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The Dignitary
The son of Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s. Kundera uses the historical figure of Yakov, who, in the novel, commits suicide in a German concentration camp, to highlight his argument that opposites are interchangeable. Yakov was both privileged and rejected by his father, and he was a mix of both happy and sad. Through Yakov, Kundera claims that there is little difference between polar opposites, which renders such opposites meaningless. Historically speaking, Yakov Dzhugashvili was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1941, although it is unclear whether he was captured by the Germans or surrendered. He died at the concentration camp in 1943, but it is unknown if he committed suicide or was killed.
Yakov Dzhugashvili Quotes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The The Unbearable Lightness of Being quotes below are all either spoken by Yakov Dzhugashvili or refer to Yakov Dzhugashvili. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 6, Chapter 2
Quotes
Rejection and privilege, happiness and woe—no one felt more concretely than Yakov how interchangeable opposites are, how short the step from one pole of human existence to the other.
Then, at the very outset of the war, he fell prisoner to the Germans, and other prisoners, belonging to an incomprehensible, standoffish nation that had always been intrinsically repulsive to him, accused him of being dirty. Was he, who bore on his shoulders a drama of the highest order (as fallen angel and Son of God), to undergo judgment not for something sublime (in the realm of God and the angels) but for shit? Were the very highest of drama and the very lowest so vertiginously close?
Vertiginously close? Can proximity cause vertigo?
It can. When the north pole comes so close as to touch the south pole, the earth disappears and man finds himself in a void that makes his head spin and beckons him to fall.
If rejection and privilege are one and the same, if there is no difference between the sublime and the paltry, if the Son of God can undergo judgment for shit, then human existence loses its dimensions and becomes unbearably light.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Yakov Dzhugashvili Quotes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The The Unbearable Lightness of Being quotes below are all either spoken by Yakov Dzhugashvili or refer to Yakov Dzhugashvili. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 6, Chapter 2
Quotes
Rejection and privilege, happiness and woe—no one felt more concretely than Yakov how interchangeable opposites are, how short the step from one pole of human existence to the other.
Then, at the very outset of the war, he fell prisoner to the Germans, and other prisoners, belonging to an incomprehensible, standoffish nation that had always been intrinsically repulsive to him, accused him of being dirty. Was he, who bore on his shoulders a drama of the highest order (as fallen angel and Son of God), to undergo judgment not for something sublime (in the realm of God and the angels) but for shit? Were the very highest of drama and the very lowest so vertiginously close?
Vertiginously close? Can proximity cause vertigo?
It can. When the north pole comes so close as to touch the south pole, the earth disappears and man finds himself in a void that makes his head spin and beckons him to fall.
If rejection and privilege are one and the same, if there is no difference between the sublime and the paltry, if the Son of God can undergo judgment for shit, then human existence loses its dimensions and becomes unbearably light.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
