În labirintul conștiinței: drama identității moderne și psihodinamica personajelor în Jocul ielelor de Camil Petrescu

Abstract

The unveiling of fictional structures in Camil Petrescu’s work, Jocul ielelor
(The Game of the Fairies), through the application of the psycho-critical
analytical method involves a recalibration of the reading tools specific to the
dramatic genre based on psychodynamic and philosophical-symbolic
criteria. By analyzing the main character’s inner conflict, with the tensions
between absolute values and corrupt reality, a structure of duality is
configured, with the female figure as the lost anima/animus, the projections
of the moral shadow, and the mythology of the fairies as an expression of the
unconscious. The perspective is circumscribed both as an analytical model
and as a work of modern artistic expression, in the context of interwar
Romanian theater’s evolution. It configures expressionist influences, the
critical reception of the work, and the relevance of its themes in the post-truth
era. The focus of the image on the characters through an existential lens
exposes the drama of modern identity, the radical inadequacy of
consciousness in relation to the world, and death as an extreme form of moral
coherence. The relevance of the text in the context of the moral crises of the
present is argued in order to emphasize the dramatic work’s status as a
tragedy of conscience and as an essential link in modern Romanian theater.