Research On Milan Kundera’s Writing Of Kitsch

Kitsch is a hot word in the study of modern western culture.It is not only widely used as a synonym for vulgar bad taste art,but also as a typical product of modernity that has been integrated into all aspects of modern life through mass culture and middle-class taste.Milan Kundera,a French writer and theorist of Czech origin,keenly captured the omnipotence of modern society.After realizing that kitsch suppresses the subjectivity of individual existence and obliterates the richness,Kundera used the wisdom of the novel to write and present kitsch in all directions,explored various possibilities under the shadow of kitsch,and showed his profound reflection on the human existence in modern society shaped by modernity.This paper is divided into four parts to analyze and demonstrate the theme.The first chapter of the thesis shows the origin of Kundera’s writing.On the one hand,it is due to the rapid expansion of kitsch in modern society;on the other hand,it is closely related to Kundera’s life experience and life course.The second chapter presents the kitsch pictures in Kundera’s novel.A group of people are performing kitsch dance that please others on the political stage,while individuals are intoxicated by self-pleasing in emotional pretense.After the modern man’s self has been faked with various values and infinitely enlarged,the desire to overwhelm the other makes the dispute between people endless.In chapter three,the thesis analyzes the writing of the possibility and consequences of beyond kitsch in Kundera’s novels.Whether it is a joke-like resistance,a renegade resistance,or a detached resistance that gives up the struggle,all reveal that modern people’s attempt to surpass the kitsch just like Sisyphus pushed the boulder,and the ending is destined to be futile.The fourth chapter follows the third chapter,analyzing Kundera’s characteristic of kitsch writing which is between value and nothingness.The kitsch in Kundera’s writings essentially reflects that the "weightless" modern people are unable to grasp the boundary between light and heavy,and linger between light and heavy.This reflects the attempt of self-salvation by modern people who have lost the ultimate meaning of existence after thedimension of transcendence was cancelled by modernity.Kundera pointedly stated that the outcome of this redemption was doomed to failure,also hinted at his own choice: to face the meaningless.Through Kundera’s philosophical speculation and poetic writing of kitsch,we can obtain some inspiration for existence.Facing the kitsch that cannot be get rid of,only by giving up the extreme individual-centered stance and awakening the presence of the other with "sympathy" can we fill the lack of existence and achieve a perfect survival of the coexistence of identity and difference.