So I left my passover table to post this...that's dedication.
My question is, who truly has the power in the relationship between Tereza and Tomas? Tereza chooses that they will live together and also chooses when to end the relationship (or at least take a break for a while when she leaves). But Tomas "had complete control over her sleep: she dozed off at the second he chose" (14). He also does, on the surface, seem to have control over their relationship. Then again, when Tereza leaves, Tomas experiences the "realization that he was utterly powerless" (29). So who holds the power?
My question is really similar to Stacy's: Between Tomas and Tereza, who is more powerful? I would also ask: Is it Tomas who has power over women (seducing them, manipulating them, etc) or is it women who have power over him (such as Sabina, when she meets him wearing the bowler hat)?
Kind of on a different note: So far in the novel, does it seem like things stay status quo, or no?
And I sort of have an answer to my own question: Yes to status quo, because I feel like there's a balance to what is going on. Tomas first sleeps around with his mistresses, then marries Tereza because he feels pity (and also continues to sleep with other women), then Tereza leaves. After her departure, Tomas feels that "his step was much lighter." So even though Tereza was a big part of Tomas' life, he continues his relationships with other women. He returns back to his old ways.
Also I feel like there's a status quo at this point in the novel because the narrator addresses opposites. Mainly lightness/weight. The narrator has strong evidence that both may be good, and both may be bad, so there is a balance.
My question is about the last page of chapter 26 (pg. 73), and Tereza’s idea of weakness. Tereza describes Dubcek’s weakness, and how everyone in the country hates him because of it. However, as Tereza too begins to feel powerlessness, she seems to sympathize with Dubcek’s weakness. Tereza realizes that “She belonged among the weak…in the country of the weak” (73). Tereza also puts weakness and strength in perspective, saying, “Any man confronted with superior strength is weak” (73). Tereza ends the chapter wishing for Tomas to be as weak as she feels.
I have a lot of questions about the idea of power and weakness in this chapter, but here are just a few. First of all, if weak is relative, then how can we define strength and weakness? How do we know who has power? Secondly, is Tereza talking about internal weakness, or physical weakness? I assumed she was talking about feeling powerless, not being physically weak, but then she mentions Dubcek’s “athletic body”. Also, what are we supposed to make of the fact that, instead of wanting to be strong herself, she wants Tomas to be weak?
Hi! Katie, I wish I could answer your question in response to the passage, but I only read up to Chapter 23 (that was what it said on the assignment sheet--if that's wrong, I'm sorry I can't help, Katie).
I have two questions/passages. One is more a question, and the other is more a passage (if that makes any sense...):
"She had come to him to escape her mother's world, a world where all bodies were equal. She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceable. But he, too, had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them" (58).
This is a good summary of what we've just spent a long time reading. At this point, I'm betting most of us are sympathizing with Tereza; all she wants to do is undermine the status quo (right?) set in place by her mother and her class. She wants to have class--not necessarily money, but education and "something higher." Her mother, however, has never let her break out of this viscious cycle--she herself once had higher aspirations than her current life, and she is "in a state of permanent jealousy" because of her husband's actions. Is this passage supposed to show Kundera's support of Tereza for trying to break from the status quo? Is she ultimately going to win or fail?
"Tereza felt her body going weak; she was suddenly tongue-tied. Sabina, meanwhile, strode back and forth, wine in hand, going on about her grandfather, who'd been the mayor of a small town; Sabina had never known him; all he'd left behind was this bowler hat and a picture showing a raised platform with several small-town dignitaries on it; one of them was Grandfather" (65).
So, we've already seen that Sabina clearly has the power in this situation (and soon after, she even commands Tereza to strip in the way Tomas does), but is this story about Sabina's grandfather supposed to be connecting her to political power--Grandfather stood on a platform as a political official, and Sabina has sex with/controls men on her platform bed--? If this is even connected to a political statement at all, what is it trying to say? Is it a statement in general about capitalism, or one about the role of mistresses like Sabina? I'm not quite sure.
One of the most obvious quotations in this reading (to me) that relates to power struggle comes when Marie-Claude calls Sabina's pendant ugly on page 108. Kundera writes: "Marie-Claude had taken advantage of the occasion to make clear to Sabina (and others) what the real balance of power was between the two of them."
Since Franz, an eminent professor, is Marie-Claude's husband, and Sabina is only a painter, this would imply that Franz (through some weird transitive property) also holds the power in his relationship with Sabina. But Sabina's ability to leave him and his imagining her as an "invisible goddess" after, however, proves that she ultimately yields more power in their relationship. Franz has followed the career path and lifestyle expected of him, while Sabina attempts to part with the status quo: "She would not keep ranks! She refused to keep ranks!" (pg 98) - she is independent. Franz has a "weakness for revolution," (pg 103) (which in itself seems to be an oxymoron), for Sabina. But even if it is clear who has the power, (and it isn't always), who ultimately succeeds? In the end of the section, Sabina experiences the "unbearable lightness of being" in the graveyard, and Franz keeps imagining Sabina; neither seems fulfilled. Do power and success come together? It's depressing.
early on in the third reading, Tereza struggles with the word "weak":
"The very weakness that at the time had seemed unbearable and repulsive, the weakness that had driven Tereza and Tomas from the country, suddenly attracted her. She realized that she belonged among the weak... and that she had to be faithful to them precisely because they were weak and gasped for breath in the middle of sentences" (73).
My question is two parts: to whom exactly is Tereza referring (Why are they grouped together? What is their identity?), and why does she believe she is a part of their group?
8 comments:
So I left my passover table to post this...that's dedication.
My question is, who truly has the power in the relationship between Tereza and Tomas? Tereza chooses that they will live together and also chooses when to end the relationship (or at least take a break for a while when she leaves). But Tomas "had complete control over her sleep: she dozed off at the second he chose" (14). He also does, on the surface, seem to have control over their relationship. Then again, when Tereza leaves, Tomas experiences the "realization that he was utterly powerless" (29). So who holds the power?
My question is really similar to Stacy's: Between Tomas and Tereza, who is more powerful? I would also ask: Is it Tomas who has power over women (seducing them, manipulating them, etc) or is it women who have power over him (such as Sabina, when she meets him wearing the bowler hat)?
Kind of on a different note: So far in the novel, does it seem like things stay status quo, or no?
And I sort of have an answer to my own question: Yes to status quo, because I feel like there's a balance to what is going on. Tomas first sleeps around with his mistresses, then marries Tereza because he feels pity (and also continues to sleep with other women), then Tereza leaves. After her departure, Tomas feels that "his step was much lighter." So even though Tereza was a big part of Tomas' life, he continues his relationships with other women. He returns back to his old ways.
Also I feel like there's a status quo at this point in the novel because the narrator addresses opposites. Mainly lightness/weight. The narrator has strong evidence that both may be good, and both may be bad, so there is a balance.
My question is about the last page of chapter 26 (pg. 73), and Tereza’s idea of weakness. Tereza describes Dubcek’s weakness, and how everyone in the country hates him because of it. However, as Tereza too begins to feel powerlessness, she seems to sympathize with Dubcek’s weakness. Tereza realizes that “She belonged among the weak…in the country of the weak” (73). Tereza also puts weakness and strength in perspective, saying, “Any man confronted with superior strength is weak” (73). Tereza ends the chapter wishing for Tomas to be as weak as she feels.
I have a lot of questions about the idea of power and weakness in this chapter, but here are just a few. First of all, if weak is relative, then how can we define strength and weakness? How do we know who has power? Secondly, is Tereza talking about internal weakness, or physical weakness? I assumed she was talking about feeling powerless, not being physically weak, but then she mentions Dubcek’s “athletic body”. Also, what are we supposed to make of the fact that, instead of wanting to be strong herself, she wants Tomas to be weak?
Hi! Katie, I wish I could answer your question in response to the passage, but I only read up to Chapter 23 (that was what it said on the assignment sheet--if that's wrong, I'm sorry I can't help, Katie).
I have two questions/passages. One is more a question, and the other is more a passage (if that makes any sense...):
"She had come to him to escape her mother's world, a world where all bodies were equal. She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceable. But he, too, had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them" (58).
This is a good summary of what we've just spent a long time reading. At this point, I'm betting most of us are sympathizing with Tereza; all she wants to do is undermine the status quo (right?) set in place by her mother and her class. She wants to have class--not necessarily money, but education and "something higher." Her mother, however, has never let her break out of this viscious cycle--she herself once had higher aspirations than her current life, and she is "in a state of permanent jealousy" because of her husband's actions. Is this passage supposed to show Kundera's support of Tereza for trying to break from the status quo? Is she ultimately going to win or fail?
"Tereza felt her body going weak; she was suddenly tongue-tied. Sabina, meanwhile, strode back and forth, wine in hand, going on about her grandfather, who'd been the mayor of a small town; Sabina had never known him; all he'd left behind was this bowler hat and a picture showing a raised platform with several small-town dignitaries on it; one of them was Grandfather" (65).
So, we've already seen that Sabina clearly has the power in this situation (and soon after, she even commands Tereza to strip in the way Tomas does), but is this story about Sabina's grandfather supposed to be connecting her to political power--Grandfather stood on a platform as a political official, and Sabina has sex with/controls men on her platform bed--? If this is even connected to a political statement at all, what is it trying to say? Is it a statement in general about capitalism, or one about the role of mistresses like Sabina? I'm not quite sure.
One of the most obvious quotations in this reading (to me) that relates to power struggle comes when Marie-Claude calls Sabina's pendant ugly on page 108. Kundera writes:
"Marie-Claude had taken advantage of the occasion to make clear to Sabina (and others) what the real balance of power was between the two of them."
Since Franz, an eminent professor, is Marie-Claude's husband, and Sabina is only a painter, this would imply that Franz (through some weird transitive property) also holds the power in his relationship with Sabina. But Sabina's ability to leave him and his imagining her as an "invisible goddess" after, however, proves that she ultimately yields more power in their relationship. Franz has followed the career path and lifestyle expected of him, while Sabina attempts to part with the status quo: "She would not keep ranks! She refused to keep ranks!" (pg 98) - she is independent. Franz has a "weakness for revolution," (pg 103) (which in itself seems to be an oxymoron), for Sabina. But even if it is clear who has the power, (and it isn't always), who ultimately succeeds? In the end of the section, Sabina experiences the "unbearable lightness of being" in the graveyard, and Franz keeps imagining Sabina; neither seems fulfilled. Do power and success come together? It's depressing.
early on in the third reading, Tereza struggles with the word "weak":
"The very weakness that at the time had seemed unbearable and repulsive, the weakness that had driven Tereza and Tomas from the country, suddenly attracted her. She realized that she belonged among the weak... and that she had to be faithful to them precisely because they were weak and gasped for breath in the middle of sentences" (73).
My question is two parts: to whom exactly is Tereza referring (Why are they grouped together? What is their identity?), and why does she believe she is a part of their group?
Who actually IS powerful in Tereza's eyes?
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