« L’immeuble que nous sommes » : la réfraction de l’espace dans le Journal de confinement de Wajdi Mouawad

Abstract

This study focuses on the Journal du confinement, monologues that the French-speaking Lebanese writer, Wajdi Mouawad, published online when the pandemic interrupted his theatrical activity. The article analyzes the relationship to space maintained by some of the monologues, centred specifically on the dimension of the human residence, and on the dialogue between interior and exterior, between the self and the universe perceived in the spatio-temporal perspective. Through the Bachelardian teaching, we identify the function of the most meaningful spaces in the work, by considering, through the lexical choices, the echo-effects, the recurrence of places, themes or patterns, the semantic values that the author attributes to them, to determine the way in which confinement has modified the author's relationship with his own space and the means he has found to get out of the “cage.”