Ah, Come Here, Oh Satan!

Suicide and The Devil's Pact as Motifs in Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Night School

Abstract

In this article, I analyze Karl Ove Knausgaard’s novel The Night School (2023) with particular focus on the novel’s connection between a motif of suicide and a motif of a pact with the devil. In the novel, Knausgaard reuses the story of his own path to becoming an artist from My Struggle. However, the story is told in a more negative light by being coupled with the Faust myth. In a close analysis of The Night School’s web of references to both pacts with the devil and My Struggle, I will show how the novel can be read as a reflection on the price of creating art. In this article, entering into a pact with the devil is interpreted as a form of suicide, as the artist is ready to sell his soul and identity to serve art.