Quiz 3 Marithe Malagon

1 In this section, we meet Franz, another lover of Sabina. Using quotes, describe Franz.
Franz is the married lover of Sabina. One who worships fidelity and loves music, pretty much opposite of Sabina.

2 Where does Franz want to take Sabina?
He wants to take Sabina to Palermo for ten days but this makes Sabina a bit sad since “He had grown so accustomed to linking their love life to foreign travel”. She had a discussion with Franz about which place was better Geneva; her home town, or Palermo and she related it with her studio which “always has new and different pictures” rather than the “same hotels and cars”.

3 What does Sabina place on her head?
Sabina places her grandfather hat on her head. When she does this to Sabina it signified something in her past, something important to her but Franz took the hat off shortly “as though he were erasing the moustache a naughty child had drawn on a picture of the Virgin Mary.” This act highlights the theme of this section of the book, where Milan Kundera describes to us how it is that each character interprets a symbol or word in a totally different form.

4 Describe the first time she wears the lat. Who was she with?
It happened one night after they had slept together, Sabina had an “interrogative” look and got hold of the hat and as she was doing this Franz approached her way toward the mirror. When they were both there in front of the mirror she observed the image reflected on it and saw, “a woman in her undergarments, a beautiful, distant, indifferent woman with a terribly out-of-placce bowler hat on her head, holding the hand of a man in a grey suit and tie.” Franz did not understand Sabinas attitude at that moment so he instead “covered her with tender kisses and asked her one more time to go with him to Palermo.”

5 What does the hat represent?
The hat represents Sabinas personality or character, especially her tendency to betray and her erotic self. When Franz takes it off it acts as a symbol to Sabina that Franz is to her a burden or weight in her light self.

6 Who did the hat originally belong to?
The hat once belonged to her grandfather.

7 What does the hat symbolise?
Refer to question 5
8 Describe the misunderstood words that Franz and Sabina share.

a WOMAN
For Sabina a woman is only the other sex apart from male and being a woman is not as important to her as it is to Franz, who on the contrary to Sabina considers a lot of importance in the word “woman” since to him it is a reflexion of his mother.

B FIDELITY AND BETRAYAL
Fidelity to Franz is very important, he considers that his greates fidelity in life to be the love for his mother, and he hates betrayal so much and praises fidelity so that he is forced to travel with Sabina so not to diminish his wife by having sex with another woman, on the same day or the same town. Sabina on the other hand is attracted to Betrayal, who since her childhood and fidelity simply “reminded her of her father”.

C MUSIC
To Sabina music was nothing more than noise, she unified noise or music with youth summer camps, while Franz loved music and dancing, he sees music as an escapism of words a more sensible manner for communicating.

D LIGHTNESS AND DARKNESS
Sabina relates living with lightness, she feels that if you can’t see then you aren’t really appreciating but Franz feels quite the opposite about lightness and darkness. He thinks that closing his eyes and being in darkness approximates him to infinity and to realization. That is the reason for which he closes his eyes while making love with Sabina.

E THE BEAUTY OF NEW YORK
To Sabina the beauty of New York is like her paintings, accidental, like when she thought she ruined a painting with red paint splattered over it but she then realizes the beauty of the unknown, of something red and messy hidden under a perfectly balances painting. Franz doesn’t see the beauty of this city but rather feels homesick constantly.

F SABINA`S COUNTRY
For Sabina her town is nothing close to romantic, she sees it as plain but Franz feels quite the opposite of this, he encounters it to be full of beauty and drama.

G CEMETERY
Franz views cemeteries to be “ugly dump of stones and bones”. While Sabina thinks that is a place where people can think and have silence.