CF3 Final Paper. The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera is one of the most excellent writers and his work on The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and he brings out the best of what a contemporary society goes through. The society is driven by love and many activities surrounding love and society. The choices we make in love can, at times, be complicated and affect the people who surround us either positively or negatively. Those affected sometimes might seek revenge on us, while others choose to run away from us just forget what disappointment we brought their way. Kundera brings out this theme and others very clear.
Tomas is married to Tereza and is giving her a hard time with the many mistresses he has. Tomas is a womanizer and loves to have erotic friendships with other women. His favorite of the mistresses is Sabina. Tomas, in the book, represents the ambiguous type of people in our contemporary society. He wants to play all the available roles of being and husband, among others. He is fickle whose affections change very first. He does not seem to long for failure consciously at all from his actions, but he secretly and unconsciously longs for failure. This is seen in the seventh and the last part, the Karenin's smile. After Karenin's death, Tomas and Tereza's dog, he finally drops all his mistresses and spends some quality time with Tereza. This is an indication that Tomas was longing for vertigo; to drop all that he was doing that was not making his wife happy and adopt a new culture. His ego, however, could not let him (Kundera 150).
Tereza is going through a hard time in her marriage with Tomas. She has persevered a lot that she now wishes to retreat. If only that were possible! When Tereza looked at Tomas, her eyes went not to his eyes but to a point three or four inches higher, to his hair, which gave off the aroma of other women's groins.
I can't take it anymore, Tomas. I know I shouldn't complain. Ever since you came back to Prague for me, I've forbidden myself to be jealous. I don't want to be jealous. I suppose I'm just not strong enough to stand up to it. Help me, please! (Kundera 76). This shows that she is married to a selfish man who cares about his feelings alone. She, however, stays strong for the sake of her marriage with Tomas. Tereza represents morals in society. Despite her husband openly cheating on her, she remains faithful. Even as her husband openly tells her that she is only enjoying erotic friendship with his mistresses, she takes it and assumes. She is a symbol of faithfulness and pure love. She, however, loses herself at her workplace. She is carried away by the thought of her husband having an affair with another woman. She works at a bar where she meets an engineer and decides to have a sexual encounter with him. In the end, Tereza apologizes to her husband, Tomas, claiming she made him unhappy. This act shows how much Tereza was consciously longing for failure before her husband became a reformed person in though at the end when the time was long gone. She decided to leave him when they went to Switzerland after she found out that Tomas was still having an affair with Sabina. They had been in Zurich for six or seven months when he came home late one evening to f...