this point, it is clear that the authors used this ECD in a similar way. Both showed that they have done a disloyal and immoral action which can be inferred as a betrayal to one that is innocent. Both showed their actions are influenced by guilt as they have been punished due to betrayal and it dictates how they will interact with each other. Such that they would rather forget all the memories relating to that person they betrayed than to apologize for what they have done. Lady Macbeth and Amir both perceive themselves in a negative way as they know they are in the wrong. Thus, it can be concluded that their character is a crucial part in developing guilt and betrayal.
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Secondly, the author used tropology to allow the audience to understand what the characters feel. In the first example, tropology is used to show that Lady Macbeth’s hands play an important part in her guiltiness and shows how guilty she is. She tried cleaning the smell of blood off but “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” (5. 1. 35). Lady Macbeth tries to clean her hand of the dirty smell but fails at doing so. Her hands symbolize the guilt that she is trying to clean due to her actions of betraying the kingdom. The dirtiness of her hand is unable to be ridden due to her being a big motivation for the protagonist to do what he did. It is also described that her hands reeked very very terribly causing the audience to trigger an olfactory sense. That is done to give a sense of how dirty it is, comparing it to possible the best smelling perfume of Arabia. This is similar in The Kite Runner for Amir. Such that he compares his guilt towards Hassan to various objects to show how he is impacted by guilt and betrayal using tropology. Amir said “When was the last time I had spoken his name? Those thorny old barbs of guilt bore into me once more, as if speaking his name had broken a spell, set them free to torment me anew” (Hosseini 212). Amir’s guilt popped up again when he was reminded of his betrayal towards Hassan. The guilt is comparable to the feeling of stepping in barbed wire and a very undesirable spell that has been broken. That creates a mental image for the reader of the novel to imagine what it feels like. This means that Hassan is a symbol of betrayal and guilt for Amir and Amir’s guilt for Rahim Khan, who knows what Amir is feeling. From these proofs, both authors used tropology to express a symbol for guilt and whenever that symbol is brought up, it recalls what the character thought about that guilt. Although in Macbeth, imagery is not used to convey a specific feeling towards the symbol as in Kite Runner. It is used to how guilty Lady Macbeth actually is and still retain the effectiveness. Metaphors and similes were also used to compare the feeling to an undesirable object in both works. All of that means that tropology is an effective way to let the reader have a deeper insight into the character’s emotions and thoughts.
Now that more is known, character and tropology is an important pair to understanding and convincing the theme of one who has betrayed will be punished with guilt. Presented in Macbeth by William Shakespeare and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, both of the authors used character to show the reasoning behind their actions, thoughts and opinions of himself and others. The way it was presented was very similar with almost all of the specific aspects of character used. While there were some differences in the way tropology was used, both were effective at giving the impression it wanted to give. Khaled Hosseini used almost all of the aspects to show the readers the emotions and feelings that Amir was dealing with. William Shakespeare used some of the aspects to show a qualitative description of the guilt on top of him using it to convey emotion. Ultimately, a good novel or text of any sort that would show the subject of guilt and betrayal should use character and tropology in tandem to convey the theme effectively.
Works Cited
- Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Anchor Canada, 2004.
- Roy, Ken, and William Shakespeare. Macbeth, Second Edition. Harcourt Canada, 2001.
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