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Ill Seen Ill Said: Trauma, Representation and Subjectivity in Samuel Beckett’S Post-War Writing

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Ill Seen Ill Said: Trauma, Representation and Subjectivity in Samuel Beckett’S Post-War Writing Ill Seen Ill Said: Trauma, Representation and Subjectivity in Samuel Beckett’s Post-War Writing Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Literature) Rhys Tranter January 2014 RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID Contents Abstract 5 Declaration 6 Acknowledgements 7 Introduction: Travails, Traumas, Transmissions 10 N= qê~î~áäë= 10 NN= jÉíÜoÇoäoÖáÉë= 14 NNN= ^ÑíÉê=^ìëÅÜïáíò= 23 Nî= `Ü~éíÉê=lìíäáåÉ= 32 = Chapter 1: Gone Astray: Prose 34 N== mêÉ~ãÄäÉ= 35 NN== qê~ìã~íáÅ=mêoÖêÉëë= 39 NNKN== t~äâáåÖLqÜáåâáåÖ= 39 NNKO== Watt ~åÇ=qê~ìã~íáÅ=qÉãéoê~äáíó= 44 NNKP== t~äâáåÖ=~ë=qê~ìã~íáÅ=póãéíoã= 52 NNKQ== _äìêêáåÖ=k~íáoå~ä=_oìåÇ~êáÉë= 56 NNN= `oãáåÖ=~åÇ=doáåÖ= 69 NNNKN=coêíJa~= 69 NNNKO=`oãáåÖ=~åÇ=doáåÖ= 72 NNNKP==têáíáåÖ=Ú^ÄoìíÛ=qê~ìã~= 78 NNNKQ==i~åÖì~ÖÉ=~åÇ=aáëJlêáÉåí~íáoå= 82 NNNKR=qÜÉ=t~åÇÉêáåÖ=ÚfÛ= 87 = Chapter 2: Late Stage: Theatre 94 N= i~íÉ=toêÇë= 95 NKN= _ÉÖáååáåÖ=ío=båÇ= 95 NKO= pí~ÖÉ=mêÉëÉåÅÉ= 99 NN= Not I 101 NNKN= ^ÅíáåÖ=lìí= 101 O RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID NNKO= `oãáåÖ=ío=qÉêãë= 111 NNN= That Time 119 NNNKN=qáãÉI=qê~ìã~=~åÇ=íÜÉ=pÉäÑ= 119 NNNKO=kÉîÉê=íÜÉ=p~ãÉ=^ÑíÉê=qÜ~í= 122 NNNKP=qÜêÉÉ=soáÅÉë= 129 Nî= Footfalls 135 NîKN= koí=nìáíÉ=qÜÉêÉ= 135 NîKO= pÜ~ÇÉë= 137 NîKP= m~ë= 147 î= fã~ÖáåáåÖ=i~íÉê= 154 = Chapter 3: The Voice Breaks 158 N= e~ìåíÉÇ=jÉÇá~= 159 NKN= R~Çáo= 159 NKO= péÉÅíê~ä=R~Çáo= 166 NKP= táêÉäÉëë=pìÄàÉÅíë= 171 NKQ= Embers= 174 NKR= aáãáåáëÜáåÖ=áå=qoåÉ= 177 NN= qê~ìã~=~åÇ=íÜÉ=pìÄàÉÅí= 182 NNKN= råëéÉ~â~Ääó=bñÅêìÅá~íáåÖ= 182 NNKO= E`Ü~ê~ÅíÉêF=píìÇáÉë=oÑ=qê~ìã~= 185 NNKP= péÉÅíê~äáíó= 194 NNN= qê~ìã~íáÅ=joÇÉêåáíó= 199 NNNKN=qê~ìã~I=joÇÉêåáíóI=R~Çáo= 199 NNNKO=qÜÉ=_áêíÜ=oÑ=joÇÉêå=qê~ìã~= 202 NNNKP==qÜÉ=jÉÅÜ~åáëã=g~ãë= 207 = Conclusion: As the Story Was Told 218 N= ^ë=íÜÉ=píoêó=t~ë=qoäÇ= 218 NN= tÜÉå=koï\= 221 = = P RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID Bibliography 223 N= dÉåÉê~ä=_áÄäáoÖê~éÜó= 223 NN= låäáåÉ=RÉëoìêÅÉë 230 NNN= cáäã 231 Q RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID Abstract Over the last two decades, our understanding of Samuel Beckett’s life and work has been expanded by an unprecedented number of biographies, memoirs and personal correspondence published for the first time. As a result, academic research has been able to plot a series of connections between the writer’s literary work and the cultural and historical moments that shaped it. Beckett has been hailed as a poet whose work engages like no other with the atrocities of the Second World War. This thesis takes as its starting point an issue that often arises in evaluations of the writer, but which has never before been explored in detail: the theme of trauma. With reference to the work of prominent contemporary theorists, this project elucidates what we mean by the term trauma, and why it can be useful to our understanding of Samuel Beckett’s work. Drawing on the writings of Sigmund Freud, Cathy Caruth, and others, this thesis diagnoses traumatic symptoms and gestures in Beckett’s post-war writing. It identifies the role that ‘acting out’ and ‘working through’ plays in some of his late theatrical texts. And, moreover, the thesis begins to trace the role that trauma can play in our understanding of language and meaning. Adopting a broadly poststructuralist view, this study engages with texts by Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida to ask how trauma challenges the status of language and the Western humanist subject. It will demonstrate how how trauma problematises our understanding of walking and thinking in Beckett’s post-war prose; where the presence of live theatrical production is unsettled by traumatic repetition; and why Beckett’s plays for radio undermine our expectations of twentieth-century modernity. While charting the way that Beckett uses and adapts traumatic themes and ideas, the thesis observes how the term signals a broader crisis in Western humanist understandings of time, place and identity. R RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID Declaration This work has not been submitted in substance for any other degree or award at this or any other university or place of learning, nor is being submitted concurrently in candidature for any degree or other award. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date: 27 January 2014 STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD. Signed Rhys Tranter (candidate) Date: 27 January 2014 STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. The views expressed are my own. Signed Rhys Tranter (candidate) Date: 27 January 2014 STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed Rhys Tranter (candidate) Date: 27 January 2014 STATEMENT 4: PREVIOUSLY APPROVED BAR ON ACCESS I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access previously approved by the Academic Standards & Quality Committee. Signed Rhys Tranter (candidate) Date: 27 January 2014 S RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank Neil Badmington for his advice, encouragement and friendship throughout the project. His feedback and fine espressos were the fuel that ensured a steady progression. · I owe a debt of thanks to the following for their support during various stages of the project: Elizabeth Barry, Jonathan Boulter, Mary Bryden, Arka Chattopadhyay, Rick Cluchey, Paul Crosthwaite, the late Raymond Federman, Matthew Feldman, Peter Fifield, Stanley Gontarski, Dan Gunn, Julia Jordan, Seán Kennedy, James Knowlson, James Martell, Ulrika Maude, Laurent Milesi, Becky Munford, Mark Nixon, Bryan Radley, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Laura Salisbury, Dirk Van Hulle, Shane Weller, and Adam Winstanley. · I would like to acknowledge the patient and helpful staff of Cardiff University’s Arts and Social Studies Library. · A big thank you to the supportive community of postgraduate researchers based at the School of English, Communication and Philosophy. · I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for their financial aid, without which I would not have been able to pursue postgraduate study. · I also owe a debt of gratitude to Rhian Rattray, whose generous assistance before, during and after submission was absolutely invaluable. · A big thank you to my family, who have been incredibly generous and understanding at various points throughout the project. · And finally, my largest debt of gratitude goes to Jennifer Dawn Whitney, a tireless listener and scrupulous crrritic who has been a constant source of guidance and inspiration. Needless to say, all errors are my own. Rhys Tranter Cardiff, South Wales January 2014 T RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID U ‘[…] words were coming … imagine! … words were coming … a voice she did not recognise […]’ 1 Samuel Beckett, Not I 1 Samuel Beckett, Not I in Krapp’s Last Tape and Other Shorter Plays, ed. S. E. Gontarski (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), p.88. Introduction: Travails, Trauma, and Transmission N Travails ‘You gave him the works?’2 What Where Trauma is one of the key concepts underscoring the writing and reception of Samuel Beckett’s work. Biographical readings have taken account of the role mourning has played in the writer’s prose, poetry and drama. Broader historical interpretations trace allusions to the atrocities of twentieth- century cultural memory. Intertextual research has also identified latent traumatic content via the many literary, religious and philosophical texts woven into the works. The influence of trauma is difficult to overstate in relation to Beckett’s texts, although it typically adopts an aesthetic of understatement, allusion, and ellipses. It manifests as the ill seen and ill said3 of Beckett’s oeuvre: a concept that challenges the possibilities of witnessing and recording, and, as a result, prompts a revaluation of what we mean by truth, history, and identity. The status of trauma in Beckett’s writing appears to resist concrete or meaningful understandings. Its appearances are, by definition, peripheral and fragmentary, making it difficult to place at the centre of a research project or a sustained critical assessment. This is because, paradoxically, trauma is never fully present in Beckett’s texts, nor is it totally absent: it remains elusive, troubling the borderlines between what exists and what does not. Through an analysis of several novels and short prose pieces, alongside experimental works for the stage, and radio dramas 2 Samuel Beckett, What Where in Krapp’s Last Tape and Other Shorter Plays, ed. S. E. Gontarski (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), p.155. 3 I am borrowing, of course, from the title of one of Beckett’s late prose texts. See Samuel Beckett, Ill Seen Ill Said in Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho, Stirrings Still, ed. Dirk Van Hulle (London: Faber and Faber, 2009). RHYS TRANTER · ILL SEEN ILL SAID commissioned by the BBC, this thesis addresses how trauma, with its connected themes of absence and loss, punctuates the writer’s work. This thesis will not attempt to seize, or re-member, latent references within the texts, in order to restore them to some kind of rational coherence. David Houston Jones has suggested that ‘it is impossible to recover identifiable historical references’4 of this kind, and so an amplification of the ‘muted echoes of atrocity’5 would be redundant, an ambitious task that would clarify little.
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