In the novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," how is the historical and political setting relevant to its themes of lightness and heaviness?

In "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," the themes of lightness and heaviness play out on multiple levels throughout the story. Much of the story takes place in Prague just after the Russian invasion. The characters Tomas, Tereza, and Sabina move to Switzerland to escape the invasion, but Sabina eventually returns to her home in Czechoslovakia. These shifting settings serve to echo the novel's themes of lightness and heaviness as its characters continually move from one...

In "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," the themes of lightness and heaviness play out on multiple levels throughout the story. Much of the story takes place in Prague just after the Russian invasion. The characters Tomas, Tereza, and Sabina move to Switzerland to escape the invasion, but Sabina eventually returns to her home in Czechoslovakia. These shifting settings serve to echo the novel's themes of lightness and heaviness as its characters continually move from one place to another to pursue the lightness of their dreams and escape the heaviness of outside oppression.

The changing setting also helps to demonstrate Tomas' gradual transformation from moral lightness to heaviness. In the middle of the novel, he follows Sabina to Czechoslovakia and continues his pattern of infidelity by chasing other women. As the novel continues, he begins to shift to moral heaviness and realizes that his love for Tereza is keeping him tethered. There is irony in the fact that Tomas leaves his light or flaky lifestyle behind to pursue a heavy love with Tereza, only to settle down with her on a communal farm, a setting which would be associated with lighter moral values to the outside world.