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
As the magazine editor looked at Tereza’s photographs, she remarked that Tereza would make a good fashion photographer. She agreed that Tereza’s pictures were good, but she wasn’t interested in them. A year had passed since the Russian invasion, and Tereza’s pictures were “anachronistic.” Tereza agreed. Tomas, too, always said the same thing about her.
The editor’s assessment of Tereza’s pictures as “anachronistic” suggests that Tereza and her pictures are somehow out of sync, or out of date. Not only does this belittle Tereza and her photos, further stripping her of power, it suggests that human existence is linear and chronological, not cyclical as is implied with the theory of eternal return. After all, if existence were cyclical, nothing would ever really be out of date.
Themes
