The Seven Madmen

The Seven Madmen was unanimously acclaimed by critics as the masterpiece of Roberto Arlt. In it, the author touches upon and elaborates on some of the problems raised by philosophical existentialism. Moral questions, loneliness, anxiety in the face of life's meaninglessness and sadness about death are themes that recur in the metaphysical architecture of the novel's characters. It is a sharp social critique of Argentina in the 1920s. The novel is filled with monologues that push the characters into reflections that are both disoriented and wise, in which the question of the absolute madness of society, the cruelty of capitalism, the coldness of industrialization and technology, and their contrast with the weakness and fragility of the mortal human who created them, is raised. The author penetrates universal metaphysical musings, which allows the work to transcend temporal gaps. The Seven Madmen forms the first part of the extraordinary dilogy, which concludes with the novel The Flamethrowers.