‘I’m full of gaps’

Depression in Florian Zeller’s The Son

Authors

  • Ben Screech University of Gloucestershire

Abstract

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.

Author Biography

  • Ben Screech, University of Gloucestershire

    Dr. Ben Screech is a Lecturer in English and Education at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham, UK. He primarily teaches and researches writing for (and about) young people but has also published on contemporary writing more generally.

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Published

2026-04-18

Issue

Vol. 34 No. 2 (2021): Writing the Mind

Section

Article

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Ben Screech

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Screech, B. (2026). ‘I’m full of gaps’: Depression in Florian Zeller’s The Son. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 34(2), 15-32. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27187