Paris as a Site of Confinement in August Strindberg’s Inferno
Abstract
August Strindberg’s Inferno, pivotal work in the author’s production, narrates the mental and existential crisis of its protagonist, A. S., supposedly the author’s alter ego. Most of the narrative is set in Paris, in the streets and cafés of the city, in hotel rooms, a hospital dormitory, and the laboratories of the Sorbonne. In the experience of the protagonist, these spaces are perceived as oppressive and ultimately punitive, authentic places of confinement.
In this contribution, I contend that Paris in its entirety (not only the abovementioned spaces) turns out to be a fragmented and multiform reality that, at the same time, is experienced as chaotic and suffocating. In his depiction of Paris at the end of the 19th century, Strindberg, drawing on Baudelaire’s poems, observes and describes the city as a nightmarish place.
Strindberg’s Paris, therefore, functions as a surreal scenario for the individual crisis of the protagonist. Moreover, the city turns out to be a mythical space, charged with a strong symbolic significance. Finally, as the prototype of the modern metropolis, it is the ideal target of Strindberg’s polemic against any optimistic idea of progress.
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