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Part 4, Chapter 10
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
Tereza looks at Tomas and admits that she can’t take his infidelity or her guilt anymore. He only came back to Prague because of her, so she has tried not be jealous of his mistresses, but she is. Tomas takes Tereza out to walk in the park and tells her that everything will be fine once she climbs Petrin Hill. She asks why, and Tomas says she will find out when she gets there. Tereza is “constitutionally unable to disobey Tomas,” and as she looks back at him, he waves, signaling her to keep climbing the hill.
Kundera jumps into a dream sequence here, in which Tereza’s insecurities and anger are revealed. She feels responsible for Tomas’s return to Prague, but he is breaking her heart with his unfaithfulness. Petrin Hill is a hill located in the center of Prague, and in Tereza’s dream, it is where the Czech people are executed, presumably by the Russians or their communist government.
Themes
