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Part 4, Chapter 6
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 at home, Tereza eats lunch standing up at the sink. She has to go to work soon, a waitressing gig she got through a friend after the Russians dismissed her from her job as a photographer. Standing at the sink, Tereza’s legs begin to hurt, and she thinks about the large varicose veins that have developed from working long hours on her feet. Tereza goes to work and returns home well after midnight as usual. She climbs into bed with Tomas and is again struck by the strong smell of another woman in his hair.
Eating alone standing up at the kitchen sink is the epitome of loneliness. Even though Tereza is married, she lives a rather empty life, and then she has to be reminded of Tomas’s infidelity every time she climbs into bed. The loss of Tereza’s job is again evidence of the persecution of the intelligentsia by the Russians. Tereza’s work as a photographer exposes the oppression of the Czech people to the West and the rest of the world, so it is suppressed.
Themes
