Analysis: What's Up With the Title?

The phrase "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is Kundera's own, but to understand it we
actually have too start with Friedrich Nietzsche and the idea of "eternal return." Eternal return is
the idea that our universe and our existence has occurred an infinite number of times in the past,
and will continue to occur ad infinitum. In this theory, time is cyclical rather than linear. The
idea of eternal return is an ancient one, but Nietzsche, a 19th century German philosopher,
popularized it for modern times. That's why the narrator of Unbearable Lightness refers to it as
Nietzsche's concept.

Nietzsche explored what the consequences of such eternal return would be. In his eyes, eternal
return was das schwerste Gewicht, or "the heaviest weight." It was a petrifying concept to
imagine that our lives have been and will continue to be repeated endlessly. But one could learn,
through philosophy, to love the idea. The proper mind can embrace this weight, rather than be
terrified by it. Nietzsche seems to conclude in Thus Spoke Zarathustra that we must live and act
as though our lives functioned in eternal return, suggesting that we give our own lives meaning
and weight by behaving this way. This brings in the concept of amor fati, or the love of one's
fate. To embrace eternal return is, roughly speaking, to love one's fate. We talk more about fate
in "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory," so keep this in mind.

In Kundera's world, eternal return is a false premise. "Human time does not turn in a circle," he
argues; "it runs ahead in a straight line" (7.4.13). So what are the consequences? Well, Nietzsche
said that eternal return gives our lives with a sense of weight. So if our lives only occur once, it
must mean that they are filled with lightness. This is where Kundera's phrase einmal ist keinmal
comes into the picture. He translates this for us: "What happens but once, might as well not have
happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all" (1.3.18).

If we live only once, then we can never compare the decisions we make to any alternatives. And
if we can never compare different outcomes, we can never know if the decisions we made are
correct or not, which means we can never judge them properly or take responsibility for them.
Hence, to live only once is to live with lightness. It's important to keep in mind that Kundera
doesn't pose the question of whether life is heavy or light – he suggests that it is light, and then
asks questions from there.

And the major question is this: which is better? Do we want lightness, or do we want weight?
Which do we choose? Kundera takes a look at Parmenides, a Greek philosopher in the 5th
century B.C. who considered the same question. Parmenides argued that lightness was positive
and to be desired, while weight was negative. But the narrator of The Unbearable Lightness of
Being isn't so sure about this. "The heaviest of burdens is […] simultaneously an image of life's
most intense fulfillment," he says (1.2.4). "The heavier the burden, […] the more real and
truthful [our lives] become" (1.2.4).

During the course of the novel, the narrator refers to the lightness of being in two different ways:
the sweet lightness of being, and the unbearable lightness of being. A few characters are able,
momentarily, to revel in the sweet lightness of being. A key example is Tomas, after Tereza
leaves him alone in Zurich and returns to Prague: "Suddenly his step was much lighter. He
soared. He had entered Parmenides' magic field: he was enjoying the sweet lightness of being"
(1.14.7). For two days, he feels the "sweet lightness of being rise up to him out of the depths of
the future" (1.15.4). For it only lasts for two days before he is "hit by a weight the likes of which
he had never known" (1.15.4), namely, his compassion for Tereza.

The narrator first uses the phrase "unbearable lightness of being" when he refers to Sabina, just
after she's left Franz in Geneva. "And Sabina–" asks the narrator, "what had come over her?
Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he
tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What
fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being" (3.10.2).

Kundera argues that lightness is unbearable, but it is up to us as readers to understand the reasons
behind this argument. What makes lightness unbearable? Remember Nietzsche's interpretation of
eternal return? It's scary, almost paralyzing, to think about eternal return. But on the other hand,
it means our lives have meaning, significance, weight. And we can learn to love that.
Conversely, lightness may seem at first to be a sweet deal – no responsibility, no judgment, no
meaning. Sounds like fun – at first. But eventually, we would like for our lives to mean
something. We want them to have weight and significance, because we want them to matter. A
great example of this is Tomas's two-year holiday from medicine. At first, he revels in the
freedom of having no responsibilities. But after enough time has passed, he decides that two
years is about as long as he can stand being on holiday. We're guessing you'd feel the same way
after vegging out on your couch for a month.

The problem is, try as we might to give our lives weight…we cannot. Our lives are
fundamentally light precisely because they occur only once. This is evidenced by the four deaths
of the four main characters, which we talk about in "What's Up With the Ending?"

Kundera's argument, then, is two-fold.

1. Nietzsche was wrong; there is no eternal return; our lives occur only once, and that makes
them light.
2. Parmenides was wrong; such lightness is not sweet, it is unbearable.

Notice that both these arguments are established right in the title of the novel. Still, it takes the
entire novel for the arguments behind these ideas to unfold.

On a last note, it's interesting that the title of this novel doesn't sound like the title of a novel.
This is the title of a philosophical treatise (namely, the title is the main philosophical thesis). This
is interesting in the context of the debate in "Genre."
Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
(Analysis)
Milan Kundera is a leading contemporary writers. Author whose life was tormented by
communism, Kundera left Czechoslovakia to seek refuge in France in the mid 70s. Most of his
novels (The Joke, Life Is Elsewhere, Laughable Loves, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting,
…) are novels that can be described as philosophical: they are all directed to people facing with
history, politics, their destiny.

But perhaps the Unbearable Lightness of Being, which can be regarded as subject to
philosophical analysis.

Contents [hide]

 1 Summary of The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera:

 2 Analysis of the Unbearable Lightness of Being:
o 2.1 Kundera and the eternal return:
o 2.2 Kundera and love:
o 2.3 Kundera and Politics:
o 2.4 Kundera and Sexuality:

Summary of The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being mainly takes place in Prague in the years 1960 and 1970. It
explores the artistic and intellectual life of Czech society during the communist period, from the
Prague Spring to the Soviet invasion of 1968. The main characters are Tomas, a surgeon, his
wife, Tereza, a photographer anguished by the infidelities of her husband, Sabina, Tomas’s
mistress, a free-spirited artist, Franz, a Swiss university in love with Sabine.

Each of these four characters represents a metaphorical figure:

– Tomáš is ambiguous, both husband and fickle, that is, to use Kierkegaard’s ethical and
aesthetic categories.

– Tereza is the moral, faithful woman devoted to her husband, calling for the pure love

– Sabina is lightness, as Kundera is the hallmark of modernity

– Franz, as Tereza, is gravity. This character is stuck in a bad marriage.

Analysis of the Unbearable Lightness of Being:

The richness of this novel is indisputable. Kundera talks with the Greek philosophers and
Nietzsche.
Kundera and the eternal return:

Faced with Nietzsche defends the idea of eternal return, this theory raises the cyclical nature of
the universe and its events, Kundera contrasts a unique view of history, each person has only one
life to live, to seize the opportunities that do not represent most: being is light, it line, he escapes
to individuals. This is the idea of eternal return introduces gravity in our lives.

Similarly, the eternal return suggests a static philosophy of history, while Kundera believes in a
dynamic history, he believes in progress.

Kundera and love:

Against the romantic view, which sees the amorous encounter scheduled meeting of two beings,
Kundera contrasts accidental conception of love. No one is intended to person depending on him.
Love, in addition to be fortuitous, is fleeting and that is why the modern man gives too much
importance.

Kundera and Politics:

The policy appears in the novel as a backdrop. Communism is closer to the Nazis in that share
their ideology denial of individuality and the corollary of the primacy of the collective.
Communism is synonymous with Kundera culture of silence, the emptiness of thought. The West
is the contrary of freedom, the assertion of the individual.

Kundera and Sexuality:

Kundera presents sexuality in terms of lightness and weight. The characters are light and see
erotic sexuality as a creative activity. Sexuality in Sabina is linked to the imagination, like art.
Heavy characters (Tereza and Franz) associate sexuality with guilt. The sex is also associated
with slight force in Thomas, while sex heavy refuse the power of seduction. The naked body is
seen by Teresa as a source of horror and muscular body as useless by Franz.

Kundera and Being:

Kundera addresses this issue in terms of pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, including Parmenides.
The latter sees the world divided into pairs of opposing entities: light / darkness, fineness /
coarseness, positive entity on one side and negative on the other. According to Parmenides, the
light is positive, the negative weight. Kundera argues instead that the lightness is ambiguous,
both positive (freedom) and negative (weight of the emptiness of the life of Sabina libertine).
This ambiguity is also the misfortune of Sabina. Life is a paradox insolvent. Witness the
evolution of each character, which point to an opposite pole to their initial choice: Tomas
finishes with his infidelities, Sabina realizes the emptiness of his existence is released from
Tereza and Tomas Franz leaves his wife to live sex dreams and to pursue its political ideals. This
reflects the paradox and the fact that individuals are free of their choice. Destiny is a chimera,
human existence a precarious thing.
Art – Philosophical Definition

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Major Philosophers
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Descartes, Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel,
Nietzsche, Marx, Sartre, Heidegger,

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Characters

by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Character List
These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful of
their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Katherine Li

Tomáš

Tomáš is an intellectual Czech surgeon. He is in an open relationship with his wife, Tereza, and
attempts to reconcile his love for her with his sexual promiscuity. He is obsessed with his work
and with womanizing, but eventually abandoned his obsessions to be with his wife and found
true happiness with her living in the countryside.
Tereza

Teraza is the young wife of Tomáš. She is a gentle but intelligent photojournalist and continued
her investigations after Soviet's occupation of Prague. She does not place emphasis on bodily
pleasures, and considers the body to be disgusting and shameful. She also does not criticize
Tomáš for being unfaithful, even though she worries that to Tomáš she is just another body to be
enjoyed. Just like Tomáš, she also found happiness through raising animals and reading once
they moved to the countryside.

Sabina

Sabina is Tomáš's closest friend and also his mistress. She is a rebellious artist who expresses her
struggle against constraints through her paintings. She has an extreme dislike of kitsch and finds
satisfaction in the act of betrayal. In terms of personality, she has a very light and free character,
which is placed in stark contrast in comparison to Tereza's character.

Franz

Franz is a kind and compassionate professor from Geneva who is Sabine's lover. He is a liberal
and romantic dreamer. He is the most idealistic character in this novel. Though his life mainly
revolves around his academic pursuits, he seeks enjoyment and meaning through participating in
all kinds of marches and protests. During one of the marches, he was severely wounded by a
robbery.

Karenin

She is the pet dog of Tereza and Tomáš. She was named after a character in Anna Karenina. Just
like her owners, she found contentment and happiness at the countryside. Unfortunately, she was
diagnosed of cancer which eventually caused her death. However, her death reunited Tereza and
Tomáš and to a large extent helped fix their damaged relationship.