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What you see before you is a book. A small battered thing, but a book, nonetheless. A novel maybe? A biography? A play? Likely not something the average person would pick up to enjoy in their leisure time. Yet, this flimsy little object, like countless others, holds the capability of shaping our entire world, altering the way we see, act, and understand the society in which we live. Well, this book, play, is Julius Caesar and it is a prime example of a powerful narrative that has withstood the tests of time due to its everlasting universal aspects of friends and betrayal and how insecurity can inevitably lead to the latter, which is why you will witness me here today, centuries after Shakespeare has written it, providing you with an analysis on it. To further prove this, I will be looking at Khalid Hosseini’s infamous “The Kite Runner,” to provide us with another outlook into these same aspects in a completely different context to Shakespeare’s.
Initially, at the time Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar, all the way back in 1599, the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign drew near as did her death. Anxiety started to spread across the people of England over who the next successor would be. This worry drove Shakespeare to write the historical drama that is Julius Caesar, whose events hold comparisons to Elizabethan England. There were even speculations that a civil war eruption would occur as one did following the death of Caesar. His surroundings were what instigated him to draw from historical events to comment on political conflicts in his society. whilst incorporating his own personal viewpoints, values, and quite possibly experiences like unexpectedly disloyal friends.
I think it’s fair to say that friendship and betrayal have been around since, you know, ever. It is at the center of Shakespeare’s vision of an ordered and harmonious world. To Shakespeare, disloyalty and distrust cause this world to disintegrate. Relationships deteriorate when people position their principles ahead of their affections. As such, deep platonic bonds are portrayed in particular through Brutus and Caesar’s friendship which develops into a very delicate and manipulative element. Their closeness is revealed almost immediately in the play and so is the fact that Brutus is deeply worried about his relationship with his best friend. He quotes that he feels “at war with himself,” giving us a deep insight into his personal feelings as he is torn between his inner and outer self, tasked with the incredibly difficult decision to choose between loyalty to his friend and loyalty to the Roman Republic. His love and loyalty to Caesar notwithstanding, Brutus believed Caesar to be capable of great evil because of his ambition. He feared that, Caesar threatened to undermine hundreds of years of republican (representative) rule and that in Caesar’s reign, Rome would cease to be a democracy. This simple anxiety is pushed and manipulated by other characters, namely Cassius, and grows to urge him to conspire against his friend, literally stabbing him in the back. You see, fellow students of notable narratives, this betrayal was inevitable from the beginning due to Brutus’s insecurity. At least he did it for the good of the people, right? What was at stake was nothing less than the ideal of Rome itself. No, maybe not. Still a disloyal friend.
Now, (emphasize) CENTURIES after, we can pull out inextricable parallels from Julius Caesar into a slightly more modern setting. “The Kite Runner,” is set in a country ravished by war and violence. In Afghanistan, beginning in 1963, this is a context known well to Hosseini, having grown up there at that time. First, there was the Soviet War in Afghanistan, and then the Taliban regime that ruled their country after the fall of the USSR. Hosseini explores how it was to have friends in this context, in a time of political conflict. The narrator Amir looks back on his childhood in Afghanistan and recalls the bond he had with another boy, Hassan. “Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.” Amir justifies the strong bond they share. Despite this, their friendship is fragile, a result of Hassan’s insecurity. He began to question his relationship with Hassan, just as Brutus felt “at war with himself.” Hassan’s love for Amir is selfless, while Amir’s for Hassan is quite the opposite. It thus demonstrates — albeit unknowingly to the characters — the nature of brotherly love, a love that includes jealousy and insecurity. In the “I ran because I was a coward…Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price?” That is exactly what he did upon discovering that Hassan was getting raped by a racist bully, Assef. It was at the annual kite flying competition, Hassan chose to take a beating and rape by Assed for Amir to win the competition. This act of loyalty was returned to him with betrayal.
For Amir, kite fighting is the only way he sees as worthy to earn/win his father’s love, also incorporated into the text as a symbol. A picture of hundreds of kites trying haphazardly to cut each other down represents the warring factors of Afghanistan overthrowing one another. Brutus, for the love and happiness of Rome. Both their intentions were in the name of love. Whilst one decision was selfless and the other selfish, their inevitable outcomes were identical. Betrayal.
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