| Milan Kundera has committed himself to displaying intellectuals' spiritual worlds all the time, he not only portrayed 20th century intellectuals' complex inner world in each of his novels, but also displayed their non-rational trend through all of his works. The thesis aims to analyze intellectuals' various acts and thoughts during their pursuit of "must be absolutely modern", and explore the real reason they commit to it: it would make them different in the crowd, and they would recognize the unique self when the others gaze them.This thesis focuses on the following aspects: First, as "must be absolutely modern" is the central theme that organizes all of Kundera's novels, the essay chooses it as the reference to understand the intellectuals, and reveals the true objective they pursuit "must be absolutely modern": imitate "must be absolutely modern" to show themselves "absolutely modern." In order to conduct more in-depth analysis, the paper refers to René? Girard's "triangular desire" theory, which focuses on the mimetic desire, and divides the intellectuals according to it. Second, the thesis studies the results that root in the intellectuals' pursuit of "must be absolutely modern". The increase in followers' number makes it difficult to be outstanding, in order to be gazed by the others, intellectuals become increasingly fanatical. It results in the powerful control of "must absolutely modern" in the society and the intellectuals not only lose the control of it, but also become the slave of it. Third, the essay explores the reason why intellectuals want to appear "absolutely modern" from the deeper direction: they want to find the unique self through their differences. Intellectuals' private desires dominate them to make different choices when they face "must be absolutely modem", and all their private desires point to the same desire—to be gazed, they hope to find unique self in the other's sights. The starting point of the analysis is mimetic desire of the intellectuals, from it, this paper explores two further aspects: the results of mimetic desire, and the deeper desire behind mimetic desire—self-recognition, but they would find a huge gap when they contrast the purpose to the actual result, and the non-rational trend appears among the contemporary intellectuals when they refuse to face up to the actual result. This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter solves the following problems: the complex meanings of "must absolutely modern", and why we could compare the intellectuals' desire in Kundera's novels with René? Girard's mimetic desire. The second chapter analyzes one type of intellectuals who chase "must be absolutely modern". They deny the follower identity at first, and acknowledge it at last. The chapter studies the reasons why they deny the identity and the struggle and agony during the deny—acknowledge process. The third chapter analyzes another type of intellectuals who chase "must be absolutely modern" and accept the identity. This chapter discusses the following aspects: in order to be prominent in the crowd, the intellectuals adopt more and more fanatical acts; how the "kitsch" and imagology" that are produced by the fanatical intellectuals maintain the "must be absolutely modern" operations. The fourth chapter analyzes a different kind of intellectuals who resist "must be absolutely modern". The ways they choose to resist it are evasion and direct deny. However, in spite of which form they choose to protest it, as the "must be absolutely modern" on the strengthening of social controls, the intellectuals find themselves in a common situation, which is also more and more difficult for them. The fifth chapter explores intellectuals' private desires that are hidden in their hearts, and study how the private desires influence their different choices on "must be absolutely modern", and how the intellectuals twist the self-recognition embodied in private desires to self-performance, which reflects the intellectual tendency of the non-rational. |
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