KUNDERA Prompt:
Please get together with a partner to do this activity. Follow along step-by-step. Your instructions will be in bold print. Please allow yourself 15 minutes at the end of the period to watch Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion.
1. Read the AP prompt and passage below carefully.
Carefully read the following passage from Testaments Betrayed, by the Czech writer Milan Kundera. Then write an essay in which you support, qualify, or dispute Kundera’s claim. Support your argument with evidence from…
I wrote about this in The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Jan Prochazka, an important figure of the Prague Spring came under heavy surveillance after the Russian invasion of 1968. At the time, he saw a good deal of another great opposition figure, Professor Vaclav Cernv, with whom he liked to drink and talk. All their conversations were secretly recorded, and I suspect the two friends knew it and didn’t give a damn. But one day in 1970 or 1971, with the intent to discredit Prochazka, the police began to broadcast these conversations as a radio serial. For the police it was an audacious, unprecedented act. And, surprisingly: it nearly succeeded; instantly Prochazka was discredited: because in private, a person says all sorts of things, slurs friends, uses coarse language, acts silly, tells dirty jokes, repeats himself, makes a companion laugh by shocking him with outrageous talk, floats heretical ideas he’d never admit in public, and so forth. Of course, we all act like Prochazka, in private we bad mouth our friends and use coarse language; that we act different in private than in public is everyone’s most conspicuous experience, it is the very ground of the life of the individual; curiously, this obvious fact remains unconscious, unacknowledged, forever obscured by lyrical dreams of the transparent glass house, it is rarely understood to be the value one must defend beyond all others. Thus only gradually did people realize (though their rage was all the greater) that the real scandal was not Prochazka’s daring talk but the rape of his life; they realized (as if by electric shock) that private and public are two essentially different worlds and that respect for that difference is the indispensable condition, the sine qua non, for a man to live free; that the curtain separating these two worlds is not to be tampered with, and that curtain-rippers are criminals.
2. Discuss with your partner for a few minutes the TASK you must accomplish in order to write a successful essay.
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3. Look carefully at the passage and write out the claims Kundera makes that one MIGHT argue for or against.
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Do you have your list? IF so, check it against the list below:
a. The curtain rippers are criminals
b. Private and public life are 2 different worlds
c. 2 worlds (priv and pub) shouldn’t be tampered with
d. we all act like this (Differently) in private than in public
e. we all unconsciously separate the 2 worlds
f. one must defend this value (having a private life remain private)
4. Discuss the list above and the one you formulated. If the prompt asks you to “support, qualify, or dispute Kundera’s CLAIM,” then you’ll have to choose ONE idea. So which idea BEST captures the essence of Kundera’s argument? Discuss with your partner. Do not read on until you have your discussion.
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5. Why are a, c and f the best choices? Discuss.
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6. Now that you have (hopefully) identified Kundera’s claim, read and watch the three sources below. This is a recent new story, by the way, which you will use to defend, challenge or qualify Kundera’s argument.
Gawker: Married GOP Congressman Sent Sexy Pictures to Craigslist Babe (By the way, this online publication falls under the “tabloid” category, but it was the first to report the story.)
ABC News: ABC News: Congressman Chris Lee Resigns (watch this short video)
Gawker: Craigslist Congressman’s Would-Be Lover Speaks Out (An interview with the woman who exposed the congressman.)
Ok, so you have a story that you can use. Now, with your partner, write a thesis (not the whole intro) for the Kundera prompt. Then write a supporting paragraph, using the Craiglist congressman story. Please email me your thesis and paragraph, making sure your names are on it. Also, please indicate whether you defended, challenged, or qualified Kundera’s argument. My email: difontai@ksbe.edu . You should have about 15 minutes at the end of class to watch Tibet: Cry of The Snow Lion. Have a great weekend!