Point of View

The book alternates between the first-person perspective of Maldoror and a third-person narrator. This alternation sometimes occurs in the middle of a stanza, without any kind of notice or explanation. In several poems, it is completely ambiguous whether the narrator is Maldoror or not. This choice has the effect, surely intentional, of blurring the boundary between Lautreamont's beliefs and Maldoror's beliefs. Though it is difficult to believe that Lautreamont really approves of murder, rape, and torture, he is surely in agreement, in principle, with Maldoror's amoralism and, for that reason, gives a kind of tacit approval to Maldoror's misanthropic lifestyle.

Most stanzas in the six books are narratives, describing some action Maldoror is doing or something the narrator witnessed or was told. There are many exceptions to this generalization, however. The work includes two odes, for example, one to the ocean (Book I, Stanza 9) and one...