Study Guide

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Part 4, Chapter 17

By Milan Kundera

Part 4, Chapter 17

The engineer starts unbuttoning her blouse.
He wants her to take part in the foreplay, but she remains passive; she doesn't want to take any responsibility for what happens.
Her soul remains neutral with regards to what happens to her body.
And yet she becomes incredibly aroused, all the more because she is becoming aroused against her will.
By the time she is naked in his arms, Tereza's soul sees her body, for the first time, not as something banal but as something fascinating.
As they begin to have sex, Tereza is filled with hatred.
She doesn't want to let her body take pleasure in a stranger's embrace, and yet her body is taking pleasure in it.
At the moment when she has an orgasm, she spits in his face.

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