Loss Of Innocence In Oedipus Rex And The Kite Runner

To lack moral corruption and abstaining from sin would keep one pure; although, in Oedipus Rex and The Kite Runner, the protagonists lose their claim for innocence. The loss of innocence is a major theme within both literary works. The points in which the characters lose their innocence and the ways the authors utilize the theme progresses the plot. Both pieces of literature, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, portray the common theme of the loss of innocence, which is exemplified by the authors through the decisions the protagonists make utilizing free will, the emotional hardships that ensue when truth comes to light and how in the end, each protagonist falls in line with fate. Within each separate work of

Within Oedipus Rex, Oedipus discovers there is a prophecy that he was cursed with. He was predicted to murder his father and then marry his mother. The man that he murdered on the road was King Laius, the previous King of Thebes, as well as his father. Oedipus wed the ex-wife of the deceased King Laius, which then, in turn, means he wed his mother. Committing incest, yet another sin, was furthermore loss of innocence to Oedipus, but he was not the only character in Oedipus Rex who suffered the loss of innocence. Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother and wife, abandoned Oedipus when he was a child to attempt to escape the effects of the prophecy, therefore, rendering her morally corrupt and falling into the theme of the loss of innocence. Alike Oedipus Rex, within The Kite Runner, there are family ties that are kept hidden and are revealed too late. Amir’s father, Baba, is also the father of Amir’s Hazara friend, Hassan. Rahim Khan attempts to explain to Amir why his father hid his half-brother away from him his entire life, “It was a shameful situation. People would talk. All that a man had back then, all that he was, was his honor, his name, and if people talked… We couldn’t tell anyone, surely you can see that” (Hosseini 223). Although, by the time Amir finds out, Baba and Hassan are dead, and the only one left is Sohrab,

Oedipus, in Oedipus Rex, falls subject to the prophecy despite his parent’s efforts to avoid it. Sophocles character, Tiresias, explains that the prophecy states, “He will be revealed to live with his children/ as brother and father both; and to his parents/ he is both his wife’s son and lord and his father’s/ fellow-sower and slayer” (480-483). Tiresias informs Oedipus that the prophecy predicts him to murder his father, and marry and procreate with his mother. Even though he was unaware that he was following his fate, he was, and in the end, he did exactly what the prophecy expected him to do. Hosseini utilizes fate in a different way, yet equally impactful as Sophocles did. In The Kite Runner there was no prophecy for Amir to follow, but the decisions that Amir made of free will ultimately guide him to his fate. Hassan’s fate was to die protecting Amir and his name, and in essence, he did, he died protecting Amir’s childhood house. When Hassan died, he left behind Sohrab, his child, and back in America, Amir and his wife, Soraya, could not have children no matter how hard they tried. Nothing, in particular, was wrong with either Soraya nor Amir, they just could not conceive, so it is fate that Hassan, Amir’s only sibling and best friend’s only child, was an orphan and his wife and himself could not conceive. It was fate that they would adopt Sohrab. The way the