secure in her position, she has accepted her thrownness. Unlike Tereza, she does not look to a man to satisfy her need for acceptance. She does not experience the “eternal return” that Nietzsche speaks of in the same, forlorn way. “Living for Sabina meant seeing. Seeing is limited by two borders, strong light, which blinds, and total darkness. Perhaps that was what motivated her distaste for all extremism.” (p. 94)She is irritated by Franz, who seems to me to represent a man who has not viewed his life beyond its surface. He likes music, he doesn’t understand why Sabina doesn’t. He can’t look past his own experiences to reach out to her. She resents him for that. Of all the couples, I think perhaps Sabina and Tomas are the best matched. Despite that I believe him shallow and course, self-motivated and insensitive, she counters him well, and he is vulnerable to her strength. That is why, despite the changes in his life and in hers, he continues to be drawn back to her, eternal return. Throughout everything that we have read this quarter, the issues of self-awareness and historical sensitivity are essential. Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being, probably more successfully than the rest, sheds light on the human aspect of being and its implications. In the stories of Tereza, Tomas, Franz, and Sabina, their own histories, their struggles with purpose and meaning, and the plight of their thrownness create a compelling and emotionally engaging novel that resemble the insecurities and consciousness of our own lives. Heidegger states that time only reminds men of how insignificant they are, how endless the universe is, and how all they can really do is seek to accept themselves on their own terms in anticipation of death, to wonder at the meaning of it all. Kierkegaard and Miller address the loathing of the impasse that threatens their lives as a result of historicism (and the absence of God)....
