Laura Petrella, The unbearable lightness of being: the antinomy between soul and body as pedagogical experience

In Milan Kundera’s Unbearable lightness of being, the author shows how the coexistence of spirituality and carnality in each individual can be considered as a formative value. Kundera’s novel points out the effort which every human being must afford in order to overcome the antinomy between body and soul. The main female characters, Tereza and Sabina, are constantly hold in check by the experiences generated by this inner conflict. They learn, thanks to the resulting loss of control, to interpret human existence through its various facets. This is a unique opportunity, from Kundera’s point of view, to increase self-awareness and self-being-into-the-world with and thanks to the other, who appears here as phenomenological category.