CF3 Final Paper. The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Assignment
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera is one of the most excellent writers and his work on The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and he brings out the best of what a contemporary society goes through. The society is driven by love and many activities surrounding love and society. The choices we make in love can, at times, be complicated and affect the people who surround us either positively or negatively. Those affected sometimes might seek revenge on us, while others choose to run away from us just forget what disappointment we brought their way. Kundera brings out this theme and others very clear.
Tomas is married to Tereza and is giving her a hard time with the many mistresses he has. Tomas is a womanizer and loves to have erotic friendships with other women. His favorite of the mistresses is Sabina. Tomas, in the book, represents the ambiguous type of people in our contemporary society. He wants to play all the available roles of being and husband, among others. He is fickle whose affections change very first. He does not seem to long for failure consciously at all from his actions, but he secretly and unconsciously longs for failure. This is seen in the seventh and the last part, the Karenin's smile. After Karenin's death, Tomas and Tereza's dog, he finally drops all his mistresses and spends some quality time with Tereza. This is an indication that Tomas was longing for vertigo; to drop all that he was doing that was not making his wife happy and adopt a new culture. His ego, however, could not let him (Kundera 150).
Tereza is going through a hard time in her marriage with Tomas. She has persevered a lot that she now wishes to retreat. If only that were possible! When Tereza looked at Tomas, her eyes went not to his eyes but to a point three or four inches higher, to his hair, which gave off the aroma of other women's groins.
I can't take it anymore, Tomas. I know I shouldn't complain. Ever since you came back to Prague for me, I've forbidden myself to be jealous. I don't want to be jealous. I suppose I'm just not strong enough to stand up to it. Help me, please! (Kundera 76). This shows that she is married to a selfish man who cares about his feelings alone. She, however, stays strong for the sake of her marriage with Tomas. Tereza represents morals in society. Despite her husband openly cheating on her, she remains faithful. Even as her husband openly tells her that she is only enjoying erotic friendship with his mistresses, she takes it and assumes. She is a symbol of faithfulness and pure love. She, however, loses herself at her workplace. She is carried away by the thought of her husband having an affair with another woman. She works at a bar where she meets an engineer and decides to have a sexual encounter with him. In the end, Tereza apologizes to her husband, Tomas, claiming she made him unhappy. This act shows how much Tereza was consciously longing for failure before her husband became a reformed person in though at the end when the time was long gone. She decided to leave him when they went to Switzerland after she found out that Tomas was still having an affair with Sabina. They had been in Zurich for six or seven months when he came home late one evening to find a letter on the table telling him she had left for Prague (Kundera 17). She could not, however, fall despite the desire to since they till reunited.
Sabina, an artist, is Tomas's most preferred erotic friend as he likes to call them. She knows Tomas very well and even goes ahead to be great friends with Tereza. She decides to move to Switzerland, where Tomas follows her to. Tomas relocated to Zurich with her wife just to follow Sabina following a call from a Swiss doctor who repeatedly asked Tomas to move to Switzerland too. They continue seeing each other, and when Tereza realizes that, she decides to move away to Prague, though Tomas later decides to follow when he could not stop thinking about the seven years they have been married. Sabina is a symbol of lightness and modernity. The modern society has women whom most men love to describe as crazy. Sabina, despite having an affair with a married man, she worked so hard as an artist. She even secured new studios after moving to Switzerland. Nevertheless, this is not the most exciting thing about her. She consciously retreated not once but many time times and even had multiple affairs. Apart from Tomas, she also had affairs with Franz. Sabina, however, is a good-hearted woman who develops a friendship with Tereza and even helps her secure a job with a magazine she Sabina was working for. This is how the modern world is. Everyone is busy trying to better their individual lives, and when an opportunity comes knocking, we should never forget those who need the opportunity so much, even if they are not necessarily our friends.
Franz is another character in the book that lives in sadness. He is a professor who works and lives in Geneva. His marriage with his wife Marie Claude is full of misunderstandings even on petty issues like what the function of music is. He is a representation of perseverance in society. He sticks to his marriage even when he has the option of quitting. He, however, longs to quit unconsciously. He goes ahead and has an affair with Sabina, maybe to complement the gap that exists in his marriage (Kundera 46). This shows how much he is longing to quit his marriage unconsciously. Ironically, he is a professor with all resources, but he is not happy. Many people live in denial. They only look happy physically, but their souls are tearing apart deep within them.
The theme of love and romance is the theme that Kendura talks about in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Most of the characters have issues with their love lives; it is about romantic self-destruc...