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Part 4, Chapter 5
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
After showering, Tereza stares at her naked body in the mirror. She does not have big breasts or a large backside, and she wonders what her relationship is to her body. She hates her body. Her body doesn’t have enough power to be “the only body in Tomas’s life,” and she longs to dismiss it and become only a soul.
While philosophy sees the body and soul as separate entities, Kundera argues that they can’t be separated and are wholly dependent on one another. Tereza wants to know what about her body isn’t enough for Tomas, which could potentially explain what she is doing at the sauna—she needs to see multiple naked bodies so she can compare.
Themes
