Analysis Of Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness Of Being

Throughout the world, an undeniable, yet perpetual force is responsible for tearing nearly everyone apart: hopelessness. Often caused by instability or vulnerability, hopelessness plagues those who refrain from combating its vile side effects. Hopelessness loves company, producing an inseparable bond between itself and self-doubt. During wartime events, it’s imperative to display some form of resistance towards the crippling despair. Although on the surface hopelessness seems insurmountable, it can be fought. In All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr emphasizes how the vital tool of resilience can be used to conquer hopelessness in all situations.

However, the need for him gradually lessens when love begins to blossom. Love is one of the oldest forms of communication, stemming from the innate human desire for affection. Abraham Maslow confirmed this in his ‘Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid”. Maslow proposes that there are patterns of needs that are instinctive and common to humans. As a result, the innate needs induce motivation. It is through motivation that we can progress and live. Starting from the base which contains bare necessities (such as food and water), these instinctive needs are layered like a pyramid. On the third layer, Maslow claims that all humans innately seek love and belonging7. This universal idea extends to eastern philosophy. Tibetan spiritual leader and Buddhist monk Dalai Lama, echoes this theory in his essay on compassion. “Whether or not we are consciously aware of it, from the day we are born, the need for human affection is in our very blood.” (Gyatso)8. This explains Carmen’s strong emotional memory: “Gen’s hand came up and smoothed her hair, over and over again, the way her mother had done when Carmen was a child and had a fever.” (252, Patchett). A touch from a stranger triggers a familiar warmth from her mother in childhood which is what she badly needs. The novel begins with love, where the accompanist kisses Roxanne. It also ends with love where the survivors meet after attending an unexpected wedding of two people. Love forms deep bonds. Everyone in the book can understand one another via translations, a few English words and broken Spanish conversations. Nevertheless, this “language-based” understanding cannot produce a deep bond if love is absent. This is something even Gen has not noticed until he cuddles with Carmen. “This was what it felt like to be a man with a woman. This was the thing Gen had missed in all the translation of language.” (250,

Elie Wiesel was born in the Romanian town of Sighet. His parents came from Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish families. Both of hi parents died in the Nazi concentration camps, as did his younger sister; his two elder sister survived. After the war, Wiesel went an Orphanage in France, studies at the Sorbonne, and became a journalist. The name of the book is call the Night. It were written in the 1955-1958. It also were written from South America, France. The book was published in Argentina, France. The genre of the book is a memoir. The setting of the book were during WWll in Europe. The climax of the book were Eliezer’s father’s death. The Antagonist of Night is the German SS guards and officers; the Kapos. The point of view this book were

On the other hand, Rubia expresses her perspective of how one should flow with the cycle of life, seen when the speaker “would not wish it” (line 2) any other way then him, an anonymous character, going gently into that good night, completely unlike Thomas. The slight character personality description given in stanza 2 allows the reader to understand this man as one who gently approaches, rather than raging. Instead of fighting for more, he is willing to cherish what he is given, and deal with obstacles humorously. Applying this character description to the remainder of the poem, it can be inferred that the poet is trying to convey her feelings regarding death. It is to be taken as it comes, similarly to how this gentle character goes seemingly without any tantrums or qualms into the phenomena of death. Thereby, Rubia views death as inevitable and something to be gently embraced, similarly to that of the cycle of life, where as Thomas sees it as an obstacle and heinous; it is a Minotaur that must be fought violently against. Rubia is settled with the understanding that life ends, therefore adopting a more mature perspective in comparison to Thomas, who, like an optimistic child wishing for another answer, refuses to accept that life co-exists with death.

This essay will be going through the different types of love, and the power that they wield. Throughout the novel, different characters hold different powers of love. First, Clara’s love towards Ferula and Pedro Segundo will be discussed. And second, Esteban’s obsessiveness with Clara will be looked at closer. The bonds of love are stronger in relationships that aren’t acceptable compared to relationships that are acceptable in society.

In the book Night, Elie Wiesel writes about the human condition. Dictionary.com defines human condition as the positive and negative aspects of existence as a human being in the book Night there are three main themes: Faith, Survival, Family.

In the exceptional novel All the Light We Cannot See, author Anthony Doerr, tells the story of two young adults whom had to experience life during World War II.

“Later that night when Thomas roller over and lurched into her, she would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers” this proves the point that she cannot even express herself sexually because she does not feel as if she has control in the situation.  Her mind wanders elsewhere, in a place where she is her own master, instead of what is reality. Additionally, the main character’s husband shows some selfish tendencies in the fact that he may not notice his wife’s discontentment with his affection.  However, this may also present the lack of communication between man and wife and therefore may cause a sense of isolation from her husband.

The author’s diction makes the reader feel that death ca be defeated. For example, death has been called “mighty and dreadful” but the author shows that it is not more than a “short sleep” where men go for the “rest of their bones.” The general idea of death is frightful and scary, but the reader is told that it’s only a short phase everyone goes through. It’s an opportunity for men to separate their soul and physical body. In

The realism movement of the late nineteenth century produced works in literature that were marked by reduced sentimentality and increased objectivity. The goal was to let details tell the story, and remove noticeable bias of the author through scientific and detailed descriptions. While this form of storytelling undoubtedly is most accurate, it creates difficulties for authors to incorporate their themes into the story. This resulted in an increase in symbolism in realist works. The objects and descriptions within the story are the author’s vehicle for displaying the values and themes of the work. Light and darkness are symbols commonly used in literature, and have held specific symbolic

     Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a novel about a man named Marlow and his journey into the depths of the African Congo. Marlow is in search of a man named Kurtz, an ivory trader. Though Marlow?s physical journey seems rather simple, it takes him further into his own heart and soul than into the Congo. The setting, symbols and characters each contain light and dark images, these images shape the central theme of the novel.

"Restraint! I would have just as soon expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battle," comments Marlow as he questions why the hungry cannibals aboard his steamer hadn't gone for the white crew members (Conrad 43). "The glimpse of the steamboat . . . filled those savages with unrestrained grief," Marlow explains after recalling the cries of the natives seeing the steamer amidst a brief fog lift (Conrad 44). "Poor fool! He had no restraint, no restraint . . .a tree swayed by the wind," speaks Marlow of a slain helmsman amidst an attack by tribal savages (Conrad 52). "Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts," says Marlow a few moments after he tells of his first glimpse of

Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind. Through his multiple case studies, Freud managed to find convincing evidence that most of our actions are motivated by psychological forces over which we have very limited control (Guerin 127). One of Freud’s most important contributions to the study of the psyche is his theory of repression: the unconscious mind is a repository of repressed desires,

Again, the author selects a new set of imagery, such as stars, moon, sun, ocean, and wood to remind of the heaven in which the speaker used to live, and then to sweep it off right away. The last statement “For nothing now can ever come to any good” (16) finally reinforces the speaker’s loss and unhappiness. In loneliness, the speaker’s love becomes fiercer and more truthful. It is the fierceness and truthfulness that lead the speaker to the last stair of hopelessness. The end of the poem is also the hopeless end of the speaker’s life because of “nothing …good.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is written by Milan Kundera, a Czech novelist. It is mostly set in late 1960's Prague. The novel explores the state of life after the Russian military occupation of Prague. The author does not follow a chronological order throughout the novel, which is a reflection of how disorderly life is. It is a time of conflict both spiritually and physically. People start to question the meaning of life if there is any meaning at all. Kundera begins the novel by refusing both Nietzsche's interpretation of eternal return and Parmenides' classification of lightness as positive and weight as negative. Then he argues the point that lightness is unbearable and proves his point through his observations of the four main characters'