Simon Character Analysis

Tomas’s son. Tomas abandons Simon when he is just an infant and leaves him with his mother, a staunch Communist. Once Simon is old enough, he moves out of his mother’s house, leaving both her and the regime. Rebelling against his mother and against Communism, Simon becomes a devout Christian, which is exceedingly rare in the state atheism of the Communist regime. Simon spends most of his adult life trying to reconnect with his father, and after Tomas writes an article, disavowing Czech Communists, Simon and the editor try to get Tomas to sign a petition seeking to grant amnesty to political prisoners. Tomas refuses to sign, and he doesn’t hear from Simon for a long time, until Simon begins sending him letters. Simon longs for the “imaginary eyes” of his father to look at him, and after Tomas’s death, Simon sends letters to Sabina instead so there is still a set of imaginary eyes looking at him. After Tomas’s death, Simon rushes to make his funeral arrangements and has Tomas’s tombstone engraved with the following words: “HE WANTED THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.” Simon knows that his father would have never said such a thing, but Simon doesn’t care and does what he wants. In this way, Simon is kitsch, as he willfully ignores that which is not acceptable to his world.