Weightless Sabina and Her Betrayals

The narrator's discussion of recurrence and lightness versus weight in the beginning implies Kundera's opinion about the main dichotomy of the novel. To him, Nietzsche's concept of eternal return is false because he believes that life occurs only once, which makes it light. Parmenides considered lightness positive and weight negative, which Kundera again challenges. Instead of viewing lightness as a sweet thing, he deems it unbearable. Eternal return and weight may be nerve-racking, but they give meaning to our lives. On the other hand, lightness is only sweet for a short amount of time. For example, we love to skip school and kill time, but soon enough there comes a time when you yearn for a meaningful life. Most of us want our lives to be valuable and significant. In fact, Kundera's thoughts are demonstrated right in the title: Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Sabina, the lightest character, is an evidence of the emptiness of living a light life. Her betrayals are sweet for some time, but after she betrays Franz (and love) by leaving him from Geneva, she realizes that her betrayals will sooner or later come to an end and that she does not have a clear goal for doing what she does. Also, she fears being buried in a grave as she feels no clear attachment to any land/country and dreads the prospect of being covered by weight. Her lightness has made her move constantly, and one can even argue that she has betrayed her own country.

"Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being." (122)

"The goals we pursue are always veiled."

"Sabina was unaware of the goals that lay behind her longing to betray. The unbearable lightness of being—was that the goal? Her departure from Geneva brought her considerably closer to it."