Cedarville University DigitalCommons@Cedarville Department of English, Literature, and Modern English Seminar Capstone Research Papers Languages 4-11-2005 "On and On" until "All Out": Seeking Silence within the Postmodern Paradigm of Samuel Beckett Rachel Ganong Cedarville University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/ english_seminar_capstone Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Ganong, Rachel, ""On and On" until "All Out": Seeking Silence within the Postmodern Paradigm of Samuel Beckett" (2005). English Seminar Capstone Research Papers. 9. http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/english_seminar_capstone/9 This Capstone Project is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Cedarville, a service of the Centennial Library. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Seminar Capstone Research Papers by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Cedarville. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Ganong 1 Rachel Ganong Dr. Donald Deardorff Senior Seminar 11 April 2005 "On and On" until "All Out": Seeking Silence within the Postmodern Paradigm of Samuel Beckett His predicament [Beckett] described as that of "one on his knees, head against a wall more like a cliff-with someone saying 'go on.'" Later he said, "Well, the wall will have to move a little, that's all" (Cochran 96). In his biography of Samuel Beckett's life, James Knowlson wdtes that Beckett failed miserably as a teacher (88); had Beckett not failed, he would have spent his life as a scholar, teaching and writing brilliant essays like his award winning Proust study. The sizable amount of literature on Beckett's creative wdting, however, seems to indicate that Beckett's pedagogic failure metamorphosed into a dazzling success for the humanity, which so frequently themes his work, through literature.