[6] Art historians have written of the work's "distinctly stage-managed character: items are arranged as if they are props, while the dramatic lighting increases the impression that a play is being enacted ...

In addition to the mysterious subject-matter, this stage-like effect is presumably one of the chief reasons why scholars have repeatedly tried to identify a literary source for the painting.

[7] Later, a scene within Émile Zola's Madeleine Férat was identified as matching the elements of Degas's painting in several particulars—but while the narrow bed and the round table corresponded, the position of the figures relative to each other did not.

The passage that has been deemed to correspond closely to the scene depicted by Degas occurs at the beginning of Chapter 21 of Zola's novel: Laurent carefully closed the door behind him and remained there a moment, leaning against it, staring into the room with an anxious, confused expression.A bright fire was burning in the grate, casting golden patches that danced over the ceiling and the walls.

Madame Raquin had tried to arrange the room attractively, all white and scented, as though to serve as a nest for young lovers; the old shopkeeper had chosen to add to the bed a few bits of lace and to fill the vases on the mantel with big bouquets of roses.

She stared at Laurent with a gaze so strangely mingling repugnance and dread that he stepped back, troubled and uneasy, as if overcome with terror and disgust himself.

Krämer instead proposed as the "most obvious source" of Degas's composition a lithograph by Paul Gavarni: sheet number five from the Lorettes series, published in 1841 in Le Charivari.

[2] Points of similarity between the print and Interior are described by Krämer: As in Degas's Le Viol, [the woman] has her back turned towards the man who stands in front of the door, his legs spread wide and his hands in his pockets.

Not only is the man's posture reminiscent of Degas's painting, but the woman is also in a comparable pose, her right hand raised to her head, her garment sliding off her shoulder.

[2] The influence of Interior has been noted in the compositions of Degas's protégé Walter Sickert, specifically in the latter's The Camden Town Murder series of 1908,[11] and his painting Ennui of 1914.