Though Milan Kundera’s Joke drives its inspiration from the story of a girl who was arrested for stealing flowers from the cemetery, the novel is not a mere love story. It has deep political undertones and bears testimony to the author’s belief regarding the function of the novelist, which is to show people’s philosophy of the nature of men’s existence’. Kundera advocates his firm political belief, which is ‘to protest against the mutilation of works of art in the name of an ideological doctrine as practiced in the socialist countries of Europe.’ Individual freedom and native heritage were to be supposed the major concerns of Kundera. His vision is of a state and its people totally free from the shackles of ideological domination is seen reflected in the novel.
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The novel was published in 1968 and appears as polyphony of 4 narrative voices – Ludvik, Helena, Jaroslav and Kotska. The characters and situations described in the novel were representations of Czechoslovakian society during its first twenty years of communism (1947-65). The novel subverts Karl Marx’s saying that religion is the opium of people. Kundera replaces it saying that ‘optimism is the opium of the people, a healthy atmosphere stinks and long live Trotsky’ thus questioning the authority of the Stalinist regime. The work gives a satirical account of the nature of totalitarianism in the communist era. However Kundera refuses to consider his work as a political commentary. According to him, the condemnation of totalitarianism does not deserve a
The novel was published in 1968 and appears as polyphony of 4 narrative voices – Ludvik, Helena, Jaroslav and Kotska. The characters and situations described in the novel were representations of Czechoslovakian society during its first twenty years of communism (1947-65). The novel subverts Karl Marx’s saying that religion is the opium of people. Kundera replaces it saying that ‘optimism is the opium of the people, a healthy atmosphere stinks and long live Trotsky’ thus questioning the authority of the Stalinist regime. The work gives a satirical account of the nature of totalitarianism in the communist era. However Kundera refuses to consider his work as a political commentary. According to him, the condemnation of totalitarianism does not deserve a