Jealousy's Fatal Consequences in 'Othello' and 'The Kite Runner'

Everybody will sooner or later experience jealousy in their lives. Jealousy is when a person feels fear or concern about another person’s advantages and achievements. Some people make attempts and take actions in order to end someone else’s accomplishments, however that may develop into some unfortunate events that can affect them as well. Jealousy is a terrible trait which leads a person to a life of tragedy and regret, as seen by the actions played by the characters of Iago in ‘Othello’ by William Shakespeare and Amir in ‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini.

Jealousy is seen over and over again by the actions played by Othello’s antagonist Iago, who can also be seen as the real protagonist of the story instead of Othello, because he is the one who started the jealousy cycle. It begins with Iago being jealous of Cassio because Othello promoted him as a lieutenant instead of Iago. This action triggered the events throughout the story, as Iago attempts to strip Cassio of his title and become lieutenant himself: “One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, A fellow almost damned in a fair wife, That never set a squadron in a field… This counter-caster, He, in good time must his lieutenant be…” (Shakespeare, 23-24). Consequently, in order to carry out his plan he uses other characters in the story, such as his own wife Emilia and Desdemona’s suitor Roderigo, in order to do the dirty work for him. In addition, he also manipulates Othello into believing his stories about a possible relationship between his wife Desdemona and Cassio: “That Cassio loves her, I do well believe’t; That she loves him, ‘tis apt and of great credit… At least into a jealousy so strong That Judgement cannot cure” (Shakespeare, 64-65). With this, Iago has embarked on a quest to achieve glory for himself. Not to mention, because of Iago’s machinations, Othello has also begun to follow the path of jealousness. Furthermore, Iago’s actions are similar to Amir in his story, ‘The Kite Runner’. Similarly, Amir’s desire to get approval from his father, Baba, also sparked jealousy. Because Hassan, a Hazara who is serving Amir and Baba and is actually Amir’s half-brother, gets all of Baba’s praise as he is doing a good job in serving him, Amir develops a deep and consuming feeling of jealousy inside him. Still, he never actually acted on those emotions, and those feelings of jealousy subside when Amir and Hassan win the kite flying competition in Kabul. After their win, Amir finally receives the desired praise from Baba: “And that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last” (Hosseini). Nevertheless, Amir continues to have feelings of jealousy towards Hassan, which ends up with him framing Hassan for stealing his watch received as a birthday present. As a result, Hassan and his father Ali leave Baba’s house for good. Given these circumstances, these characters have made foolish decisions due to their feelings of jealousy, and unfortunately, those actions have caused many tragic events throughout their stories.

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Unfortunately, these characters’ decisions and machinations in order to achieve their selfish goals in getting what they want, have often led other characters’ lives into deadly consequences. At first, Iago’s plan went smoothly for him, but eventually things took a turn for the worse. Everything was going according to plan in the beginning when he first started to carry out his plan. He even got his wish of being promoted to lieutenant by Othello after convincing him of Desdemona’s love for Cassio and that she was cheating on him. Instead, it all backfired almost at the end, when Othello had already killed Desdemona and finally found out the real truth. Emilia came in and saw Desdemona dead, and that is when she explained to Othello about what really happened, instead of Iago’s twisted version of the truth. Immediately after, Iago, Lodovico, Gratiano, and Cassio arrive and discuss about what happened. That is when everything started to go horribly wrong. As Emilia had finally opened her eyes to Iago’s deceptions, Iago threatened his own wife in order to maintain the lie, but Emilia made the choice to reveal the truth anyway: “O thou dull Moor, that handkerchief thou speak’st of I found by fortune and did give my husband; He begged of me to steal’t” (Shakespeare, 164). With the truth, finally revealed, and his plan foiled and ruined, Iago goes even further as to murder his own wife due to his disappointment. His ambitious goals have cost him everything. All of his actions into manipulating other characters in order to attain what he wanted were in vain. In the process, due to his unforgivable crimes, he got stabbed by Othello, and is spending time in prison until he receives his punishment.

Under similar circumstances, Amir would also eventually suffer from the results of his actions. He simply cannot forget his lack of action during Hassan’s rape and the constant feeling of guilt does not leave him. Avoiding Hassan proves to be impossible while he is still leaving under his father’s household, and in an attempt to free himself from the guilt, Amir once again designs a plan to get rid of Hassan and Ali, where he accuses Hassan of stealing a watch and money. When Hassan admits to the stealing, Amir realizes Hassan is a better person than him. He sacrificed himself, while Amir didn’t do the same when he witnessed Hassan being raped, therefore the guilt still remained in Amir’s life for many years to come. At the present time, Amir’s life went on smoothly. He moved out of his country, got a new life in America, graduated from school, got married and his life has turned out to be great, but suddenly his past, which he was trying to run away from, managed to catch up with him. He got a call from Rahim Khan to come back to his home country. Amir rejected the idea at first, afraid to face the ghosts of his past because he finally had the life he always wanted. Nonetheless, Rahim said something to Amir that convinced him: “There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up. Said it in passing as an afterthought” (Hosseini). Therefore, Amir must go back in order to redeem his sins for what he had done to Hassan. Still, it wasn’t as simple as he thought. When he returned to his country, Rahim suggested Amir to bring Hassan’s son, Sohrab, back to America with him, since his father had died, and with that Amir would somewhat redeem himself for his past actions towards Hassan. One unexpected event was the encounter of an old enemy, Assef. Even though Amir still didn't stand a chance against Assef, he did confront him since he is done running. In the end, Amir may have been able to complete his quest, but his regretful actions from his past still remained with him. He can’t turn back time in order to change what he has done. It will stay with him forever.

In this final analysis, we can conclude that jealousy may not only cause problems for the one who is jealous, but it has a domino effect on others as well, and ultimately coming back to the original instigator in the form of guilt. It’s like being a part of a machine where the instigators want to switch on and control the gears so it can operate the way they want it, but little do they realize it will most likely cause irreversible and even fatal consequences which they may regret for the rest of their lives.