Character Clues

Character Analysis

Clothing

Kundera uses clothing (or lack thereof) to give us a better understanding of his characters' inner lives. Edwige, for example, has the notion that clothes are evil. She drags poor Jan off to a nude beach for their last holiday together. He makes this observation about her:

She was in fact much more natural naked than dressed, as if in rejecting her clothes she was also rejecting the difficult condition of womanhood in order to become simply a human being, without sexual characteristics. As if sex resided in clothes and nakedness were a state of sexual neutrality. (VII.14.8)

It's clear by the language and tone of this passage ("As if...") that Jan has no understanding of Edwige's interpretation of clothing. This jibes perfectly well with the fact that their relationship is based on the complete misunderstanding of each other's ideas.

Kundera also uses clothes to tell us something more about Eva. She appears before Karel for the first time in a pretty interesting get-up: "Eva arrived, tall, thin, and badly dressed. She looked like an oversized adolescent who had put on her grandmother's clothes. Seated across from him, she explained that social conventions meant nothing to her when she was attracted to a man" (II.5.2).

We're not sure if Eva is dressed like this because she's actually young and awkward or because it's a sign that she cares not at all for anyone's opinion. We'd like to think it's the latter. And given the outfit that she's later wearing in front of Mama, we'd probably be right.

Direct Characterization

Kundera is a big fan of calling things—and people—exactly what they are. Here are a few prominent examples:

Eva is a cheerful man-chaser. (II.3.4)

She had the smile of a woman who knows that on her, even a red nose is charming. (VII.3.4)

The Clevises were forward-looking people and therefore against tops. (VII.4.2)

I imagine her as tall and beautiful, thirty-three years old, and originally from Prague. (IV.1.1)

It's called direct characterization. It's when the author just straight up tells you what you need to know.

We think you get the picture.

Sex and Love

Kundera consistently defines his characters by their attitudes toward and preferences concerning love and sex. We know immediately what kind of guy Karel is, for example, when we see his reaction to a threesome arranged by his wife, Marketa: "Her proposal made him dizzy with arousal! But the evening scarcely gave him any pleasure. On the contrary, it was a horrible effort!" (II.8.7).

Karel doesn't get any satisfaction because it's not all about Karel: he has to consider the feelings and desires of two other people now. That just doesn't work for such a self-centered dude.

Jan, on the other hand, focuses on his own boredom with sexual experiences. His behavior has nothing to do with his latest girlfriend; he's just so over the whole arousal-to-climax thing. And it's not Jan's fault (of course); it's just that affairs lose their meaning when you have so many of them.

Kundera's female characters are made more complex and mystifying by their theories of sex and love. For one thing, they actually have theories. Edwige tells Jan that sex is overrated and isn't really important; Tamina knows that having sex now will erase the memory of her husband; Marketa understands that to enjoy herself, she needs to drop her husband from her mind; Eva believes that sex is all about sensuality and no attachments.

As a result, these characters stand apart from the men even more than they do from each other.