EIRP Proceedings, Vol 2 (2007)

Abstract

In Mihail Sebastian’s work we come to know the isolated lives of some characters who could actually
be one. They reveal Sebastian’s life, travel from the imaginary level towards the real one, so that they finally
find out that there are not huge differences between the two levels. Hesitation and isolation seem to best define
this writer’s characters. It is known that Sebastian projected his fear of life on his characters, who fight in vain
against loneliness, isolation tendencies and inner conflicts. “Can you understand how useless are all escapes
from this prison that is your life itself ?” the writer confessed in the novel “For 2000 Years”. In spite of their
yearning for the basic joy of life, Sebastian’s characters are shy, misfit persons who withdraw in their loneliness
as if in a refuge, considered by Sebastian “a return to sadness, a return to earth.”