EROS VERSUS THANATOS IN MILAN KUNDERA’S NOVEL IMMORTALITY (1991)

Abstract

The article examines the dual and nondual interrelation of Eros and Thanatos, as respectively described by Sigmund Freud and Herbert Marcuse, and as subsequently and involuntarily embodied in Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality (1991). In the course of the interdisciplinary research, which is based on the literary text analysis from the philosophical and psychoanalytic perspectives, the author of the article argues that the characters in the novel are shaped by Sigmund Freud’s and Herbert Marcuse’s views on Eros and Thanatos. Eros, the living force, and Thanatos, the death instinct, are presented in a dual interrelation through the character of Agnes, the protagonist in Milan Kundera’s novel. This artistic representation of Eros and Thanatos, in which the drives constantly confront each other and determine human behavior, follows Freud’s views as reflected in his essay “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920) and his later works. Nondual interrelation of Eros and Thanatos is embodied in the character of Agnes’ younger sister, Laura, who is juxtaposed with the protagonist. Laura’s behavioral pattern is grounded in Marcuse’s theory of nondual instincts, as described in his work “Eros and Thanatos” (1955). If unrepressed, according to Marcuse, Eros transforms the destructive powers of Thanatos into creative energy. This kind of transformation is illustrated in Kundera’s characters of Laura and the episodic artist Rubens, who has received his nickname after a famous 17^th-century Flemish painter. The novel finds its artistic closure in the celebration of the unrepressed Eros - through the characters of Laura and Rubens. The research findings contribute to the expansion of Kunderian studies and to the analysis of the foundational novel by Milan Kundera (1929-2023), who is considered the prominent European writer of the 20^th-century. Moreover, the study of Kundera’s work from the philosophical and psychological perspectives reveals the novel’s relation to the theories of two great thinkers – Sigmund Freud and Herbert Marcuse.