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The Unbearable Lightness of Being

 Milan Kundera
 

Key Facts

 
full title ·  The Unbearable Lightness of Being
 
author · Milan Kundera
 
type of work · Novel
 
genre · Love story; political novel; novel of ideas
 
language · Czech, translated into English by Michael Henry Heim; translation supervised/approved by author
 
time and place written · 1984, Paris
 
date of first publication · 1984
 
publisher · English translation: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc
 
narrator · The author, Milan Kundera, or fictionalized version thereof
 
climax · A different climax can be identified in each of the character's stories; for Tomas, the arguable climax is his decision to return to Prague from the free West
 
protagonist · Tomas is main protagonist; other protagonists are Tereza, Sabina, and Franz
 
setting (time) · Mid 1960s to early 1980s
 
setting (place) · Prague; small town in Bohemia; Czech countryside; Switzerland; America
 
point of view · First person narration from author Kundera's point of view; follows alternately one then another character
 
falling action · Sabina wills body to be cremated after death, wonders if any betrayals are left in her life
 
tense · past tense
 
foreshadowing · constant, as author/narrator tells story non-chronologically and instead by ideas and associations
 
tone · cynical; amused; compassionate; contemplative
 
symbols · book; suitcase; bowler hat; stocking; signed document; tombstone
 
themes · lightness versus weight; politics; sexuality; death; human love
 
motifs · the body; kitsch; artwork; written texts
 
other · Partly autobiographical text; Kundera was a leftist in youth, a silenced intellectual in Prague after 1968, and a permanent émigré settled in Paris thereafter
 
 
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