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

francis-xavier

is a complex read because of its philosophical themes, many
characters, nonlinear plot, and political setting. Due to Kundera (the author) himself
experiencing some of the 1968 political turmoil, the political setting is actually a bit
incidental and secondary to the main themes.

The political setting can be
broken into two fundamentally opposing groups: those for communism and those against it. The
philosophical themes can also be broken into fundamentally opposing things: heaviness and
lightness.

The novel makes a great case for how difficult it is to determine
whether something falls into the lightness category or the heaviness category. The novel cites
Nietzsche's concept of Eternal Recurrence (the concept that all of history has occurred and will
occur again...

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