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Part 4, Chapter 27
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
Driving back to Prague, Tereza wonders if any photographs exist of her with the tall stranger. Maybe the secret police will show them to Tomas, she thinks to herself. Tomas probably wouldn’t kick her out, but the thought of him looking at pictures of her and the tall stranger is unbearable. She has a strong desire to tell Tomas that they must move to the country. That is the only way they can be happy, she thinks. Tereza turns to Tomas intending to speak, but when he doesn’t turn to her, she loses her nerve. She feels like going back to Petrin Hill to die.
Kundera later examines this moment from Tomas’s perspective, and in this moment Tomas hates Tereza. Seeing his former patient has reminded Tomas of what he has lost, and he resents Tereza and his love for her. Being a surgeon had been an integral part of Tomas’s identity, along with being a womanizer, and Tereza has threatened both aspects.
Themes
