The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Although the narrator begins The Unbearable Lightness of Being with a discussion of eternal return, he uses that idea to introduce a thought experiment that will underpin the thematic structure of his narrative: the dichotomy between lightness and weight. The idea of eternal return gives weight to events and decisions: Every individual choice must be made with great care, since it is bound to be repeated for all eternity. The narrator terms eternal return a “mad myth,” suggesting that the novel will be at the very least an interrogation of this myth, if not an outright refutation. Nietzsche called the possibility of eternal return the “greatest burden” and the narrator takes issue with the notion that meaning comes from weight. He is drawn to the idea that human lifetimes are rendered light by their transience, that what ultimately characterizes existence is not the infinite but the finite: An individual is born, lives, and dies but once. And yet, the narrator cannot help but be struck by the sheer number of metaphors that associate weight and heaviness with meaning, value, and depth. The narrator also brings up Greek philosopher Parmenides in this initial discussion, pointing out that Parmenides conceived of the world as a series of opposing pairs, and that in his estimation, weight was negative and light positive. This back-and-forth, somewhat jumbled discussion sets up the novel’s central question: What is preferable, lightness or weight? At the same time, it also gestures toward the messy, convoluted nature of that inquiry. Although the narrator seems to suggest that lightness is preferable and that human existence is, in fact, characterized by an “unbearable lightness” that is the source of its beauty and meaning, that conclusion is by no means absolute. The characters who embody lightness grapple with weight, and those who embody weight are drawn to lightness. The narrator notes that the characters did not live as real people do but were “born” out of ideas, and one way to read the characters in this novel is as stand-ins for lightness and weight.

Tomáš is the most obvious instantiation of lightness, because he bases his entire life based on the supposition that lightness is superior to weight. He eschews long-term romantic relationships in favor of his erotic friendships. He leaves his wife and child. Although a surgeon, he is also an intellectual and lives a “life of the mind” that reveals his preference for analysis over affect. He values freedom, which in a totalitarian society makes him a dissident. And yet, he is drawn time and time again to Tereza, arguably the character in the novel who best embodies weight. Ultimately, he puts an end to his womanizing and commits to Tereza, and because even he purports to have found happiness in monogamy, readers must understand his dedication to lightness as shaky at best. As a character, Tomáš represents the troubled nature of the lightness-and-weight binary: It is incredibly difficult to live one’s life entirely at one pole.

Sabina too embodies lightness, and yet, like Tomáš, she is drawn to weight. Her lover Franz, like Tereza, views love, sex, and romantic relationships through a markedly traditional lens, and Sabina cannot help but feel that in leaving Marie-Claude and hoping to marry Sabina in her place, he intends to weigh her down. Although she does leave Franz, she cohabits with an elderly couple in America who view her as a surrogate child of sorts, and that relationship carries a weight not present in her relationship with Tomáš.

Tereza, whose heavy suitcase symbolizes the burden she will become to Tomáš, is the narrative’s most overt embodiment of weight. It is her presence in Tomáš’s life that causes him to wrestle the most with the choice between lightness and weight, for she is the first person he allows to weigh him down. Although he ultimately does choose Tereza, casting doubt on his own true preference for weight, it should also be noted that Tereza, who openly values weight more than lightness, struggles greatly under the weight of Tomáš’s infidelities and their adverse effect on the pair’s marriage. Although she prefers weight to lightness, it is by no means a straightforwardly positive part of her life.

Franz, too, symbolizes weight, for he chooses relationships that he perceives to be weighty with his mother, his wife, Marie-Claude, and even Sabina. He is ultimately wrong about the nature of his relationship with Sabina; she prefers lightness and will reject him when she realizes just how burdensome she is. However, what Franz desires from Sabina is the deep, leaden emotional bond that exists in long-term relationships and marriages. Despite all of this, Franz’s relationship with weight is also fraught, for the only true, pure happiness he is shown to feel during the narrative is during the period of time after the dissolution of both his marriage and his affair with Sabina. He finds himself alone in his own flat. He is greatly pleased by the arrival of a new desk. (He is an intellectual, an academic after all.) His ultimate romantic partner is a student many years his junior, and for the first time he has the upper hand in a romantic relationship: Because the student-mistress is so young, he is able to imprint his own likes and motifs upon her and they embark on a shared journey together. That he dies as the result of a weighty attachment to his idea of the “Grand March” of history is another instance in which this text encourages its readers to be suspicious of the way that meaning is constructed around metaphors for weight: For Franz, his grand ideas were so heavy that they (figuratively) crushed him.