Inferno by August Strindberg

First published: 1897 (English translation, 1912)

Type of work: Autobiographical expressionism

Time of work: 1894-1897

Locale: Paris, Germany, and Sweden

Principal Characters:

• The Narrator, Strindberg’s alter ego
• His Wife, who carries on a love-hate correspondence with him
• Christine, his daughter, who inspires him
• His Mother-in-Law, who comforts him

The Novel

In Inferno, the psychologically disturbed narrator sets forth on a journey through an earthly hell and emerges purified of his sins. Leaving his wife and child liberates him but also fills him with guilt. Living alone in Paris, he rejects love in order to pursue knowledge and with the aid of signs and portents discovers carbon in the element sulfur. At the same time, the narrator, believing that his life is being controlled by an unknown power, withdraws from the world of loose living, only to be whipped by prostitutes and harassed by ruffians, who punish him for his sins. When his scientific experiments leave his hands bleeding and incapacitated, he enters the St. Louis Hospital, where he is surrounded by decay, disease, and death. Once there, however, his relationship with a motherly nun revives him and teaches him to bear his sufferings.

Although he receives financial aid for a time, his suffering increases. After dabbling in black magic by trying to cast a spell on his child, he finds himself plagued by three Scandinavian women playing three separate pianos in the rooms next to him. Fleeing to the Hotel Orfila, the narrator continues his grandiose experiments, trying to produce gold from lead. Incidents which he perceives as strange omens continue to plague him, as he discovers a man who looks like his wife, letters displaying his wife’s maiden name, and an envelope addressed to a Dr. Bitter.

Undergoing a series of mystical experiences, the narrator sees his life as a purgatory in which he is threatened by his enemy Popoffsky, betrayed by his friend the Danish painter, and persecuted by the Devil, who turns over his glass, flicks soot on him, and leaves him in a world of excrement and filth. Doubting the efficacy of his scientific experiments and choked by noxious gases, he opens his window and sees the North Star beckoning him northward.

Fleeing from one location to another only increases his torments. He feels electric shocks running through his body, sees infernal machines being built above his room, and prepares himself for death by reading Psalms. Even in the wholesome atmosphere of his friend’s family at Dieppe, the demoniac spirits continue to persecute him. Seeking refuge with a doctor increases the intensity of his sufferings and leaves him convinced that he is living in Hell. Only when visiting his daughter and mother-in-law does he find temporary consolation, although he continues to look out on a world filled with disease and evil. Eventually, he feels vultures trying to tear out his heart and he vainly cries out to God.

Finally, he settles in Sweden, believing that his torments have purified him. Embracing Roman Catholicism and Swedenborgian mysticism, he accepts a life of repentance and seeks refuge in a Belgian monastery. In the end, he holds up his life as a warning to those who think that they can shape their own destiny in an earthly hell which is controlled by an “Invisible Hand.”

The Characters

In Inferno, the narrator is the only complex character. All the others are projected to the reader through his ego. On one level, he is a disturbed individual trying to maintain his sanity by seeking both rational and irrational answers for his sufferings. On another level, he becomes an archetypal scapegoat thrust into a cosmic drama. At first, he sets himself up as a Promethean rebel who is condemned to eternal punishment for revealing the secrets of the universe. Later, he envisions himself as Job, the innocent victim whom God has turned over to Satan in order to show the wicked that a just man must endure his suffering. Like Job, the narrator suffers from skin ulcers, endures poverty, is rejected by friends, and is surrounded by excrement. Also, he questions God but never receives a satisfactory answer to the meaning of human suffering. Then the narrator assumes the role of a mock Christ figure, suffering the stigmata of bleeding hands and bearing on his shoulders the sorrows of the world. Finally, the scapegoat hero becomes God’s fool—a laughingstock to teach humanity the vanity of worldly ambitions.

On his path through the inferno, the narrator encounters several false friends: Popoffsky, a former compatriot who now wants to murder him; a Danish painter who double-crosses him; a mysterious friend who wants him tried for witchcraft; a doctor who becomes his tormentor. All human relationships deteriorate, and the narrator must face his agonies alone. Women also play an important role in the narrator’s enlightenment. He often sees women as temptresses and defilers of his purity. Sensual women, such as prostitutes, constantly abuse him. Feminists are seen as maenads trying to ruin him and tear him to pieces. Only the mother figure offers him consolation. The nun in the St. Louis Hospital, his mother-in-law, and her sister show him love and teach him to bear his sufferings. His daughter, Christine, the pure virgin, becomes his Beatrice and directs him on the path to a higher love. Finally, it is the Virgin Mary, embodying both the qualities of purity and maternity, who becomes his protectress. Her presence recurs throughout the novel, as she is raised to the status of a goddess, more powerful even than the crucified Christ.

Critical Context

Inferno documents Strindberg’s mental breakdowns and emotional crises from 1894 to 1897. The narrator’s chemical experiments, the places where he stayed in Paris, and the people he mentions can all be traced back to Strindberg’s experiences. Yet documentation shows that Inferno is not an accurate autobiography. Events in Strindberg’s life have been rearranged to construct an almost poetic novel which treats more than a single individual’s bout with mental illness.

Inferno was a watershed work for Strindberg, for in it, he came to terms with his crisis of faith and emerged with a new vision, an expressionistic vision which sounded the death knell of literary naturalism. In Inferno, one can see the nascent development of expressionism in the outcast hero, the nameless characters, the solipsistic universe, the pilgrimage motif, the macabre images, the dreamlike episodes, the infernal machines, and the apocalyptic visions. After Inferno, Strindberg would create his dramatic masterpieces, such as Ett dromspel (1902; A Dream Play, 1912) and the three-part Till Damaskus (1898-1904; To Damascus, 1913), refining these expressionistic techniques and ultimately influencing the development of German expressionism as well as of modern absurdism.

Bibliography

Brandell, Gunnar. Strindberg in “Inferno,” 1974.

Johannesson, Eric. The Novels of August Strindberg, 1968.

Lagercrantz, Olof. August Strindberg, 1984.

Lamm, Martin. August Strindberg, 1971.

Meyer, Michael. Strindberg: A Biography, 1985.