A Poisonous Game: Anxiety and the Void in Stefan Zweig’s Chess or Schachnovelle (1941)

Abstract

This article offers a narratologically informed psychological reading of Stefan Zweig’s Chess (1941), situating the novella within the context of Austrian diasporic literature and the author’s own exile. Building on Kierkegaard’s conception of anxiety as a form of existential dizziness and Lacan’s structural account of anxiety, the study argues that Chess represents anxiety not merely thematically but structurally. Through Genette’s narratological framework, this study shows how Zweig constructs a layered narrative architecture in which an extradiegetic-heterodiegetic shipboard narrator frames the metadiegetic-homodiegetic confession of Dr. B. This shift from zero focalisation to internal focalisation draws the reader progressively closer to Dr. B.’s deteriorating mental state, mirroring the claustrophobic conditions of his Gestapo imprisonment. The analysis examines how Zweig employs narrative rhythm, anachrony, and interpolated narration to replicate the distortions of memory and perception characteristic of trauma. Repetition, temporal looping, and iterative descriptions reflect Dr. B.’s struggle within the existential ‘void’, while the accelerating pace and fragmentation of his metadiegetic account chart his descent into the psychological “abyss.” By integrating narratology with psychoanalytic and philosophical approaches, the article demonstrates that Chess is best understood as a psychological experiment encoded in its own narrative form. Zweig’s manipulation of narrative levels, perspective, and temporal structure not only depicts anxiety but structurally compels the reader to inhabit it, uniting form and content in a coherent exploration of trauma, obsession, and exile.