The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Comparison

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being: A Comparison Of The Novel And The Movie. Essay, Research Paper The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Comparison of the Novel and the Movie. The Novel and the movie differ in how they emphasize events that occur. Things that hold great value in the novel don?t have much importance in the movie and vice versa. Milan Kundera wrote the novel, which was first published in 1984. The movie was the work of Philip Kaufman, the director, and Saul Zaentz, the producer. Together they did a very respectable job in representing the novel. The novel focused on three relationships that tell an interlocking story. The relationships are Tereza and Tomas, Tomas and Sabina, as well as Sabina and Franz. The main focus is Tomas. He is a man torn between his love

for Tereza, his wife, and his repeated ?erotic adventures?, particularly his long time affair with the internationally noted artist Sabina. In the novel, irrevocable choices and events that test the limits of human fortitude shape the characters lives. Because life is as it is, the world in which we live and the world in which the characters live is one in which, because things can only occur once and then disappear in the past, existence seems to lose substance and weight. Thus drawing the title into play. In coping with the consequences of both their actions and desires, as well as the intruding demands of society and the state. The characters struggle to create lives that have individual value and lasting meaning. At the beginning of the novel Kundrea asks, ?what then shall we

choose? Weigh or lightness?? The novel itself is his attempt to answer that question. The answer is hinted at in the final scene of the novel. Where Tomas and Tereza find themselves in the small country hotel after their evening of dancing, which was a rare event for them. When Tomas turns on the lamp in their room ?a large nocturnal butterfly? rises from the lamp and circles the room in which they are alone. Thus the room contains only the two of them, their happiness and their sadness. Sabina also adds another portion to the answer. ?Sabina felt emptiness all around here. What if that emptiness was the goal of all her betrayals?? ?Naturally she had not realized it until now. How could she have? The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for

something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us. Sabina was unaware of the goal that lay behind her longing to betray. The unbearable lightness of being?was that the goal?? Kundrea wrote this on page 122. It reveals something of what the unbearable lightness of being is, perhaps a weigh more than any sort of lightness. In the movie Tomas is the one providing answers to us in regards to the question of lightness and weight. His decision to give up liberty for love. He begins the movie as a highly respected brain surgeon, with a freewheeling lifestyle. At the beginning of the movie he tells a young nurse. ?Take off your clothes? which she does. He uses his job

as a doctor as a way to ?get his foot in the door? when it comes to women. After all don?t you trust your physician when he or she asks you to remove your clothes for an examination? Tomas is called to a small spa town to perform an operation, there he meets Tereza. She has Anna Karenina tucked under her arm. Attracted to her by her naivete, Tomas falls in love with her, marries her, and then is forever torn between his womanizing and his wife. He continues his affair with Sabina in Prague, she is a kindred spirit who meanwhile develops a sexually ambiguous relationship with Tereza. It becomes a tangled emotional landscape with messy beds and broken hearts. It is viewed through a carefully selected group of choreographed, comic, kinky and even elegant nude scenes. Sabina is