Two people besides the central figure are visible in Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream.’
They appear in the distance on the bridge or walkway, rendered as elongated, dark figures walking away from the foreground subject. Their presence helps establish the scene’s setting and heightens the contrast between ordinary movement and the central figure’s intense expression.
The central figure is often described as screaming, although Munch’s inspiration came from an overwhelming experience of nature. In a diary entry, he recalled feeling that an “infinite scream” passed through nature while walking near Oslo. The landscape is generally identified as the view from Ekeberg, overlooking Oslofjord.
Viewers sometimes count the central figure as one of the people or mistake the distant figures for part of the landscape. The quiz wording excludes the central figure, so the correct count is two. Munch made several versions of the composition, and the same basic arrangement appears across them.