Surmounting the Immured Obstacles in Chalandon’s "The Fourth Wall"

Abstract

This article explores the symbolism of the „wall,” paradoxically representing both oppression and protection in Sorj Chalandon’s Le Quatrième mur (2013). It highlights how theater, framed within the novel, breaks down barriers separating individuals by bringing together young people from conflicting communities during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). The intertextuality of Jean Anouilh’s play Antigone, analyzed in the article, offers an opportunity to redefine symbolic obstacles („walls”) while examining the notion of an inevitable destiny present in the novel. Under Chalandon’s pen, theater becomes a real lifeline and rhetorical weapon of resistance, surpassing the impasse of politics, reviving the memory of Sabra and Chatila (1982), and allowing the process of mourning after the carnage of war.