34.2 | Ben Screech

‘I’m Full of Gaps’: Depression in Florian Zeller’s The Son

Florian Zeller’s play The Son (2019) explores how parents may be complicit in destabilizing their children’s mental health, in addition to the impact that children who do not conform to ideal norms have on the lives of their parents. Through its cryptic dialogue, the text suggests that depression is a state that exists partly beyond linguistic
representation. This article posits that Zeller’s characteristic
modes of language use and storytelling, brought to life here in
Christopher Hampton’s English translation, provide an apposite
vehicle for the on-stage representation of depression.