Thepaintingseeks tocommunicateMunch's anxiety in the hillsabove Oslo and has been interpreted bymany as theembodimentof modern-day anxietyandexistentialangst.
This sense of existentialangst takes literal form when Sam is made an errand boy, and later called one quite directly to his face, told in fact that all he really ever was in the past was an errand boy, not a man of consequence (so to speak).