The Unbearable Lightness Of Being Tereza Character Analysis

In Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Tereza’s life experiences – such as her childhood – ultimately shape her into a heavy character. Her childhood memories of her mother can be considered the beginning of Tereza’s negative relationship in regards to the body. As the novel continues Tereza’s relationship with the image of bodies begins to evolve and shift. First her mother was the main person in her life that was causing this negative relationship, but it then shifts to her husband Tomas. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the body – specifically the naked body – is crucial to Tereza’s characterization throughout the novel because it highlights the fears and hopes about individuality and vulnerability that she has throughout her life.
Tereza’s first experiences as a child with the image of the body result in her fears regarding it. As a child she lived in a household that was filled with the image of nakedness because of her mother’s lack of modesty and shame about the human body. In Tereza’s home “there was no such thing as shame. Her mother marched about the flat in her underwear, sometimes braless and sometimes, on summer days, stark naked. Her stepfather did not walk about
As a result of her traumatizing childhood experiences the idea of shame and humiliation being associated with the human body is ingrained in her mind. This causes Tereza to find search for her own self in order to be unlike other bodies. While on this search she is further reminded of her mother because of her husband’s unfaithful actions. Individuality is Tereza’s goal; she desires to be her own body with a visible soul. Tomas made her feel like an individual at the beginning of the relationship, but he then essentially “[sends] her back into the world that she [tries] to escape”