Theme of revenge and hatred

At the beginning of the novel it shows that he enter in his hometown with a hidden goal

So here I was, home again after all those years. Standing in the main square (which I had Crossed
countless times as a child, as a boy, as a young man), I felt no emotion during those years, there was
nothing to attract me to my hometown; I told myself that IHa rown indifferent to it, which seemed
natural: I had been away for fifteen years, had Almost no friends or acquaintances left here (and wished
to avoid the ones I did have), my Mother was buried among strangers in a grave I had never tended. But
I had been Deceiving myself: what I had called indifference was in fact rancor; the reasons for it had
Escaped, because here as elsewhere I had had both good and bad experiences, but the Rancor was
there, and it was this journey that had made me conscious of it: the mission That had brought me here
could easily have been accomplished in Prague, after all, but I Had suddenly begun to feel an irresistible
attraction to the prospect of carrying it out her in my hometown precisely because this was a mission so
cynical and low as to mock any Suspicion that I was returning out of some maudlin attachment to things
past.

Jahn filled with wrath and vengeance especially for Pavel Zemanek who were the first and most man
who took charge to expel jahn from the party.

We can see how much his hatred to the political party immediately transformed into a form of revenge.
We can see his intension for revenge made him to involve in an act of revenge for his expulsion from the
University and the party forms a kind of aggression. Suddenly I was seized by an insane rage. I felt there
was a supernatural force standing in my way, constantly tearing out of my hands everything I wanted to
live for, everything I Desired, everything that was mine; I felt it was the same force that had robbed me
of my Party, my Comrades, my studies at the university, of everything, and always senselessly and for no
reason. I understood that the same supernatural power was now opposing me in the person of Lucie,
and I hated her for having become its instrument; I hit her across the face, because it wasn’t Lucie I was
slapping, it was that hostile force; I shouted that I hated her, that I didn’t want to see her, that I never
wanted to see her, that I never wanted to see her again.

Theme of isolation

A single postcard and a single joke on it completely dismantled the fortunes of his life. He completely
isolated, marginalized and suppressed by the political regimes. In the novel there were a lot of occasions
that shows the sense of isolation and the feeling of his lost life, he forcefully made to accept his fate and
move on.

And I felt like crying out: why must I be adult in everything, Sentenced as an adult, expelled, branded a
Trotskyite, sent to the mines as an adult, why Only in love am I forbidden to be adult and forced to
swallow the full humiliation of Immaturity? I hate Suddenly I was seized by an insane rage. I felt there
was a supernatural force standing in my way, constantly tearing out of my hands everything I wanted to
live for, everything I Desired, everything that was mine; I felt it was the same force that had robbed me
of my Party, my Comrades, my studies at the university, of everything, and always senselessly and for no
reason. I understood that the same supernatural power was now opposing me.
Broken off, my studies, my participation in the movement, my work, my friendships; Broken off, love and
the quest for love; in short, everything meaningful in the course ofL broken off. All I had left was time 33
later than the others, but fortunately not so late as to alienate myself from them altogether.

Little by little I grew used to the idea that my life had lost its continuity, that it had been Taken out of my
hands, and that it only remained for me finally to begin to exist, even I Mheart of hearts, in the reality in
which I inescapably found myself. And so my eyes Gradually adjusted to the penumbra of
depersonalization, and I began to notice the people Around me; later than the others, but fortunately
not so late as to alienate myself from Them altogether.
These were the concerns (so much a part of the times that their vocabulary will soon be
incomprehensible) which had led to my downfall, and yet I could not let go of them. I had all kinds of
answers ready for the commissions that called me in and asked me what had made me become a
Communist, but what had attracted me to the movement more than anything, dazzled me, was the
feeling (real or apparent) of standing near the wheel of history. For in those days we actually did decide
the fate of men and events, especially at the universities; in those early years there were very few
Communists on the faculty, and the Communists in the student body ran the universities almost single-
handed, making decisions on academic staffing, reaching reform, and the curriculum. The intoxication
we experienced is commonly known as the intoxication of power, but (with a bit of good will) I could
choose less severe words: we were bewitched by history, we were drunk with the thought of jumping on
its back and feeling it beneath us, admittedly, in most cases the result was an ugly lust for power, but (as
all human affairs are ambiguous) there was still (and especially, perhaps, in us, the young), an altogether
idealistic illusion that we were inaugurating a human era in which man (all men) would be neither
outside history, nor under the heel of history, but would create and direct it.
Theme of dictatorship
It deals with the attitude of Communist part and their imposition of certain policies.
Insincere, Profane, physical love – Carnal Love , adulterous, sensuous
Sincere love
Celebration of chaos
Her favorites were the war films so prevalent at the time, perhaps because they
Were exciting, but more likely because the unmitigated suffering in them filled her with
Feelings of pity and sadness she found uplifting and indicative of the “serious” part of
Herself she prized so highly.
Subversion of existing/prevailing notions
Multiple representations – Joke is not actually joke
Fragmentation

Non-linearity/ Non-chronological
Theme of love
From that evening I was different inside; I was inhabited again; housekeeping had suddenly been set up
within me as in a room, and someone was living there. The clock that for months had hung silent on the
wall had suddenly begun to tick. This was significant: time, which until then had flowed like an
indifferent stream from nothingness to nothingness (for I had been living in the pause!), without
articulation, without measure, had begun to wear its human face again; to mark itself off, measure itself
out. I came to
Live for my passes, and each day was a rung on the ladder to Lucie.
Those three books played a strange role in my life, strange if only because I am not a
Great poetry-lover and they were the only books of poetry I ever really cared for. I
Discovered them just after I’d been expelled from the Party, during the period when
Halas’s name was coming back into the public eye: the leading ideologue of the time
Accused the recently deceased poet of morbidity, skepticism, existentialism, of everything
That smacked of political anathema in those days. (The book in which he set forth his
Views on Czech poetry in general and Halas in particular came out in an enormous
Printing and was required reading in all Czech schools.)