The topology of the attic in the dramaturgy of H. Ibsen, F. Wedekind, and M. Sebastian

Abstract

An important topos of the imaginary and, implicitly, of literature, the attic of the house is a symbol within the major coordinate of space which, through its functional meanings, consciously or unconsciously guides the actions of characters. In order to approach the attic as a domestic space, we have drawn on the theoretical insights concerning interior space developed by Abraham Moles and Élisabeth A. Rohmer (1972), and especially on those offered by Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space (1957/1963). Comparing the functions of the house built on the ground with those of the dwelling in an apartment block, Bachelard (1963, p. 26) proposes, for the drama of the “superimposed boxes,” the solution of reverie, more precisely “the metaphors of the ocean” (p. 28), a resolution that proves valid in a considerable number of literary works. It appears in Frank Wedekind’s Pandora’s Box (1904/1918), where the action of the final act takes place in the attic of an unconverted apartment building; through the two large windows, through which the sky should have been visible, the incessant drumming of rain penetrates, covering the city’s din and isolating the heroes who, each within his or her own interior space, are free to dream. In Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck (1884/1900), the attic acquires a particular significance: it is an attic-forest that points toward the Bachelardian hut-house, where one feels removed from urban concerns and the bustle of the city, and where, within the realm of absolute imagination, human beings can remain young for a long time. Similarly, Mihail Sebastian’s Insula [The Island] (1947/1956) perfectly illustrates this type of reverie; a representative episode is the aspirin-induced intoxication of the three protagonists who live in a garret, on which occasion they imagine the ocean and an island, accompanied by a series of auditory elements that frame their reverie.

In the plays under analysis, the attic or garret represents rationality; it is the space in which the characters become aware of the true reality in which they live and, moreover, accept it while seeking solutions to overcome the impasses they face. It is the place where time is abolished and escapism becomes, for all of them, a therapy of the soul.