The relationship between social and personal life in TULoB and We

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being and We there is often social or external conflict that mirrors internal conflict. In We D-503's conflicting inner self is mixed with a conflict between the One State and the Mephi. Furthermore we in fact see a third battleground in the novel which is the core of Zamyatin's intentions in writing the novel the battle between the One State's philosophy, which is based on modernism, belief that absolute knowledge, "the ultimate wisdom" as D-503 calls it, can be determined and the utopian ideal can be reached; and the Mephi's philosophy, based loosely on postmodernism and in the belief that absolute knowledge cannot be determined and, more importantly, the utopia, if possible to achieve, is bad. (I-330 claims that absolute happiness needs a minus sign). The reason it is bad is because nothing will happen next, as "the ideal is (clearly) a state where nothing actually happens any more", which means that history, revolution and innovation will all disappear. This third battleground connects up the other two as each side contains a part relating to the psyche and mind (the true nature of absolute knowledge) and a closely related part concerned with politics (the true nature of utopia). The novel ends in the complete separation of the external, political world (through the wall of high voltage waves) and the complete separation of the internal world of D-503 (through the Great Operation).

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being there is also a relation between social world and the personal world, however a great conflict between two opposing theories is, if not completely false, a humongous oversimplification. But just like in We there are overlying and underlying concepts of the novel which are portrayed by the duality of the exterior world and the interior one. Tereza's attempts to attach lasting significance to the Russian invasion is connected to the similarly totalitarian universe of her mother where bodies have none of this lasting significance. While Tomas tries to defend his letter to the editorial that connected the Communists to Oedipus he gets the Oedipan realization of the effect his affairs were having on his wife's health.