在《小說的藝術》（L’art du roman）一書中，作者昆德拉（Milan Kundera）提到有關促使特麗莎（Tereza）誕生的聯想句如下：肉體、靈魂、暈眩、軟弱、田園詩、天堂。有關托馬斯（Tomas）則是：輕、重。在《生命中不可承受之輕》（L’insoutenable légèreté de l’être）小說文本清晰的二元性大型結構（macro structure）裏，特麗莎的生命敘事是一條重要的線軸，依循她的發展，讀者將有許多線索來探討小說的核弖主題。在呈現特麗莎為不斷成為二元衝突的受害者的敘事過程中，昆德拉將「輕」與「不可承受」聯結，若要了解它所引出的弔詭性意涵，首要了解的，就是所有「輕」的指涉，至於「輕」為何成為「不可承受」，則需要在小說中的上下文中去完成系列探索。在文本結構中，嘲諷論述與人物命運幾乎是一體的兩面，
歷史論述與小說情境弔詭性的安排也是昆德拉以強調方式所要說明的「人的生存處境」（la circonstance existentielle）的議題，那正是小說家想藉由歷史背景來說明的生存的哲學（la philosophie de l’être）。

In L’art du roman, Milan Kundera, the author, mentions the following associations about what leads to the birth of Tereza: body, soul, vertigo, weakness, idyll and paradise. The associations about Tomas are
lightness and heaviness. In L’insoutenable légèreté de l’être, Tereza’s
narrative of life is an important axis in the clearly dualistic macro-structure of the text of the novel. Following her development, the
readers would have many clues to explore the central themes of the novel.
In the narrative process of presenting how Tereza is repeatedly victimized
by dualistic conflicts, Kundera associates “lightness” with “unbearable.”
In order to understand the paradoxical meaning it provokes, we must first
understand all the references to “lightness;” as for why “lightness”
becomes “unbearable,” it is a serial inquiry that must be made within the
context of the novel. In the textual structure, the sarcastic discourses and the characters’ destinies are almost the two sides of the same coin, as the paradoxical arrangements of the historical discourses and the situations in the novel are also explained emphatically by Kundera to shed light on the topic of “la circonstance existentielle”, which is exactly “la philosophie de l’être” the novelist wishes to explicate through the historical background.