fifteen minutes would be enough to reach supreme self-contempt. (p. 14).Roquentin spends enough time contemplating his own existence that he is able to demonstrate the revelation from self-pity to assumed responsibility. Even at the end of his journals, it seems, he is grappling with his own existence, and with the treatment of history. He looks to have his life become legend, or perhaps, just a piece of fiction. He knows that he can only reflect without abhorrence upon his life, that he can never live without that hatred. “Good God! Is it I who is going to lead this mushroom existence? I pity myself.” (p.173). He can accept himself only in terms of his past. He is in the state of thrownness.For a less introspective (and less negative) spin on the same question of existence, Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being is a crafted piece of more traditional literature that illuminates the struggles of four relationships and four equally intricate individuals. Kundera attempts to highlight the mentality behind each person’s actions, their motivations, their fears, and their historical context (a vital part of Heidegger’s theory on interaction with the world). The principle character, at least in terms of my interest, was Tereza. She is a model of the world of resemblances. She interprets her like in terms of the effects of her mother’s domineering role in her childhood. Life for Tereza is full of symbolism—a certain musical piece that sparks romantic intuition, the pool around which she marches, preparing to die doing knee bends. She lives with Tomas in a mostly dead marriage, she clinging to the last hope that he will eventually cease with his infidelities and devote his love only to her. Conversely, Franz is the child, nave and ignorant, in his relationship with his lover Sabina. I see Sabina as wiser and older. She represents a woman who has come to terms with her being. She is more worldly, more ...
