Themes Based on Slavenka Drakulic’s "how We Survived Communism and Even Lauged"

Communist Themes

Slavenka Drakulic's "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" tells stories that contain many different aspects of life under a communist regime. It mainly focuses on the scenario from a woman's point of view, which in many cases was a lot worse. It goes into great depth of the kind of strangle hold the government had on the people and what the people had to do in order to survive.

One interesting theme that should be touched upon is presented in Chapter Nine, entitled, "The Strange Ability of Apartments to Divide and Multiply." Drakulic recalls several stories of people's families having to sell large apartments for two smaller ones to accommodate someone getting married or moving out, etc. The reasoning is that under a communist form of government people didn't own private property. There were special cases in countries that didn't take to well to communism but for the most part people that used to farm were forced to crowd into cities. Just about everyone lived in apartments then, unless you were special. So an example would be if you had a family of four, a mother and father and two sisters. One of the sisters gets married and moves in with her husband. Her husband, who more than likely lives with his parents in another apartment, then must sell their apartment and purchase two smaller ones, one for his wife and himself and another for the rest of his family. It wasn't uncommon to have the husband and his wife just lives with the rest of his family in one apartment either, especially if they were unable to sell their apartment. Young people remain dependent

upon their parents throughout their lives because of the inability for them to move up into important positions. Under communist rule Drakulic referred to it as a type of "youth discrimination." Everything relates back to how people were unable to obtain anything greater than what they already had. Rather than buying a new house, or an entirely new apartment for newly formed families, they were forced to take what they had, which was very little, and divide it over and over.

Another important theme that is brought up by Drakulic in Chapter Eight called "A Chat with my Censor" is that of paranoia brought onto the people living under communism. In this chapter Drakulic recalls a meeting she had with her Censor, which is basically someone who interrogates people on behalf of the communist government. The whole idea of the government deciding what can be said or not said and punishing those that don't obey them is one of the major points that people talk about regarding communist rule. So therefore anyone who might speak out or say something that would be considered "out of line" would get a visit from these censors. This is so important to consider when you compare it to the United States and how people here can speak out against the government or speak their minds and not have to worry about being attacked for it. It's far worse than just that unfortunately. Even just being friends with someone