Angoisse(s) salacrienne(s). Réappropriation de motifs expressionnistes dans L’Archipel Lenoir et Histoire de rire d’Armand Salacrou

Abstract

Salacrou’s anguish. Reappropriation of some expressionist motifs in L’Archipel Lenoir and Histoire de rire by Armand Salacrou This paper aims to highlight the exploitation of some expressionist motifs in two plays by the French playwright Armand Salacrou (1899-1989), L’Archipel Lenoir and Histoire de rire throughout the painting of a metaphysical anxiety. In those pieces we can see realisation of such expressionist concepts as the war of brains (bataille des cerveaux), irradiation of the author’s I which conditions an antinaturalistic and caricatured expression of anxiety in an axiologically misstructured world. We can also appreciate elaboration of the expressionist motif of psychological murder which is an illustration of empoisoned relations between man and woman who do seek to destruct and moulder each other.