Hosseini and Williams, both present aspects of a coming of age story. The authors rely on true historical and political facts such as the corrupt political change through the soviet invasion and its effects on Afghanistan and its society, in The Kite Runner. Williams uses the French quarter to provide a rich background for the emotional events of the play and symbolizes the changes that occurs after the second world war in American society through the setting. Both authors use of realistic setting puts fiction into reality, especially due to the believable characters and experiences; therefore, enhancing the auto-biographical sense of the stories. Like Amir, the protagonist of the novel, Hosseini was born in Afghanistan and left the country as a youth, not returning until 2003. Thus, he was frequently questioned about the extent of the autobiographical aspects of the book. The main character Blanche Dubois serves as accurate evidence for Williams use of personal Context in Streetcar Named Desire as the role is thought to be based on Williams sister, Rose Williams, who struggled with mental health issues and became incapacitated after a lobotomy. Furthermore, both writers use the structure of the narrative to aid character construction by personal insight. The Kite Runner consists of a personal narrative, recounted by Amir. However, the opposite is seen in the voice in Streetcar Named Desire as it does not come from a character, but rather, comes from the psyche of Blanche Dubois. The narratives follow a straightforward chronological fashion, as the rising action builds towards a crisis and then the climax. Conversely, Hosseini adapts a chronological time scheme with jumps in-between important periods in the main character’s life.
The highly descriptive language in both anecdotes ,call for acute attention to detail, as well as creativity and intense use of imagination such as Hosseini’s reflection of love for his home country. Having left the country around the time of the soviet invasion, Hosseini felt a certain amount of survivor’s guilt saying: "Whenever I read stories about Afghanistan my reaction was always tinged with guilt. A lot of my childhood friends had a very hard time…One died in a fuel truck trying to escape Afghanistan. Talk about guilt.”
Both texts present a sense of moral challenge through the flaws of the characters such as the journey for redemption due to guilt and its effects, to a wide extent.
Hosseini and Williams presentation of the past and present takes an equivalent importance in both play and novel, as the attempt to evade the past is significant to the subject of guilt. In The Kite Runner guilt is like a genetic part of Amir’s make up as he seems to have been born with the inherited guiltiness of his father. When he was young he blamed himself for his mother’s death and believed this was why Baba had a problem with him; “I always felt like Baba hated me a little…I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I? “Throughout the novel Amir is plagued by guilt as he constantly thinks about the past and his actions. For most of the novel, Amir attempts to deal with his guilt by avoiding it. But neither his successful career nor his good relationship to his wife do nothing toward redeeming himself, and thus his guilt endures haunting him. This can also be observed in Streetcar in view of the fact that William presents the guilt of Blanche past as a constant battle between illusion and reality such as the constant polka refrain in Blanches head, embodying the accountability for her Husband’s death. The Varsouviana is the polka to which Blanche and her husband were dancing when she last saw him alive, before he shot himself in line on behalf of Blanches disregard for him being homosexual. For that purpose, the polka music is a persistent reminder of the character’s guilty past. Furthermore, Blanches statement towards the “naked light bulb”, clearly sets up the way she deals with the reality of her guilty past; Blanche takes the naked truth, “the stark bare lightbulb”, “the rude remark” and dresses it up prettily to make everyone happier and everything easier. Likewise Williams Hosseini portrays an idea of illusion in Amir’s flashbacks when he thinks he must win the kite tournament and bring baba the losing kite, which are both inciting incidents that set the basis for the journey of culpability;
A common feature in both divisions is the accentuated effect of lies and secrets towards the issue of guilt. Amir’s desire to win Baba’s love consequently motivates him not to stop Hassan’s rape. However, Baba has his own difficulty connecting with Amir. He feels guilty for treating Amir well when he cannot acknowledge Hassan as his son. By betraying his friend and lying to Amir, Hosseini shows aspects of hidden irony when Baba says; “There is only one sin…And that is theft… When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.” The irony extends when Soraya confesses Amir the guilt about her secret past as she ran off with her boyfriend and lived together with him,until her father went after her and brought her home; Amir feels envious of her for letting the truth out; “How could I, of all people, chastise someone for their past?…Her secret was out…Dealt with. “However similar to his father who never took the courage to confess his guilt, it ended up taking him fifteen years to tell the truth, when Rahim Khan called him up to relieve his own guilt by telling Amir the truth.
Additionaly the two authors shape the theme of guilt in form of societal expectations towards family or a certain community;Although Soraya’s guilty plea does not dissuade Amir from wanting to marry Soraya, it does provide insight to Afghani culture.Likewise Soraya, Blanche feels embarrassed about her past actions and therefore keeps them covert;To escape from the brutalities of life, such as the series of deaths in her family and the ultimate loss of the ancestral home Belle Reve, Blanche turned to alcohol and sexual promiscuity. The character gave herself to many different males as she feels that she had failed her young husband in some way. Therefore, she tries to alleviate her guilt by sleeping with random young men."intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with."Unlikely to Hosseini who represents the relieve of guilt through the characters confessions, Williams emphasizes the communal pressure on women’s appearance in 1947 into and out of Blanches exhaustive lying to Mitch.In the same manner as the kite runner the “guilty” truth of a woman’s past stains her reputation, and may make her less desirable as a wife since she has been with other men; For that reason,Mitch describes Blanche as “too unclean” to live in the same house as his mother which could rely on the plays contextual history as Streetcar was first performed in 1949 before the woman s movement
Equally noticeable is the authors same approach towards guilt due to betrayal. Hassan’s rape is the source of Amir’s guilt. Selfishly thinking, Amir watched Hassan get raped without intervening so that he could win the kite tournament. Early in the novel Baba says that a boy who doesn’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything. As a boy Amir fails to stand up for himself, as an adult he can only redeem himself from his guilt by proving he has the courage to stand up for what is right and trying to stop Sohrab’s rape. For the first time of winter 1975 I felt at peace. Both Writers present rape as a violent act of control, hatred and suppression rather than a sexual act. In Streetcar Stella and Blanche clash to the point of having to betray one’s own blood when Stella’s submissive behaviour allows Stanley to get away with raping her sister. Similarly, to Amir in The Kite Runner Williams confronts the character with an unresolvable conflict as Stella’s only options are to either believe Blanche and leave Stanley- or to consider blanches story a delusion;”I couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley” Even though Stella knows deep down that Blanche was telling the truth, she must now follow her sisters example in embracing illusion over reality due to her personal needs and seals blanches fate by agreeing to institutionalize her However, William foreshadows Stella’s upcoming guilt through the very end of the play where Stella cries and shouts for her sister but Blanche “walks on without turning”: Unlikely to Williams, Hosseini enables a release of tension for the reader by making use of a dénouement as the characters are able to free themselves from their guilt.