Motifs of Art and Music in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

In Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, his 1984 book about love and politics in the Czech Republic, Tomas, the main character, views the phrases "Muss es sein?" and "Es muss sien!" (34) ("Must it be?" and "It must be!") from Bach's last quartet as words that describe how he accepts whatever happens to him. Tomas undergoes a major life change as he transitions from a life of promiscuity to having a monogamous and permanent relationship. Leo Tolstoy's main character Anna Karenina in his novel Anna Karenina from the 1870s finds a similar temporary acceptance of her life as a social outcast after viewing art. Anna feels like a social outcast after having an affair with Vronsky, and finds temporary refuge in art. Kundera uses the motif of music in Unbearable to give Tomas's character a fatalistic acceptance of life, and Tolstoy develops Anna's character through art which allows her to temporarily accept her life with Vronsky in Anna Karenina.

The effect that music has on Tomas in Unbearable is clearer than the effect that art has on Anna. As Tomas's character is developed, he progresses from a person who must be in control to a person who has complete acceptance of what must be despite the fact that he is not always in favor of the changes that happen to him. In the beginning of the book, Tomas has complete control over his relationships. "He understood he was not born to live side by side with any woman and could be fully himself only as a bachelor. He tried to design his life in such a way that no woman could move in with a suitcase." (10) Tomas could not bear to let women sleep by him, and he had to drive them home immediately after he had affairs with them. He believed that it was part of his nature and that nothing could change that. When Tereza moves in, however, he begins to have to change his habits. "That is why he was so surprised to wake up and find Tereza squeezing his hand lightly. Lying there looking at her, he could not quite understand what had happened." (14) The introduction of Tereza into Tomas's life brings unthinkable change to him. He was not used to actually sleeping with women, and Tereza brings this change that he will have to learn to accept. With her introduction into Tomas's life, however, also came the introduction of the music that would lead Tomas to the acceptance of "Es muss sein!" "This allusion to Beethoven was actually Tomas's first step back to Tereza, because she was the one who had induced him to buy records of the Beethoven quartets and sonatas." (35) Tereza was a fan of classical music, and she introduces Tomas to the Beethoven piece that had "Es muss sein!" in it. As Tomas's relationship with Tereza progresses, Tereza is constantly bothered by Tomas's affairs. Tomas eventually moves to the country, where there are not many other women with whom he can sleep with. It is the concept of "It must be!" that allows Tomas to accept his life with Tereza. It is interesting, then, that Tereza would introduce Tomas to the music and idea which would allow him to accept her. "Leaving Zurich for Prague a few years earlier, Tomas had quietly said to himself, 'Es muss sein!' He was thinking of his love for Tereza." (207) Tomas at this point late in the book has not only accepted his love and commitment to Tereza, but has acknowledged that it is "Es muss sein!" that "It must be!" and that this motif from Beethoven's famous quartet was the principle that governed his life. His ultimate acknowledgement of this comes in the last part of the book when he moves with Tereza to the country where he can be only with her. While Tomas learns to accept his new life from music, Anna Karenina finds acceptance of her position as a social outcast because of Vronsky though paintings.

Anna leaves her husband to be with Vronsky. Though Anna is at first enthusiastic about her relationship with Vronsky, after a while she regrets being treated as a social outcast. "He was more lovingly respectful to her than ever, and the constant care that she should not feel the awkwardness of her position never deserted him [Vronsky] for a single instant. ... [but] the atmosphere of care with which he surrounded her sometimes weighted upon her." (528). Vronsky does all that he can, and while Anna is perfectly happy to be with him, the awkwardness as her position as a social outcast eventually starts to affect her. Vronsky had taken up painting, but stopped his hobby after their visit to the Mikhailov (the painter). After giving up his hobby, Vronsky and Anna begin to feel an emptiness in their life, and decide to leave Italy to cure this. "But without this occupation, the life of Vronsky and of Anna, who wondered at his loss of interest in it [painting], struck them as intolerably tedious in an Italian town." (543). The artist caused Vronsky to give up art, which exposed a hole in Vronsky's and Anna's relationship. The hole caused them to move back to the country in Russia, where they would be happier, and Anna can escape the social circles that used to disgrace her, and also escape the Italian town. This whole plan for escape comes from their visit to the artist. "Their life was such, it would seem, that nothing better could be desired. They had ample means, good health, a child, occupations of their own." (729) Once Anna and Vronsky move to the country, they become happy, and Anna can accept her life with Vronsky, even though she does not have a divorce yet, because not only do they live a happy life, but one which is secluded from others. Anna is touched by art and uses it to find acceptance of her life in much the similar way that Tomas was.

As we have seen, the motif of the arts, used both in the form of music by Kundera and paintings by Tolstoy, help to develop Anna's and Tomas's characters in a similar way, and both of them learn, though the arts, to accept events in their life with a fatalistic acceptance and not question or protest what happens. In Kundera's book Tomas comes directly into contact with music and realizes what is happening, but Tolstoy in his book Anna has Anna undergo a paradigm shift as an indirect result of seeing some paintings. Both undergo the same process of change, but just in a different way.

Sources:

Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Trans. Michael Heim.

New York: HarperPerennial Olive Editions, 2008.

Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Trans. Constance Garnett, Leonard J. Kent and

Nina Berberova. New York: Random House, Inc., 2000.