The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tomáš and Tereza are now living in the countryside and working on a collective farm. Their village is relatively peaceful, if dull. No one there is of any interest to the secret police, and Tomáš and Tereza are unique because they have moved from the city to a rural area. Most of the local inhabitants wish to leave. Tomáš and Tereza are relatively happy there. Karenin is the happiest of all, although the dog is aging and Tomáš finds a cancerous growth on her leg.

The narrator recalls that according to Genesis, God gave man dominion over all other creatures. The narrator thinks it more likely that man created God to justify the dominion that “he had usurped” (286). Tereza and Tomáš, employed now on the collective farm, have to learn new patterns of existence. Tereza spends her days with the cows, feeling a love for them that is out of place in the countryside. When one of her neighbors notices Karenin’s limp, Tereza explains that her dog has cancer and bursts into tears. The woman is shocked and tells Tereza not to cry over a dog. Tereza realizes that in the country, people must reserve their sympathy and act as though they have dominion over nature: Were they to cry real tears over every animal killed, they would never eat and would have no livelihood.