Introduction
The cruelty of the revolution and the Taliban regime brought not only a lot of changes and sufferings to people’s lives but also provided the literature world with significant masterpieces filled with pain and difficulties of existence and reflecting all the peculiarities of that time. To understand the inner state of the people who lived in constant war and injustice one can analyze such works as the film “Osama”, the book written by Khaled Hosseini “The Kite Runner “, and “Persepolis”, whose author is Marjane Satrapi. So, to become more familiar with these creations one should go into details of their content and compare them to find out common features.
Description of “Osama”
Osama is the film of 2003, which was made in Afghanistan and reflects the difficult time of the Taliban regime with all its brutalities and traps for those who wanted to live an ordinary life. This film describes the fate of one of the Afghan families, to be more exact of mother and daughter, who had no protection from the cruelties and obstacles which waited for them in life. Her husband and brother were killed during the Soviet Invasion, so they were abandoned helpless. They had no means to put themselves together as the Taliban regime took their job at the hospital and the last hope for a happy future.
It is easy to understand why the girl’s mother appeared to be in despair, the burden of responsibility for their way of life was put on her shoulders with no one to help and support them. The young girl manages to find a way out of a hopeless situation with the help of the story told by her mother. This tail changes her life completely as she is not a girl anymore. Her new appearance of a boy Osama brings a new job, friends, emotions, and feelings, difficulties, and suspicious attitude on the part of others. We cannot but see her inner anxiety, her new life differs from the previous one. She has to overcome unpleasant surprises of destiny: disclosure and arrest are like a moral shock for a young inexperienced girl. The inhumane conditions of the Taliban regime made her life intolerable and intricate.
The book “The Kite Runner “
These events are closely connected with those, the author wanted to show in the book “The Kite Runner “ which was written by Khaled Hosseini in 2003. One can observe the reflection of the same Taliban regime in this wok. The Russians invasion influenced the fate of the characters of this book as well as in ”Osama” and brought many unexpected changes and sorrow. This story tells about a boy whose name was Amir and his uneasy fate with betrayal and envy, shame, and emotional experience. His fate is closely interwoven with the life of his childhood friend Hassan, who always supported and understood him, and was almost a member of their family. Amir’s father is characterized as an interlink between two fires.
Amir’s jealousy of his father makes him cruel and unfair; his selfishness leads to the betrayal of his best friend. Lie absorbs his own “world” where he tries to prove something to himself, maybe his inner power and strong character make him so rude and egoistic. But everything has changed. The Russian invasion turned their lives from luxurious into poor and difficult, a father with his son had to work hard to earn some money for them to live in new conditions. It was a kind of punishment for Amir and one of the cruelest. These changes took away his father and made him suffer for previous sins. The book “The Kite Runner “ is as well as “Osama” the embodiment of the inner fight of a person who wants to change something and overcome all the difficulties of destiny. We can see that in both works Revolution and war go together with the characters of the stories, the same situation is observed in the book “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi.
The story “Persepolis”
“Persepolis” is an autobiography of Marjane Satrapi who tells about her childhood in Iran after the revolution. It describes conditions in which people had to live after the war between Iran and Iraq and how they influenced the way of life and social position of the population. This story transfers us to a time when the Islamic regime was provided and political forces influenced the choice of the nation. We can observe the life of a little girl who had to wear a veil in the country she lived in. The regime introduced in that time covered all layers of the population and left an imprint on the life of the population. The author describes a strong character of a little girl who was ready for any obstacle; at her little age, she showed strong resistance to all the rules and contradictions. One has to stress that three of the stories were created in 2003 and have a lot of common features as they reflect the wartime and the difficulties people had to overcome.
Similar in film and books
The Taliban and Islamic regimes, revolutions, and Russian invasions influenced the fate of the characters of all the stories and showed in detail how painful the conditions of living were and how strong the people were to overcome them. Every war period provided its own rules to follow; a lot of people had to move abroad not to suffer from the political influence. It was difficult to accept the situation but most people had no choice, to live without losses meant to follow the rules strictly as disobedience was cruelly punished by political forces and authorities. The stories examined to describe the inner fight of its protagonists, the fight to be stronger, to correct previous mistakes, to understand some new values of life, appreciate what you have at this very moment, and just always try to move ahead.
Osama in the film is described as a strong-willed girl who was not afraid of radical changes and became a boy in spite of all prohibitions and misunderstandings. In the book “The Kite Runner “ Amir tries to overcome the feeling of shame for betrayal and lie in his life. The autobiographical book “Persepolis” is an embodiment of strong-willingness and intrepidity, though the protagonist of the book is still a little girl with no experience of life. Comparing these characters and their way of lives we can notice that they are directed to the same aim – to overcome the power of influence on the part of political forces and their regimes and not to surrender by all means.
Conclusion
I consider that these works are realistic enough as they raise the problems important for our time. Having read the books and after seeing the film one can make some conclusions for himself, compare different lives and periods of time. It helps to understand the moral values of every country examined and their population. Some countries still suffer such influences so it can be useful to compare different styles of life for you to gain more experience and widen your world-view.
References
Robbins, Trina Osama difficulties. Newspaper article; The Washington Times, 2005.
Khaled, Hosseini. “The Kite Runner “. The US, 2003.
Marjane, Satrapi. “Persepolis”. US Edition, 2003.