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Part 2, Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time, Happiness, and Eternal Return
Lightness, Weight, and Dichotomies
Sex, Love, and Duality of Body and Soul
Words and Language
Power, Politics, and Inequality
Summary
Analysis
Back in Prague after leaving Zurich, Tomas becomes worried that his relationship with Tereza is based on six coincidences. But isn’t an event more significant, the narrator asks, if it takes multiple chance happenings for it to occur? When Tomas sat down at the table in the restaurant where Tereza worked, Beethoven was playing in the background. Tereza loves Beethoven, and she immediately took notice of it playing as Tomas entered.
Again, Tereza sees the playing of Beethoven during her first meeting with Tomas as another example of fate. She believes she is meant to be with Tomas, and the addition of her favorite composer is more evidence of this. However, the narrator’s interruption further suggests that there is more than one way to interpret meaning, which again points to the ambiguity of words and language. Tomas and Tereza are in the same situation, but one of them considers it “fate” while the other interprets it as “coincidence.”
Themes
