The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

by

Milan Kundera

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Unbearable Lightness of Being makes teaching easy.
Tomas’s son. Tomas abandons Simon when he is just an infant and leaves him with his mother, a staunch Communist. Once Simon is old enough, he moves out of his mother’s house, leaving both her and the regime. Rebelling against his mother and against Communism, Simon becomes a devout Christian, which is exceedingly rare in the state atheism of the Communist regime. Simon spends most of his adult life trying to reconnect with his father, and after Tomas writes an article, disavowing Czech Communists, Simon and the editor try to get Tomas to sign a petition seeking to grant amnesty to political prisoners. Tomas refuses to sign, and he doesn’t hear from Simon for a long time, until Simon begins sending him letters. Simon longs for the “imaginary eyes” of his father to look at him, and after Tomas’s death, Simon sends letters to Sabina instead so there is still a set of imaginary eyes looking at him. After Tomas’s death, Simon rushes to make his funeral arrangements and has Tomas’s tombstone engraved with the following words: “HE WANTED THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH.” Simon knows that his father would have never said such a thing, but Simon doesn’t care and does what he wants. In this way, Simon is kitsch, as he willfully ignores that which is not acceptable to his world.

Simon Quotes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The The Unbearable Lightness of Being quotes below are all either spoken by Simon or refer to Simon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Time, Happiness, and Eternal Return Theme Icon
).
Part 6, Chapter 29 Quotes

What remains of the dying population of Cambodia?

One large photograph of an American actress holding an Asian child in her arms.

What remains of Tomas?

An inscription reading HE WANTED THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH

What remains of Beethoven?

A frown, an improbably man, and a somber voice intoning “Es muss sein!

What remains of Franz?

An inscription reading A RETURN AFTER LONG WANDERINGS.

And so on and so forth. Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.

Related Characters: Tomas, Franz, Simon, Marie-Claude, The American Actress
Page Number: 277-8
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Unbearable Lightness of Being LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being PDF

Simon Quotes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The The Unbearable Lightness of Being quotes below are all either spoken by Simon or refer to Simon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Time, Happiness, and Eternal Return Theme Icon
).
Part 6, Chapter 29 Quotes

What remains of the dying population of Cambodia?

One large photograph of an American actress holding an Asian child in her arms.

What remains of Tomas?

An inscription reading HE WANTED THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH

What remains of Beethoven?

A frown, an improbably man, and a somber voice intoning “Es muss sein!

What remains of Franz?

An inscription reading A RETURN AFTER LONG WANDERINGS.

And so on and so forth. Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.

Related Characters: Tomas, Franz, Simon, Marie-Claude, The American Actress
Page Number: 277-8
Explanation and Analysis: