Szymborska And Kundera Use Animals example essay topic

Since animals, usually pets, are sometimes an essential part of one's life, it is not surprising that we find frequent references to its role in works of social realism, such as Wisla wa Szymborska's Poems New and Collected and Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. Animals in literature could be used to symbolize all sorts of things, but in particular, animals may represent the personality of a character. This is because as humans and animals co-exist in the same atmosphere, certain aspects of a character reveal themselves in the compassion or even hatred towards the animal. Since animals are often known to trigger the interests of humans, the attitude of the humans towards the animals contributes much to character revelation. Both Szymborska and Kundera use animals to symbolize character personality in their works. Therefore, through looking at animals, although it does seem to be a very commonplace topic, we may gain insight to what the writers are trying to convey about the character.

This paper will compare the ways the writers use animals to determine a character's personality or characteristics. A recurring character in Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of being is Karenin, a dog saved from death by one of the novel's protagonists, Tomas. He had wanted some sort of a distraction that would keep Tereza's attention off him so that he could persist with his life that he believed he had control over: At last he made his choice: a bitch whose body seemed reminiscent of the German shepherd and whose head belonged to its Saint Bernard mother. He took it home to Tereza, who picked it up and pressed it to her breast. ^1 Through the novel, Karenin, the 'ugly dog' Tomas brings home for Tereza, develops a bond between Tereza, which grows throughout the novel. Tereza is portrayed as a 'heavy' individual with considerably heavy burdens on both her shoulders.

One other burden Tereza carries is, essentially, Karenin. It takes the place of Tomas when Tereza is alone, therefore - Tereza is bound, with love, to it. Kundera shows here, how Karenin affects Tereza's personality by being next to her and being a comfort to her at times when heaviness settles in. Furthermore, with no baby between Tereza and Tomas' marriage, Karenin acts as Tereza's responsibility, both emotionally and financially. It seems that Tereza can make decisions only because she has Karenin by her side; as she has someone to talk to: And having told herself all this, she pressed her face against Karenin's furry head and said, "Sorry Karenin. It looks as though you " re going to have to move again.

^2 The passage shows Tereza as if she is guilty to Karenin that she will have to take him back, but it is also as if she confirms her decision by talking to him. Szymborska, on the other hand, does not have a particular, constantly recurring animal in her poetry. However she does have a considerable amount of animals in her poems, varying from merely being part of nature to being worshipped as gods. Szymborska, in her poem of "The Monkey", specifically outlines how animal hatred or over obsession could be an aspect in human characteristics by being Considered edible in China, he makes boiled or roasted faces when laid upon a salver Ironic as a gem set in sham gold His brain is famous for its subtle flavor Though it's no good for trickier endeavors for instance, thinking up gunpowder^3 Here, humans are characterized as 'barbarians', almost animal-like. We notice the irony, while humans are known to be so close to animals, just as Tereza is to Karenin, or biologically, their treatment to animals is sometimes appalling as Szymborska shows in the "Monkey" poem. The poem runs through all sorts of humans of the centuries, outlining how the 'monkey' had been taken advantage of, another example is "In Europe they deprived him of his soul".

Humans are also characterized as over-obsessed species when dealing with some animals, such as the monkey which is Worshiped in Egypt, Pleiades of fleas spangling his sacred and silvery mane, he'd sit and listen in arch silent peace: What do you want? A life that never ends? He'd turn his ruddy rump as if to say Such life he neither bans nor recommends We can see the monkey as a god now, a figure that even has power to give "life that never ends", such a contrast after the total mistreatment, above. We see how the animals determine human characteristics: either overly mistreating, or overly obsessed. In the poem, Cat in an empty apartment, Szymborska again criticizes the uncaring characteristic of humans and the role of animals in the poem as a mere irritation or a vexation. Die - you can't do that to a cat Since what can a cat doin an empty apartment?

Climb the walls? Rub against the furniture? ... From this we can perceive that animals in Szymborska's poems serve to prove that in their co-existence with humans, they are treated unfairly and the human characteristics of cruel superiority over animals are evident in the works. Later in the Unbearable Lightness of Being, Tomas and Tereza moves to a collective farm in Rural Czechoslovakia after the Soviet takeover of 1969 to avoid the hardships caused by Tomas' criticism of the former Czechoslovak communist regime. There, they befriend the chairman of the collective farm, who like Tereza, shares a close relationship with an animal companion: a pig named Mephisto, which has been "raised like a dog".

Even though in the farms animals are purposely raised to be slaughtered for eating use, Mephisto is treated like his best friend, even going so far as to imagine Mephisto and himself as equals, "two little pigs"7 chasing women. Mephisto, as a pig, have been raised from the status of a food source to an individual with a personality, a friend to the chairman. The Chairman, as we can see, has adapted the jolly character of a pig, even equaling himself to Mephisto. While watching the heifers on the farm, Tereza comes to view them as having human characteristic ("Calm, guileless, and sometimes childishly animated, they looked like fat fifty-year-olds pretending they were fourteen".

8) and realizes that "man is as much a parasite on the cow as the tapeworm is on man" 9 Here, we see Kundera blurring the lines of traditional, hierarchical modes of thinking about animals. Contrariwise, Szymborska talks about humans cruelly consuming the monkey as an exquisite food source: "Considered edible in China, he makes boiled / or roasted faces when laid upon a salver... ". Her poetry takes up an entirely different aspect to the role of animals, and it gives an entirely different literary effect from Kundera's.

In the novel's final pages, Kundera says: True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. 10 This statement presents the issue of animal rights as not only a test, but an indicator of how humanity will act in other moral situations and accordingly, Kundera mentions before this, that the Czech government had been creating an atmosphere of animal persecution by executing government opposition - an example how humanity acted in 'other' moral situations. The last chapter, 'Karenin's Smile', is counting up to Karenin's death, while 'between the lines', Tereza and Tomas dies. Their death is outweighed by their dog's death and its funeral.

This shows how humanity seems to be condemned by their moral actions towards animals, the 'test' mentioned above. The way that the role of animals can be used as a literary effect is evident in both Kundera and Szymborska's works. The two contrast each other, Kundera suggests that the role of animals in his novel is that they become their owner's peaceful character builder by having characters of their own. In Szymborska's works, we see quite the opposite; she portrays the role of animals as people's irritation, a vexation - where characters are rather barbaric and careless towards the animals. The two works show the same superiority of human over animals, yet the human attitudes towards them entirely dissimilar. We may perceive that the presence of animals, such delicate literary technique, determines the attitudes and personality of the characters of a literary work..