Betrayal is one of the prominent themes in the novel, In the Country of Men. The theme of betrayal is portrayed among family members, friends, and the state vs the citizens. Loyalty is considered to be an essential characteristic to be a man. The constant theme of betrayal is highlighting how fear and oppression can push someone to betray another person furthermore, how betrayal is directly linked to how that society defines manhood. Throughout the book, we get many instances of betrayal between family members. Najwa, Suleiman's mother only reveals her past to him when she is under the influence of alcohol. Najwa tells Suliman small snippets of her life before she married his father, Faraj. She was betrayed by her brother and her father. Najwa’s …show more content…
brother Khaled, who is very liberal and lives in America, betrayed her when he told their family he caught her holding hands with a boy. Although, he promised her he would not tell her father, he ultimately ended up exposing her secret to the family council. “... But soon I learned that the poet-prince had run straight home after seeing me at the cafe and told his father ‘your daughter is fourteen and is already spending her days in cafes with strange men… marry her now or she will shame us all’” (Matar, 147). At the age of fourteen, Najwa was forced to get married and by age of fifteen, she was pregnant. She calls her wedding day “black day” (Matar, 146). Because she was forced to get married to her brother and father at a young age, she has bottled up resentment that only comes out when she is under the influence of alcohol. Najwa only drinks alcohol when her husband is away on a business trip. Although Najwa is sober when her husband is home she still shows resentment to the marriage. Najwa is put in an unfortunate position when her brother, a person she looked up to and loved so much, betrayed her. “...I even thought, with his liberal ideas, he was proud of my little rebellion...when he left I cried with happiness and told Jihan how much I loved my Brother” (Matar, 147). His betrayal resulted in a lifelong resentment and an unhappy marriage. Her brother's betrayal is directly linked to his manhood and his role as a man in Libya. He is supposed to protect the family’s reputation. A young girl engaging in any romance out of wedlock is considered to be shameful. In that society, a woman caught in a romantic affair before wedding a reflection of having poor upbringing. Therefore, everyone living in that society, especial the men in the family, are under the pressure to prevent young girls from participating in any romantic activity before marriage. Suleiman recognizes his role as a man his society. He said “...I couldn’t wait to be a man. And not do all the things normally associated with manhood and its license…” (Matar 148). Another type of betrayal portrayed in this novel is betrayal between Friends.
There are many instances of friends, betraying each other. One instance is Suleiman betrays his close friend Kariem. Karim is the son of Ustath Rashid, Suleiman’s his next-door neighbor and best friend. Although Kareem is three years older than Suleiman, he is still very close to Suleiman and treated him as an equal. Suleiman, under the pressure of the neighborhood boys; Osama, Masoud, and Ali; Suleiman cracks down and betrayed Karim. After losing a game multiple times in a row, Kariem was being made fun of for losing to a young boy like Suleiman. That was when Suleiman betrayed Kariem and reveled his romantic interest to Osama, Masoud, and Ali. This act of betrayal was again linked to the definition of a man in Suleiman’s society. After Suleiman betrayed him, Kariem said “‘Listen, you have no word, you are not a man because you have no word.’” (Matar, 109). Suleiman is being taught a social lesson here once again unloyalty is a characteristic that makes someone less of a man. The ultimate betrayal between friends is when Faraj betrayed Ustath Rashid. Although they were both arrested for being rebellions, only one of them betrayed the other. Both Ustath Rashid and Faraj were under pressure by the government, to cooperate only one of them cracked. The government people that believe in democracy or speak out against the government under an intense pressure and ultimately, they cooperate and give up their friends. In this society, loyalty is highly sacred and important to manhood, Ustath Rashid was willing to die to live up to his expectation as a man. If a man is not loyal he is going to face a lash back and criticism from their community. Moosa, Faraj’s friend, said “‘I can’t bear to look at him…the betrayal in his eyes’” (Matar, 208). Even his close friend found it hard to be around him after he learned that he betrayed Ustath Rashid. Earlier when Ustath Rashid was getting interrogated by
the state Suleiman himself pointed out how loyal Ustath Rashid was to Faraj. He said “...Ustath Rashid said ‘NO’ when baba’s name was mentioned.” (Matar, 114). Throughout the novel Matar portrayed how much the Libyan society values loyalty. The constant theme of betrayal in the novel highlighted how fear and oppression can push someone to betray another person. In addition, betrayal is directly linked to how that society defines manhood. Khalid’s role as a man is to protect the reputation of his family which is why he betrayed his sister by telling her father about her secret. Second, after he betrayed Kariem, Suleiman learned that being unroyal is characteristic that can make him less of man. Lastly, when Ustath Rashid did not give up his friend Faraj, Suleiman learned what loyally equated to manhood.
The themes explored in the novel illustrate a life of a peasant in Mexico during the post-revolution, important themes in the story are: lack of a father’s role model, death and revenge. Additionally, the author Juan Rulfo became an orphan after he lost
The theme leads a person through a whole different world. A world where paranoia runs wild and chaos is second in command only to Nurse Ratched, or society and how powerful a single authority can be. Chapter by chapter and scene by scene, the plot unravels, separating truth and insanity to reveal an amazing war of the mind. The power of strict, systematic control, verses the power of rebellion, is a strong issue of the 1960’s and this issue works well as the theme for the novel and film.
The way people act toward each other can cause betrayal to play a huge role in their actions toward one another, which is the first way in which betrayal is portrayed. For example, before they were born, “The twin argued inside of their mother’s stomach and fought about their birth.The right-handed twin wanted to be born the normal way, as most children are born, but the left-handed twin said no and said he saw light in another direction(Iroquois 41),” so the right-handed twin was born naturally while the left-handed twin ended up not being able to go the direction he saw light in was born through his mother’s armpit,
All the characters are products of their own society, Veronese society. Status is everything, money buys anything. Woman must marry well and produce many offspring. Men believe strongly in defending their honor by any means available especially violence.
the theme of bravery in the novel, by showing how bravery is different in every
People can be betrayed in a variety of ways for different reasons, by anyone in their lives. A close family member or a best friend could betray one. They may go behind one’s back in order for more personal gain, but sometimes they commit betrayal in the interest of one’s benefit. A not so close friend could betray one’s trust by telling a secret or situation that was told or seen in confidence that was broken for a juicy story or just slipped unnoticed. Some people betray their friends or enemies in order to make them look bad; such as spreading a rumor about said person.
Another example of the betrayal of a friend occurs not too long after. While Vladek and his family are hiding in the attic bunker in the ghetto, they are forced to go out in search of food at night. One night while they are scavenging they find a stranger who wanders into their house. The stranger tells them that he has a wife and a baby that he needs to find food for and he only wandered into the house to rest for a moment. The refugees take pity on him and allow him to stay with them for a short while, despite their gut feeling...
The movies Conspiracy and Downfall show the views of World War 2 through the perspectives of the German high command and those near the top of the German hierarchy. The movie Conspiracy tells the true yet horrific story of the Wannsee Conference held on the 20th of January 1942, where SS Chief of Security Reinhard Heydrich along with other German high command devised the Nazi Final Solution. The movie Downfall tells the story through the perspective of Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, as Hitler spends his final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of World War 2, where he will commit suicide with his newly wedded wife Eva Braun. The two movies share the similar themes of evils by humanity, optimism, and patriotism. The historical accuracies of the two movies are for the most part correct, and have very little factual errors that deal with the movies usage of material that is fictional rather than fact.
Everybody, at one point or another, has done something for a friend or a group of friends that might have been inconsistent to their values. They might have lied to one friend for another, making them feel uncomfortable, or help them cheat on a test, which they wouldn’t ever have imagined him/herself doing. People in the book, The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton, struggle in the theme that loyalty to friends can prevent individuals from showing their truest self.
Betrayal is introduced in the beginning when Mariam leaves her mother, Nana. Nana is a spiteful person who repels the father of her child, Jalil. Mariam is the only thing that Nana had, but now lost. When Mariam leaves her mother, it’s a new experience for her, she sees a different world. Later Mariam is lying outside of Jalil’s house. She feels abandoned and in a deep, cold, core of loneliness.
... examples, the author takes strong note of the age that boys begin to participate and why (Herdt 2006: 123). He utilized comparison to the culture of the United States, which promoted ease of readability. Some of the language Herdt utilized was particularly interesting. He chose to speak of the men’s secret society as a “cult” and “brainwashing” (Herdt 2006: 107). The views of the ritual change as progression continued for some, such as Moondi. The text was a great example of the influence of sexuality within a society. Herdt promoted some semblance of cross-cultural comparison within the text to show the differences while not detracting importance.
According to dictionary.com betrayal means "an act of deliberate disloyalty,”. Betrayal is something that is very prevalent throughout the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini which is a story about the betrayal that a young boy named Amir does to his friend Hassan. Amir shows that he is a betrayer to Hassan when he belittles, plots, refuses to acknowledge their friendship, and walks away from Hassan. With each betrayal listed they progressively get worse and worse as Amir continues to show how little he really cares for Hassan.
He gives little credibility to the "not all men statement, addressing that while informative on an oppositional attitude, it does not do anything to address the sometimes toxic aspect of growing up as a man. The two stories are alike in the sense that people agree men can be, and sometimes are, violent. There are certain expectations placed upon a man as he grows and strives to be masculine. However, the stories diverge on a course of action.
The theme of this story is actually stated in the story if it is read carefully and Crane reinforces it innumerable times. The theme of the story is man’s role in nature and is related to the reader through the use of color imagery, cynicism, human brotherhood, and the terrible beauty and savagery of nature. The story presents the idea that every human faces a voyage throughout life and must transition from ignorance to comprehension of mankind’s place in the universe and among other humans.
Throughout the play A Man for All Seasons, the symbol of water communicates a significant idea of corruption. In the play, water, specifically the river, symbolizes corruption. During King Henry’s reign, the Thames River was extremely dirty because all of the city’s garbage was dumped into that river. In Act One, Scene 5, King Henry says, “I happened to be on the river. Thomas, the river; my river” (1.5, 26).