I am Legend and The Road

        Both I Am Legend and The Road are heroic stories of survival and preservation of goodness against odds in desolate, apocalyptic worlds.  In The Road, the boy often affirms that he and his father are carrying the fire.  I perceive this idea to symbolize that they are upholding moral principles and surviving despite the temptation to devolve to the brutality of human nature.  In The Lord of the Flies, for instance, the fire is a beacon for light, hope, and civilization, that which brings the boys back to a state of logical reflection -- the idea of being rescued -- rather than the barbarity of their hunting games and killing each other out of desperation.  This is also present in I Am Legend, in Dr. Robert Neville's determination to find a cure, put an end to the epidemic, and restore moral society.  He is also committed to survival, like the protagonists in The Road.  There are many similarities evident between Neville and the father of The Road.  They are alike in their selflessness -- Neville staying in the city of greatest destruction, "Ground Zero," as he calls it, to save the world, and the man sacrificing everything for his boy.  They are different in that Neville sacrifices generally for societal welfare, although he also sacrifices for his equivalent of the son in The Road -- his dog, Sam, whereas the father has no hope of saving the world because it appears to be generally decimated (destroyed more externally than in the film), and therefore sacrifices for his son.  Both stories display ideas of isolation and loss of hope.  They demonstrate the idea that hope is closely connected to solidarity, to having people to wallow with, to love, to mope with, to cry for, and to die for.  Neville and the father similarly draw strength from their companions, giving them motivation to keep their fight for goodness alive.  Solidarity is therefore also closely connected to faith, as faith is a synonym to hope, and the presence of people therefore gives us the idea of a god.  God resembles hope, and when the world is decimated, with no people to love, the world is godless -- as Neville asserts to Anna, "There is no God."  This idea is evident in The Road, with McCarthy generally describing the world in which the father and son live to be dark, barren, and godless.  But the father does say, also, that his son could only be proof of God.  He is the world to him.  He is his hope, his motivation.  This is why Neville is in misery when Sam dies; he is his only source of hope and love -- his only proof of God, so to speak.

The Kite Runner: themes

Taxonomy of Themes

A tonement
B etrayal
C ourage
D iscrimination
E quality
F abrication; Faith
G uilt
H armony; Hope
I nnocence; Isolation
J ustice
K indness
L oyalty; Love
M isery
N ostalgia
O blivion
P erseverance
Q uest
R edemption; Reconciliation; Resilience
S orrow; Separation
T olerance; Trust; Tenacity
U nity
V anity
W ar
X enocracy
Y outh
Z eal


Redemption: Redemption is bittersweet.

"I will do this and I will think of Him every day from from this day on if He only grants me this one wish: My hands are stained with Hassan's blood; I pray God doesn't let them get stained with the blood of his boy too." (p. 346)

Hosseini illustrates this nature of redemption by using hyperbole.  The staining of Hassan's blood exaggerates the impact of Amir's brother's death on his guilt; it is truly permanent, indicated by the stain.  Amir realizes that he must redeem himself and save his brother's son Sohrab, to not let his brother die in vain, and to add sweet to the bitterness of his guilt.  He cannot change his mistakes, but he can try to recover.

Oblivion: While blissful in the temporary, oblivion is pernicious in the long term.

"I was afraid the appeal of my life in America would draw me back, that I would wade back into that great, big river and let myself forget, let the things I had learned these last few days sink to the bottom.  I was afraid that I'd let the waters carry me away from what I had to do.  From Hassan.  From the past that had come calling." (p. 231)

The metaphor of America as a great, big river appears throughout the book and is analogous with the idea of oblivion.  Amir realizes the appeal of this oblivion from addressing his past of regret, but also understands that he must escape it to better himself.  It is pernicious.

Night Blogs

        The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel illustrates the nature of the isolation created by the Holocaust.  First, the Jewish people are discriminated against, alienated by the antisemitic influence of the Nazis.  This isolates the Jews socially, in their plight.  They are also isolated physically, first put together in ghettos, in which they are essentially interned, and later, are isolated from the world in concentration camps.  We see this in Sighet, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Buna in Night.  Furthermore, people are separated from their families; the Wiesel family was split at Birkenau, resulting in sadness and diminished hope.  The book also demonstrated another, unique sort of isolation: the isolation of individuals that the Holocaust created, the "every man for himself" mantra.  The threat of death isolates us.  Generally, it makes us more selfish, more focused on our natural instinct of survival than altruism.  This passage sheds light on this idea: "... he slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours.  I stood petrified.  What had happened to me?  My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked.  Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal's flesh.  Had I changed that much?  So fast?" (p. 39)

        Yet solidarity must be found to maintain some sort of hope, to escape the threat of death.  God, Judaism, and prayer does this for many people at Buna.  It lets them know that there still is light.  Isolation is neither sustainable, nor permanent.  Night also demonstrates, through the experiences of Elie Wiesel during the Holocaust, the importance of faith and hope in preserving one's motivation to keep moving forward, to survive.  On page 41, A young barracks leader, a Pole, advises the Jews to keep faith, and to stay together: "Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering.  Don't lose hope.  You have already eluded the worst danger: the selection.  Therefore, muster your strength and keep your faith.  We shall all see the day of liberation.  Have faith in life, a thousand times faith.  By driving out despair, you will move away from death.  Hell does not last forever... And now, here is a prayer, or rather a piece of advice: let there be camaraderie among you.  We are all brothers and share the same fate... Help each other."  Prayer is commonplace at Auschwitz and Buna, as we see in the book.  Wiesel begins to lose faith in God, seeing no light in the mass graves of Birkenau but the fire of death.  He despairs, and this has a negative effect.  Wiesel must realize that He to whom he was faithful before was not a separate entity, but light inside of Wiesel.  Indeed, He, it, God, is a part of him.  Realizing this, and the solidarity of others facing the same plight, truly helps Wiesel survive.

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        Night, in the book, serves as a symbol for the absence of God and despair.  Here, it is critical to recognize the Biblical role of night.  God first dispelled darkness, creating light, helping us understand that night can serve as a symbol for the absence of God.  In Night, nightfall corresponds with a terrible event, often.  On page 12, Wiesel establishes, "Night fell... Suddenly, the gate opened, and Stern, a former shopkeeper who now was a policeman, entered and took my father aside.  Despite the growing darkness, I could see my father turn pale."  The news that Wiesel's father receives is that of the deportation, news of hopelessness and grief.  It comes with the falling of night.  The symbol is also particularly evident upon Wiesel's arrival to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  He says, "In front of us, those flames.  In the air, the smell of burning flesh.  It must have been around midnight.  We had arrived.  In Birkenau." (p. 28)  It was in this darkness that Wiesel experienced the death of hundreds of innocents.  And it expelled his God, a source of eternal light, in the face of interminable darkness.