Lightness and Weight, Eternal Return
See "What's Up with the Title?" for a full discussion of weight, unbearable lightness, Nietzsche, eternal return, Parmenides, "Einmal ist keinmal." You can also check out "Characters" for details o...
Es Muss Sein, Beethoven, and Fortuity
Es muss sein is an important concept in Unbearable Lightness, so you should make sure you're comfortable with it. The phrase is German and translates to, "It must be." Kundera tells you about the o...
The Bowler Hat
Fortunately for us, the narrator of Unbearable Lightness likes to analyze his own novel. He tells us what the bowler hat signifies over the course of several philosophy-heavy pages. We'll give you...
Music, Motifs, and Beauty
Kundera uses the metaphor of a music composition to describe an individual's life. To go through life is to slowly compose our own music. And, like any good composition, the music of our lives cont...
Kitsch
Kitsch gets a lot of attention in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, so you should make sure you understand the basic concept. Kitsch is a German word that's been adopted by a number of other langu...
The Grand March of History
See Franz's "Character Analysis" for a discussion of the Grand March.