Nightwood Themes

Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood is set in 1920s Paris—the same Paris that saw the rise of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce. But underneath the bright, glittering world that these writers lived in and wrote about was a different Paris, a dark Paris full of outcasts and social deviants. This Paris only emerged at night, flocking to the bars to drink and to enjoy just being around other people who couldn’t…

Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood is full of characters who seem to want to be something other than what they are—a circus full of people who adopt false titles (such as Duchess or Prince), mysteriously wealthy characters who claim to be counts or barons, and even a lonely older woman who decorates her home with stolen objects to cover up her own unremarkable life. These characters are not alone. In the years after World War I, millions…

As an outspoken feminist and someone who openly engaged in a same-sex relationship in the early 20th century, Djuna Barnes knew firsthand what it was like to be the “other,” an outsider in society. It’s no surprise that the characters in Nightwood are also “others.” Guido Volkbein (senior) was an Italian Jew who was desperate to be accepted by society at a time when a lot of people looked down on all Jewish people. His…