Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The themes of dominance and dehumanization are inextricably entwined throughout history and, therefore, literature. Milan Kundera addresses this concept in his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by describing the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and its communistic influence on his characters, the interrelations of these characters, as well as its implications in a small excerpt on man's presumed dominance over other creatures. This last passage ties together the mechanization of people with that of animals, showing that the citizens of communist Czechoslovakia are expected to become no more than chattel.
The physical invasion of Czechoslovakia by Russia is manifested within the novel by the affect its communist regime has on the native inhabitants of, in this case, Prague. Czech citizens were told that, for their benefit, they must assume solidarity and remove distinctiveness from among them. Czech beliefs were dominated by Russian idealism and individuals were mechanized by a desire for uniformity. This theme is woven throughout the novel, depicted in forms inseparable from the characters and Kundera's sporadic autobiographical insights.
Throughout the novel, Kundera uses the concepts of people being mechanized by communism and animals being mechanized by people. ?Mechanical? is a term that refers to that which is automatic, involuntary, emotionless, and unthinking. The actual application of communism, as opposed to its theoretical intentions, lends itself to this unconscious acceptance and conformity. The men and women of Prague will be forced to take an apathetic approach to individuality, career, society, religion and especially politics. Like machi...
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...? (289). Ideally, man would show mercy to his fellow human being instead of constantly trying to gain power over him. Russia?s invasion of Czechoslovakia is an exertion of power, a claim of dominance over the will of another country. Its dehumanization of the inhabitants of Czechoslovakia directly correlates to man?s assumption of power over animals. Superiority is a presumed right, justified less by truth than by man?s will to justify.
The images Kundera uses to illustrate the invasion of Czechoslovakia are both stark and revealing. They are images of concentration camps, naked uniformity, dominance over dependent creatures, and mechanical humans and animals alike. Tomas?s conquests and Tereza?s dreams are manifestations of a country in a struggle for its independence. With these characters, Kundera humanizes the essentially inhumane concept of communism.
This demonstrates that the prisoners are part of a system where the needs of the collective are far more important than the needs of the individual (in both communism and in the prison.) It also reveals the corruption of the Soviet Union because it while it claims that everyone should be equal, the life of the prisoners in the camp are not valued at all. This could be due to the fact that prisoners in the camps aren’t viewed as people, but rather as animals that are being worked to their death.
Who could possibly be able to imagine the utter hopelessness and misery that a soviet prisoner experienced during Stalinism. Thousands of innocent men were taken from their families, homes, and lives, stripped of their dignity and banished to the harsh labor camps where they were to spend the rest of the days scraping out an existence and living day to day. This is exactly what Alexander Solzhenitsyn tries to express in his masterpiece work One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Solzhenitsyn gives the reader a glimpse into the life of every man who ever experienced this hardship and shares the small acts of thriving humanity that are sparingly, but unendingly passed through their dreary lives and offer a bit of comfort to help them get through a single hour, a day, or even just a meal time. Solzhenitsyn uses One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to portray the endurance of humanity through out terrible hardships and shows the strength of the human spirit.
Throughout the communist era in Central and Eastern Europe, but especially in the first half of that era, capitalism was seen as immoral and inhumane. Capitalism, as discussed by Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto, was the cause of many social ills in society and needed to be overthrown (Marx 221-222). In “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Tadeusz Borowski uses imagery and characters to compare and contrast the Nazi labor camp to capitalism. Although the ideology of capitalism is not as cruel as the Nazi labor camps, when put in practice it does have some similarities to these camps. Of course, Borowski wrote this story while he was a member of the communist party, which suggests that his opinion of capitalism may be skewed. Nevertheless, in the discussion that follows, I will argue that Borowski’s use of imagery in “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” was intended to portray the structure, motivations, and social interactions within the camp as similar to those of capitalist society.
Under a Cruel Star was a touching book and was unlike anything I have read before. Heda Margolious Kovaly wrote this memoir sharing all of her first hand experiences throughout her life and told us what life was like in Czechoslovakia. The whole memoir was essentially a timeline of her life as it started from when she was a child, but particularly talks about her horrid life after her first husband, Rudolf, faced the death sentence for being associated with the Slansky scandal. Rudolf and her both joined the communist party, as they were both survivors of the concentration camps and wanted to help improve Prague. After surviving Auschwitz, losing her family and escaping from a death march you would think her hardships stopped there. Yet they continued throughout her life. It
Dr. Dana Bates’s explanation of communism and the impact of its tyrannical hold over Romania was like nothing I had heard before. I had heard explanations of communism, Marxism, and propaganda, but it was never accompanied by an explanation of the social effects. Dr. Bates’s explanation of the brutalized societal structures and psychology of the Romanian citizens provided a whole new depth to the topic. As he continued to explain the affects of the system, I felt a growing pit in my stomach: the capacity for humanity to inflict brutality upon others can sometimes appear boundless. This evil had trickled down and settled like cement into the broken Romanian society. Families were so desperate to survive that if they did not steal from their
Has your skin ever tasted the scorching coldness to the point of actually flavoring death, has your stomach ever craved for even a gram of anything that can keep you alive, has your deep-down core ever been so disturbed by profound fear? No never, because the deep-freeze, starvation, and horror that Kolya and Lev experienced were far worse to the point of trauma. In the novel, City Of Thieves, author David Benioff describes the devastating and surreal situations and emotions that occurred to Benioff’s grandfather, Lev and Lev’s friend, Kolya, during WWII the Siege of Leningrad in Leningrad, Russia. Both Lev and Kolya share some similarities such as their knowledge of literature; even so, they are very contrastive individuals who oppose in personal
This is Heda’s memoir. Heda is a woman who lived in Prague and she was a Jewish woman as well. In her memoir, she talks about concentration camp and how cruel it was. Germany invading their country, Poland, made an outbreak of World War II. Communism controls the majority of the people and it is a social and economic system. Heda thought communism was acceptable and it was a life style that many people wanted, but was it really? Everyone thought that communism would solve everyone’s problems and that everyone would be equal.
Looking into his crammed, unkempt communal apartment, Sasha keeps on believing in communism and Stalin trying to look past all of the negative aspects of his daily life in USSR. Knocking on his aunt’s door with his eyes gleaming of hope, she shuts him down pained to do so, but it’s her only option. Running into a sacred Stalin statue, Sasha realizes he could be in great danger. The purpose of historical fiction is to not only show the facts, but to show human behavior and emotion in historical times. Breaking Stalin’s Nose satisfies this goal as well as other purposes for historical fiction such as educating readers about the past, analyzing human behavior in extreme situations, and examining social change in hindsight.
In other words, this degradation of language and restriction of human expression is to assure the Party’s absolute power. Newspeak satirizes Stalin’s attempt of imposing equality and justice however only invoking fear in Russia. This integration of ideas of Stalinism government acts as a warning for the future. Lang also assimilates the double edged sword of oppression in Metropolis’ stratified society whereby the distinct segregation between the upper and lower city confines people to where ‘they belong’ as quoted by Frederson, a powerful totalitarian ruler. The assurance of power via the exploitation of people is again explored and further reinforces how progress of technology, impacting political ideology, can severely damage human individualism. Therefore, progress socially – social effect of the Stalin regime and technologically – military advancements are embodied within Nineteen-Eighty Four and Metropolis respectively, highlighting dehumanization due to the impact of which on ruling powers in the
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich focuses on totalitarian oppression and camp survival. The Gulag was a correct labor camp and settlement which almost entirely stripped the prisoners’ identity and dignity. The food rations were scarce among the prisoners, and the inadequate clothing and uninsulated housing were barbarous acts committed by this system. Various efforts to completely dehumanize the prisoners are articulated in this novel. While most of the prisoners were victims of dehumanization, Shukov and Alyosha were still able to preserve their identity, dignity, and humanity.
In The Machine Stops, E.M. Forster projects life years from now where people live underground with extreme technological advances. Also, people live separated in little rooms where they find a variety of buttons they can press in order to perform any task they desire. They do not communicate with people face to face as often as we do now. Without a doubt, their society is very different from ours. All of the inhabitants are used to living along with the Machine and it is hard for them to imagine life without everything the Machine is able to facilitate. People are so caught up with technology that they find it absurd to spend time in nature. Because of the dependence people have towards the Machine, they have somewhat lost their humanity and become a machine themselves. The characters Vashti and Kuno perfectly represent how inhumane or humane a person could potentially be in such an environment.
The author has done an exemplary job in using animal characters to bring out the issue of inequality in the society. The novel brings out the effects of totalitarianism type of government in any society. The book can prove really helpful to any person who may want to look at the issue of inequality in the society from another perspective. The book is easy to relate with and understand.
Politically controversial in its time the fable uses many aesthetic features and genre to position readers to view Orwell’s perspectives on Joseph Stalin and the Russian Revolution and the treacherous corruptions that followed as seen in Orwell’s eyes. Animal farm is thought to be one of the most accurate representations of the Russian revolution and corruption within. Orwell shines light on a dark truth by representing key figures of the revolution as mere farm animals veiling the vile exploitation and cruelty of Joseph Stalin with child like concepts. George Orwell carefully manipulates the theme
Soon after World War II the Soviet Union had created a red iron curtain around Eastern Europe, communist regimes could be seen throughout with countries like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. These regimes where severely oppressive and violated basic human rights, hence a growing opposition was beginning to form. From the mid-1970’s Vaclav Havel, a former playwright would become the most prominent Czechoslovakian “dissident” and campaigner against the abuses of the Communist Regime by actively defending the rock group Plastic People of the Universe, being one of the three public spokespeople for Charter 77 and by writing various essays critiquing the communist regime. No essay has had more influence and been instrumental in “dissident” movements in Eastern Europe than the essay “The Power of the Powerless”. Within this essay and others that Havel wrote throughout the 1970s and 80s Havel describes the Communist system, critiques it and explains his strategy for overcoming the regime.
The novel describes much of the procedure of running a communist state. It includes the organization of committees, and the indoctrination of the public in the form of the sheep. Snowball, one of the two pigs who leads the animals after the revolution, teaches the sheep to repeat the maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad," which, he feels, sums up the laws of their new system - completely against humans. Methods of propaganda are also explored. Carrier pigeons are sent to neighboring farms to deliver heroic tales of the revolution and convert other farms to 'Animalism' - the domino effect in action. Internal propaganda is the responsibility of a pig named Squealer, whose primary function is to convince the animals that the actions taken by the pigs are for their own good. This is a clear description of how to keep a communist regime in power: as long as the pubic is convinced that all actions are for their own good, they will go along with anything.