A vital drama can always be expressed by a metaphor referred to weight. We say that the weight of events falls on the person. The person supports that burden or does not support it, falls under their weight, wins or loses. But what happened to Sabina? Nothing. He had abandoned a man because he wanted to abandon him. Did he chase her? Was he avenged? No. His drama was not the drama of weight, but that of lightness. What had fallen to Sabina was not a burden, but the unbearable lightness of being.
by Milan Kundera
(0 Reviews)

The concept of weight in drama illustrates how individuals bear the burdens of their experiences. Characters face events that can either empower or crush them, often leading to a struggle between endurance and failure. In contrast, Sabina’s situation signifies a departure from this traditional narrative of weight. Instead of grappling with heaviness and consequences, she exists in a realm where her decisions are free from the encumbrance of responsibility or revenge.

In Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," Sabina embodies the theme of lightness, suggesting that her choices are not laden with gravity. Her abandonment of a partner isn't driven by guilt or pursuit but reflects a state of liberation. The absence of emotional weight leads to an existence marked by freedom, yet simultaneously by existential uncertainty. Kundera contrasts this lightness with the conventional weight of existence, highlighting a profound philosophical inquiry into the nature of being.

Stats

Categories
Votes
0
Page views
24
Update
February 23, 2025

Rate the Quote

Add Comment & Review

User Reviews

Based on 0 reviews
5 Star
0
4 Star
0
3 Star
0
2 Star
0
1 Star
0
Add Comment & Review
We'll never share your email with anyone else.
More »

Other quotes in The Unbearable Lightness of Being

More »

Popular quotes

Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.
by Mitch Albom
All our human endeavours are like that, she reflected, and it is only because we are too ignorant to realize it, or are too forgetful to remember it, that we have the confidence to build something that is meant to last.
by Alexander McCall Smith
The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie's age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. {All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.}
by Alexander McCall Smith
In fact, none of us knows how he ever managed to get his LLB in the first place. Maybe they're putting law degrees in cornflakes boxes these days.
by Alexander McCall Smith
Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins.
by Mitch Albom
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
by Mitch Albom
Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes.
by Mitch Albom
we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality-and, in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization.
by Mitch Albom
But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind.
by David Mitchell
Where there's bluster, thinks Luisa, there's duplicity
by David Mitchell