Identity in The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Identity in The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Summary/Abstract: Drawing on essays concerning Mitteleuropa, this article attempts to describe aspects ofcultural identity in Milan Kundera‟s novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Thehistorical challenges that this particular geographical and cultural area encountered arereflected in relation to a struggle to maintain a certain cultural identity, encumbered by theSoviet influence in Czechoslovakia. A threatened identity relies on its cultural life, but thecharacters in Kundera‟s novel also resort to a certain identitary separation and seek for arefuge in love. The Czech writer‟s novels emphasize an unavoidable obsession with thetotalitarian space, seen as a trap for an individual‟s identity and personal freedom.Combining the essayistic reflection and a philosophical speculation within a narrativeframe, the writer succeeds in rendering something more valuable than a beautiful story: astory brimming with ideas.

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