Att ha Guds rike på jorden : Kroppen, själen, lätthet och tyngd i Varats olidliga lätthet

Sammanfattning

Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) is a novel characterized by its reflections on human existence through philosophical themes and ideas such as the eternal return, presented by Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus spoke Zarathustra (1883), as well as through binary oppositions like lightness/weight, strength/weakness and body/soul. This thesis contemplates on these ideas through an analysis of two of the novels’ main characters, Tomas and Tereza, by breaking down their individual existential dilemmas and reflecting upon them with the help of an assortment of works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, E.M. Cioran and Milan Kundera himself. The central points of entry into these dilemmas being the relationship the characters have with their bodies and souls and how these relate to their desire for lightness and/or weight. The text also discusses the notion of God in relation to Nietzsche’s statement that “God is dead”, a death supposedly caused by His compassion for man, and how this idea of compassion as a killing thing is prevalent also in the novel. Furthermore, the text analyzes freedom and responsibility, how these themes are expressed through the characters and how they can be understood through existential and theological lenses.