Sabina And Franz's The Unbearable Lightness Of Being

The dictionary in The Unbearable Lightness of being is a series of words that are misunderstood by two characters Sabina and Franz. In the beginning of Kundera’s novel, he states, "If I were to make a record of all of Sabina and Franz ' conversations, I could compile a long lexicon of their misunderstandings. Let us be content, instead, with a short dictionary" (Kundera, 89) Because the author’s characters were so complex, to give specific detail and reason for each of their several personal beliefs and philosophies would double the book in length. Instead, he creates several short dictionaries of words that are misunderstood between Franz and Sabina. The words however are not to highlight how they do not understand the words, but how they understand them

The two characters are in a relationship with each other however, Franz is married to another woman and Sabina is the mistress to Tomas. The narrator describes Franz’s relationship with Sabina like “[Franz] nourished the cult of Sabina more as a religion than as love” (Kundera, 126) Kundera describes how Franz is more in love with the idea of Sabina than Sabina herself. This contrasts with his respect he proved to her by calling her a woman.

The author draws characters that launch the ideas of the novel however then begins to reveal enough information about the characters so that the reader begins to care for them. While at the same time, gaining a better understanding of the philosophies presented. Through these words presented in the dictionary of misunderstood words, the authors tells the reader more about the characters of Franz and Sabina. The words not only show how they interpret