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What is The Unbearable Lightness of being?
The uncertain existence of meaning, and the opposition of lightness and heaviness, the key dichotomy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, sets the stage for the entire novel. The year is 1968. The protagonist, Tomas, a brilliant Prague surgeon, pursues a philosophy of lightness in his erotic adventures and exploits.
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being, novel by Milan Kundera, first published in 1984 in English and French translations. In 1985 the work was released in the original Czech, but it was banned in Czechoslovakia until 1989. Through the lives of four individuals, the novel explores the philosophical themes of lightness and weight.
The story is set against the background of the Prague Spring of June 1968, the Soviet invasion of the country that followed in August, and the aftermath of the crackdown on liberalization. The tale begins on a philosophical note, discussing Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of eternal return (or eternal recurrence). If, as Nietzsche believed, everything in life happens an infinite number of times, causing the “heaviest of burdens,” then a personal life in which everything happens only once loses its “weight” and significance—hence the “the unbearable lightness of being.” Within this discussion, however, the narrator also mentions the opposing theory of Parmenides, who held that light (represented by warmth and fineness) is positive, while the opposite, heaviness, is negative. This conflicting set of views raises the question of which is correct, and against this backdrop the story begins.
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The novel pivots on Tomas, a surgeon and serial adulterer who embraces “lightness.” He is willfully free of all heaviness, shunning labels and ideals, and he justifies his physical unfaithfulness (mere sex) on the basis of his emotional faithfulness (his love for his wife). One of his mistresses, Sabina, a free-spirited artist whose sexual obsession rivals Tomas’s, takes lightness to an extreme, betraying others with her complete lack of commitment. On the other hand, Tomas’s wife, Tereza, is heaviness personified and has given herself, body and soul, to her husband. Her love is a binding thing—not bad, just heavy. She also has fervent political ideals, whereas Tomas is held down by none.
By the conclusion of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera held that the theories of both Nietzsche and Parmenides are false, as both the “light” and “heavy” characters meet unhappy fates. Furthermore, he demonstrated how unbearable it is that each choice can only be made once with one possible result and that no one can ever know what other c...
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Overview. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, published in 1984 by Czech-French author Milan Kundera, is a philosophical novel that explores the nature of love, sex, and existence. The novel follows the lives of four main characters—Tomas, Tereza, Sabina, and Franz—before and during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. Download PDF.
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