The Joke: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Joke: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the intricate lives of individuals shaped by the political landscape of Communist Czechoslovakia. At the center is Ludvik Jahn, a charismatic student whose playful nature leads to serious repercussions when a provocative postcard joke results in his expulsion from university and the Party. His journey reflects themes of love, betrayal, and the complexities of human relationships, particularly with his love interests, Helena and Lucie, as well as his friend Kostka, who embodies a moral struggle against societal norms.
Helena, Pavel's wife, seeks passion beyond her mundane life and finds herself entangled with Ludvik, only to face despair after his abrupt departure. Kostka, a devoted Christian and scientist, navigates his own moral dilemmas while maintaining an uneasy friendship with Ludvik. Lucie, burdened by her traumatic past, becomes a symbol of vulnerability and resilience, seeking solace in her connections with both men. Pavel Zemanek, the Party chairman, represents the political ideologies that entrap the characters, oblivious to the personal histories that unite and divide them. The ensemble of characters highlights the struggle for identity and meaning amid the absurdities of life under oppressive regimes, with Moravian culture offering a poignant backdrop for reflection and healing.
The Joke: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Milan Kundera
First published: Zert, 1967 (English translation, 1969, revised 1982)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Czechoslovakia
Plot: Comic realism
Time: 1947–1966
Ludvik Jahn, a student in Communist Czechoslovakia. Ludvik is a cheerful and fun-loving man who learns the hard way how to appraise people and political behavior. At the university in Prague, he develops a crush on a dour fellow student, Marketa, and to shock and amuse her, he sends her a postcard reading, “Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!” This joke is taken seriously; already suspected of individualistic tendencies, Ludvik is expelled from the university and Party and sent to an army penal battalion. Hard work in the mines and social isolation embitter him, and his thwarted love for an eccentric local girl, Lucie, stifles his romantic ideals. Years later, Ludvik encounters Helena, the wife of Pavel, the man responsible for his expulsion. A skilled womanizer, he arranges a tryst with her in his Moravian hometown, where she is reporting on the Ride of the Kings. Once there, he encounters Lucie, his old friend Kostka, and Pavel. In seducing Helena, he discovers the illusory and unsatisfying nature of vengeance deferred. Ludvik is a man of many faces and a calculating role-player. He often miscalculates and must accept unforeseen consequences. He maintains his sense of humor, but his alienation and lingering passion for Lucie prevent him from finding true peace. Ironically, it is in Moravian folk culture, on which he once based his communist vision, that he ultimately finds meaning and sanctuary.
Helena Zemanek, Pavel's wife, a radio feature reporter. Helena is an elegant redheaded woman who, though externally devoted to Pavel and their daughter Zdena, is bored with her emotional life and longs for passion. She falls for Ludvik at once, drawn by his sadness, and is excited by their relationship. Tinged with guilt, she questions her beliefs and perceptions and acts purely on emotional impulse. After her tryst with Ludvik, she believes that they will begin a new life together; when he suddenly abandons her, she becomes desperate and suicidal but is saved by the false labeling of her assistant's laxatives.
Kostka, Ludvik's friend, a hospital virologist. Kostka is a faithful Christian who sees everything in terms of Christian morality. He is tall and thin, attractively unattractive, sensitive, and serious. Like Ludvik, he is expelled from the Party and university, events that he accepts passively as fated. Unhappily married, he meets, comforts, and seduces Lucie. He rationalizes his acts as Christian charity but entertains doubts about his own righteousness. Seeing Ludvik again after many years, Kostka is outwardly friendly and obliging but really pities Ludvik's anger and finds his reappearance irksome. Kostka is a man of deceptions, an uneven mix of meditation and frenzy.
Lucie Sebetka, a resigned young woman from Western Bohemia. Gang-raped as a teenager, then married to a philanderer, Lucie flees to Ostrava, where she meets Ludvik at his penal camp. Her childlike simplicity and vulnerability captivate him. She becomes emotionally devoted to him but cannot accommodate him sexually, and when he pressures her, she flees to a Moravian town. There she befriends Kostka, whose tenderness and concern she finds healing, and for a time they are lovers. She ends up a silent and solitary woman, working in a barbershop.
Pavel Zemanek, the Party chairman of natural sciences, later a university lecturer in Marxism. Pavel is an outspoken Communist Party ideologue. He is attractive and well-liked, with a cocksure complacency, and craves attention and applause. He uses Ludvik's expulsion hearing as a platform for high-blown Party rhetoric and metaphor. Later, he is a negligent and unfaithful husband to Helena, though their daughter Zdena exalts him. When he encounters Ludvik at the Ride of the Kings, he has forgotten their past conflicts, and his diffidence renders pointless any vengeance Ludvik may hope to exact.
Jaroslav, Ludvik's hometown friend, a lover of Moravian folklore. Jaroslav is a towering but gentle man who cares deeply for Ludvik. Organizer of the Ride of the Kings, he fantasizes about being a romantic medieval hero and laments the passage of old customs and church rituals. Playing the cimbalom for an unappreciative young audience on the day of the Ride, Jaroslav has a longing and an inability to escape that bring on a nearly fatal coronary attack.
Marketa, Ludvik's university girlfriend. Marketa is a moderately bright woman whose inaccessible beauty sparks Ludvik's romantic sensibilities. Overly serious, to the point of total gullibility, she is befuddled by Ludvik's joke. Although she intends him no malice, she feels powerless to protect him from the Party's judgment.