Zucco Mystery: Psychology, Politics, Society And Myth In Koltes’ Roberto Zucco

While writing Roberto Zucco which was his last play and was published after his death, Bernard Koltes, one of the most important writers of the French Literature, is inspired by a real-life event that occupied the agenda of the French media in 1987: Roberto Zucco is the story of an Italian serial killer who murdered his father at the age of 24 and continued his murders by killing his mother and a teenager after escaping from prison. Expressing that he saw the mugshot of that serial killer in the subway and that he was fascinated by his face, Koltes creates a contemporary myth from the “ordinary-appearing” story of Succo by referring to such myths as “Samson, Dalilah, Oedipus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and Minotaur”. The protagonist of the play, Zucco, murders people without any clear reason or purpose. His behaviors are totally insane. The writer does not try to understand, narrate or explain these insane behaviors but rather transforms Zucco into a legendary protagonist. Interestingly, while Zucco is expected to evoke “worry”, “fear”, and “hatred” in the audience through his murders, he becomes the “saint” for those around himby evoking admiration in them. He does not become a murderer by killing his mother, father and the inspector, but rather a supernatural creature that has the power to change the destiny of those he killed. Now, the act of murdering is no longer a negative act, but rather a positive one. While such concepts as family, society, politics, loneliness, happiness, and violence are questioned in the path of murders, the act of killing people clearly directs us to think about our humanity. At this point, it is important to note that while writing Roberto Zucco, the writer was aware that he had arrived at the last stage of his life due to being infected with AIDS. The notion that human beings are destined to death is integrated into this work through Zucco, and thus Koltes is, in a sense, identified with Zucco.

Keywords

Koltès, Succo, Zucco, myth, serial killer, psychology, society.