TULoB and We - Privacy and Panopticon

The theme of privacy and enclosement is apparent both in Yevgeny Zamyatin's We and Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. More specifically, the lack of it is generally seen as a good sign of authoritarian control in both novels. They both can also be connected to the Panopticon philosophy, which deals with people under a constant gaze or the complete obliteration of privacy. Interestingly, many characters in both novels try to use a similar type of gaze to understand their life.

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being many of the citizens of occupied Czechoslovakia are living under the constant gaze of the Russians. This is connected to the idea of the concentration camp, a place where privacy is meaningless. In these places not only is every life or soul insignificant but every action has a weight to it, a highly uncomfortable situation.

In We the themes of privacy and the Panopticon gaze are probably explored more, as unlike The Unbearable Lightness of Being the novel has an explicit political motive. The most obvious example of the loss of privacy is that all the houses are made of glass. Then although every single cipher is not under constant watch by the Guardians, there is always the risk that they are being watched. The philosophy of privacy, based on sayings like "My (sic!) house is my castle" are laughed upon for being silly.

However in both novels many of the characters wish to see using a gaze similar to the Panopticon, in order to explore more about the world around them. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being both Tomas and Tereza wish to see more and expand their knowledge, thus decreasing the privacy of their deepest truths. Tomas, as seen in Part 5, chose his job as a surgeon because of his wish to explore, and uses the same policy in his exploration of women. Whenever Tereza or anyone else analyzes themselves in the mirror they wish to expand their knowledge. Likewise during an intimate moment with I-330 in We D-503 envisioned himself becoming "glass" and "seeing myself, inside". This was an attempt to expand knowledge into his inner world and use the Gaze to understand more about himself. In general We's approach to enclosement is quite mixed as exploration and Gazing into the world of crazy mysteriousness is seen as better than enclosing it off and essentially keeping it "private". The One State's forefathers, and more importantly Zamyatin, made the Green Wall's glass "foggy and dim" for a reason. One of the reasons is because with that area walled off the One State has essentially cut off a huge area of the world, making it much easier to abolish privacy in the rest of the world. Therefore privacy is not always seen as good.