Now they were in a place that led nowhere. Where could they go from here? They would never be allowed abroad. They would never find a way back to Prague: no one would give them work. They didn’t even have a reason to move to another village.
Good God, had they had to cover all that distance just to make her believe he loved her?
At last Tomas succeeded in getting the tyre back on. He climbed in behind the wheel, the men jumped in the back, and the engine roared.
She went home and ran a bath. Lying in the hot water, she kept telling herself that she had set a lifetime of her weakness against Tomas. We all have a tendency to consider strength a culprit and weakness the innocent victim. But now Tereza realize that in her case the opposite was true! Even her dreams, as if aware of the single weakness in a man otherwise strong, made a display of her suffering to him, thereby forcing him to retreat. Her weakness was aggressive and kept forcing him to capitulate until eventually he lost his strength and was transformed into the rabbit in her arms. She could not get that dream out of her mind.
She stood up from her bath and went to put on some nice clothes. She wanted to look her best to please him, make him happy.”
Assignment:
Tereza and Tomas are in the final moments of their life together and on this Earth. Even though they do not know they have very little time left. It is vastly focused on Tereza, but we would not learn much about Tereza without Tomas playing a key role in the events, the experiences and the havoc in her head. As readers we have witnessed Tereza’s plight throughout her life, even before she met Tomas. Two whole parts of the book are dedicated to her perspective on the story told, where we have come to know Tereza’s intimate thoughts, her way of thinking and the things that haunt her. This passage is introduced with a quote: “Standing there observing him, she suffered a bout of self-recrimination.” This is a more than clear indication that there is some kind of a breakthrough in Tereza views. What follows this quote is an outburst of guilt, condemnation and self-destructiveness from Tereza, which is not utterly surprising, because we have come to know Tereza’s character and seen that she is a very “heavy” person, a person who takes every detail and ponders whether it has some implications on just about anything concerned with her, but yet it still stands out. Tereza is a “heavy” character, yes, but during the course of the novel she comes to a place where she is yearning for “lightness”, she wishes she could be more carefree, not worry herself sick about all those little details, which wear her down. She cannot bear what the “heaviness” is doing to her, or more specifically, what the “heaviness” in her is making her do to herself.
It was quite clear from the beginning that Tereza was dependant on Tomas – her life was spinning around him. However, even though she was undeniably sure of her love for him, she still had her doubts. His infidelity drove her mad with jealousy. She saw the flaws in him – she was not blinded by her love for him completely and she did not let herself become a fool by pretending to be oblivious to his affairs. Nevertheless, this passage shows that no matter how hard Tereza might have tried to rid herself of the “heaviness” she is burdened with, no matter how much she strived for “lightness”, she just cannot let go, because it simply the way she is as a person, it is part of the character and there is nothing she can do (change) about that. This passage clearly displays her defeat. She is overwhelmed by her need to add significance to everything she perceives, and feels. In this instance, the sight of Tomas, worn down with age – doing a job that brings him no satisfaction, Tereza comes to a realization that she is to blame for Tomas’s decline into the feeble person that he is now.
The way Tereza’s thoughts are presented (“…even here she could not leave him in peace, torturing him with her secret suspicions”), the author really accentuates Terezas’s vigor, even though she uses it to bring herself down. She is able to be so gravely hard on herself. Throughout the novel, Tereza is very critical of herself, her insecurity about her body stands out the most, but she does not doubt her love for Tomas until this passage. Her love for him was always the one thing that she was sure was sincere and true. However now, that one thing that she had left, she takes it too and takes it apart. In this passage she has reached a certain point, “rock bottom” if you will, but truly she has brought this on her herself. In her mind she mind she conjured up an image of this villain that she sees herself as, and she convinced herself that she is culpable for everything.
Tereza comes to a realization that the notion she had about love the whole time is in fact completely false. When she these thoughts go through her head, “If she had really loved Tomas with a great love, she would have stuck it out with him abroad! Tomas had been happy there; a new life was opening for him! And she had left him.” She thought she had all these values, she had considered herself a loving person, who was full of this intense love for someone, but in fact the idea she had about love was not what she was experiences – it was not what she giving. She thinks she has this “magnanimous” quality, yet she there is really nothing noble about her actions towards Tomas – this is again what she comes to realize, or what she makes herself believe. All of this contemplating is a sign of Thereza’s character - she is that “heavy”. She still looks at everything and manages to connect it to her by either some little detail or merely by succumbing to the “self-recrimination” that she cannot let go off.
The significance of this passage lies with two features of it: a certain consistency in the novel due to the fact that her character traits confirm her identity as what Kundera calls a “heavy” person – the weight is slowly pressing her down; but on the other hand a particular inconsistency in Tereza’s character comes to the surface. Under all those vices and character faults that she talks about those that she brings up to make her feel fragile, those also lead her to see that in fact she learned how to use her weaknesses as strengths to get what she wanted. She still is this pathetic character, but she finds power in it. “We all have a tendency to consider strength a culprit and weakness the innocent victim. But now Tereza realize that in her case the opposite was true! Even her dreams, as if aware of the single weakness in a man otherwise strong, made a display of her suffering to him, thereby forcing him to retreat.” At the brink of her life Tereza sees that she indeed accomplished something, even though it was not her intention deliberately.
Word Count: 1 009
Kundera, M. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1984, ISBN 0-571-20083-4
