Previous
Part 6, Chapter 12
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
While there is “American kitsch,” and “Jewish kitsch,” and “feminist kitsch,” there is also “political kitsch,” and a sure sign of political kitsch is the idea of the Grand March. The Grand March promotes brotherhood, justice, and equality, and the ability to turn any idea into the kitsch of the Grand March is the defining factor that “makes a leftist a leftist.”
The Grand March is kitschy because it effectively ignores the fact that it is completely ineffective in promoting brotherhood, justice, and equality. The Grand March keeps moving (another example of eternal return) but there is still injustice. The left has a tendency to see injustice everywhere, and there are numerous Grand Marches to match. The significance of the Grand March, however, is lost in its repetition—another problem, Kundera points out, with eternal return.
Themes
