Abstract:
Adamant and impatient upon hearing that his first novel. The joke (originally published in the Czech language in 1967). Had been read and referred to as a direct and critical blow on Stalinism in Czechoslovakia. Milan Kundera (1929-) was quick to articulate his (in)famous (for from) laughable plea, “Spare me your Stalinism, please”, and his equally (in)famous (for man) laughable claim that the joke is in fact, a love story. A love story turned sour, the novel is often read and understood as a story of comically tragic/tragically comic destruction brought about by the three line of political satire which the main character, Ludvik Jahn, lovingly and jokingly wrote on a postcard to Marketa, his object of lust and juvenile affection. In this paper, however, I propose that The joke is more a story of rape. It portrays the processes and con sequences of physical and ideological rape. Like Lucie, the character who suffer from the guilt and terrors of gang rape, we are not only gang-raped by the (in)different changing regimes and political fanaticism, but also ravaged into silence and oblivion by history, who, according to Kundera, “enjoys a good laugh”. Through my analysis of the novel’s depiction of intiation ceremonies, which are meant to preserve the purity of the past and the spirit of humanity, I propose that the rape of history and the ravages of political fanaticism take place when love is miscommunicated and ceremonies are misused and misinterpreted. The Joke, like rape, is no laughing matter.
