The Unbearable Lightness of Being

When Tereza moves to Prague to pursue a relationship with Thomas, she brings a heavy suitcase containing all her possessions. Tomáš knows that the presence of this suitcase means that Tereza means to offer herself and her entire life up to him. Although he has thus far lived his life according to the dictum of lightness, he realizes that in accepting Tereza into his life in Prague, he is opening himself up to the burdensome emotional baggage of a traditional, long-term romantic relationship. Tereza’s suitcase symbolizes weight. Tereza does become a burden to Tomáš, for she is unable to accept the repeated betrayal of his many infidelities. What Tomáš views as a series of “erotic friendships” that are both necessary to his happiness and a central part of his identity, Tereza sees as a tremendous breach of trust.

And yet, even though Tomáš embodies lightness and eschews weight, he accepts Tereza and her suitcase into his life. He repeatedly chooses her, even when, as in Zurich, he has the opportunity to jettison her from his life. Tereza’s suitcase then also becomes emblematic of the inherent difficulty in choosing weight over lightness, speaking back to the narrator’s discussion of the many metaphors that associate weight with meaning, depth, and value.

Beethoven’s music is a recurring motif within the narrative, and it speaks to the theme of Leitmotif and Interpretation. Beethoven is playing in the hotel bar when Tereza meets Tomáš, and their shared appreciation for his music is an early bond between them. When faced with important decisions, Tomáš often recalls the “Es muss sein” (It must be) motif from a particular Beethoven quartet. Beethoven is a motif within the narrative, but it is also a motif within the lives of Tomáš and Tereza, and the narrator recognizes it as such. He argues that our lives “need” these motifs, and that interpreting and reinterpreting these motifs as they appear and change meaning from situation to situation is how individuals create meaning for themselves.

For Tereza, the serendipity of Beethoven being played in the hotel bar where she is working when she meets Tomáš is a meaningful coincidence, and she interprets it as a sign, along with Tomáš’s book, that the two were meant to fall in love. Although it was entirely due to chance that she happened to hear Beethoven when she met Tomáš, she reads meaning into the coincidence, and this interpretation leads her to develop feelings for Tomáš and guides her decision to follow him back to Prague. For Tomáš, the Beethoven motif becomes a maxim to which he returns when faced with difficult choices. Although he interprets the decisive “it must be” as an organizing principle for his actions, the reality is that “it” could easily have been otherwise. His interpretation of the motif influences his actions. The narrator would like his readers to understand that what most individuals perceive as chance or coincidence is really a matter of interpretation.