Les deux confessions dans les dernières pièces de Bernard-Marie Koltès

Abstract

Two Kind of Confessions in Bernard-Marie Koltès Last Plays
We can find two kinds of confession in Bernard-Marie Koltès’s last plays (1977-1988). We have defined the first one as the confession-labyrinth because the characters use it to hide their intentions and to puzzle their interlocutors. Through this kind of confession, Koltès shows his lack of trust in respect of language and his power to change the human condition. The confession-labyrinth grows in importance between “The night just before the forest” (1977) and “The Solitude of cotton fields” (1986). The second kind of confession, the factual confession, reveals a social and economic reality. And his importance seems to decrease between “The Night just before the forest” and “The Solitude in the cotton fields”. The result of these two confessions’ crossing evolution is “Roberto Zucco” (1988), Koltes’s last play, where the author achieves his journey from the hope of a social change to nihilism.