Kamala And Siddhartha Essay

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Love is one of the fundamental pillars of the human experience. All people have experienced love, and many of their actions are fueled by it. Although it is most commonly associated with positive things, it can also be a negative force. Authors Hermann Hesse and Shakespeare study this complex nature of love through their works; Hesse through his novel Siddhartha and Shakespeare through his play Macbeth. Siddhartha loves his son and sacrifices that love, while Lady Macbeth loves her husband and sacrifices her own womanhood. Siddhartha in Siddartha experiences the pain of love and sacrifice through his son with Kamala. Shortly after Kamala dies, his son runs away, and “he felt a deep love for the runaway boy, like a wound, and yet felt at the …show more content…

When she first hears of the prophecy the witches have given her husband, she says, “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be/What thou art promised” (Shakespeare I.5.14-15). When Macbeth later has doubts about killing Duncan, she tells him, “How tender tis to love the babe that milks me:/I would, while it was smiling in my face,/...dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you/Have done to this” (Shakespeare I.7.55-59). Lady Macbeth never mentions being queen but only of Macbeth being king; she is even willing to sacrifice her children and by extension, her role as a mother and a woman in Shakespearean society, in order to realize his ambitions. Shakespeare weaves into the play a convoluted version of love and sacrifice; Lady Macbeth is as devoted to her husband as one can be, but their ambitions have become so tangled that it becomes hard to tell whether she loves him or herself. Siddhartha’s love frees him while Lady Macbeth’s blinds her. They both sacrifice their role as a parent, but Siddhartha’s sacrifice is rewarded with enlightenment while Lady Macbeth’s sacrifice is met with death. From these works, the audience learns that love is something experienced by everyone; however, whether one grows from it or allows it to consume them is a choice they must

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