BIR'I'E, DEATH AND SALVATION OF

B.ECKETTIAN MAN

by

Ursula Kalt

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

College of Humanities in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

December 1982 BIRTH, DEATH AND SALVATION OF

BECKETTIAN MAN

by

Ursula Kalt

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor , Dr. Jan W. Hokenson, Department of Language and Linguistics, and has been approved by the members of· her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the College of Humanities and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.

SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

~1-£ ~ t-+ .J2 . 7.R.alt~

ced Studies

ii ABSTRACT

Author: Ursula M. Kalt

Title: Birth, Death and Salvation of Beckettian Man

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Degree: Master of Arts

Year: 1982

Samuel Beckett is generally considered to write in the pessimistic tradition. For his characters, life is a process of »dying on» in a chaotic universe. God, if he exists, is cruelly indifferent. Death has no pur- pose, and therefore life is pointless. Suffering is real, however, and made more painful by the knowledge that there is neither Savior nor Salvation. Neverthe- less : Beckett ~epeatedly examines the Christian concept of Salvation in his work. Indeed, it has become frame- work, linguistic storehouse, source of metaphor, and spiritual yardstick in much of his canon. The doctrine of Salvation raises »the old questions» regarding man's destiny which so preoccupy Beckettian man; their contemplation has provided the matter for Beckett's writing, and that writing itself has perhaps saved him from despair.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .. iii

Introduction 1

Birth and Death 3

Salvation I: the "old style" 14

Salvation II: "A chance of renovation perhaps" 26

Conclusion . 43

Notes 45

Bibliography . 52

iv Introduction

1 "Birth was the death of him," announces the

speaker at the beginning of A Piece of Monologue. So

is summarized with punning precision the dilemma of

Beckettian man. Born to die, dying at birth, his exist­ ence in between withers into insignificance before the ultimate absurdity of having been born into inevitable annihilation. In Beckett's canon a lifespan is thus

just so much time for pondering the unknowable and suffering the inexplicable.

Nevertheless in the "world collapsing endlessly"2 of Beckett's canon, where traditional solutions have been carefully scrutinized and scornfully rejected, there yet remains a notion of ultimate delivery from despair to which the writer seems inescapably attached.

An examination of the mental landscape, through which the Beckettian prototype wanders, reveals that, however doomed, he takes nothing for granted. He exhaustively seeks answers to the questions of identity and destiny which torment him. Resigned to meaninglessness, he continues to act as though thinking may not be in vain.

1 2

And despite the systematic rejection by Beckett, by this "arch iconoclast of modern letters," 3 of all recog- nized religious beliefs, most notably those of his own 4 Christian upbringing, and his repeated depiction of aimless human existences, his works persistently return to the questions raised by the fundamental Christian doctrine of Salvation.

This · study will suggest that a transmuted concept of salvation, not through the grace of any God, but through the dynamics of his own art, is fundamental to

Beckett's literary creation. Birth and Death

From the perspective of Beckettian man the agony

of birth is a fitting introduction to human existence,

for life in his literary universe is little more than a

second stage of death.

To underscore the insult of birth, Beckett's 5 "People" are often conceived in grotesque circumstances,

born unwanted and unloved. Such is the case with

Molloy, for whom birth was the "first taste of the shit"

(Moll. p. 16) and whose mother, "that poor old uniparous whore" (p. 20), "did all she could not to have me,

except of course the one thing" (p. 19). In First Love

a child results from the narrator's union with a prosti-

tute. The baby's agonized first cries provoke no

paternal affection but decide the narrator's immediate

departure. Nor could Molloy's hypothetical son ever

have been conceived in a spirit of love, he admits. His mother was. only "a little chambermaid. It wasn't true

love" (p. 4). Mouth of Not I describes the pathetic

circumstances of her premature birth, "parents unknown

... unheard of ... he having vanished ... thin air ...

no sooner buttoned up his breeches ... she similarly

r eight months later."~

3 4

Parents are vile creatures. Molloy arranged to

spit on his mother every time he addressed her; the

Unnamable searches for his mother to kill her. Hamm

curses his father for having caused his birth: 7 "Accursed progenitor," "Accursed fornicator" (Endgame, p. 10), "Scoundrel! Why did you engender me?" Hamm's question is general. Nagg's reply is cruelly specific,

"L didn't know ... that it'd be you" (p. 49). Macmann even prides himself on never having procreated; "his 8 semen had never done any harm to anyone." But it is

Pozzo who reduces childbirth to horror. Says he, "They 9 give birth astride of a grave." Didi later repeats this phrase to himself and adds, "Down in the hole, lingeringly, the gravedigger puts on the forceps"

( Godot , p . 58 ) .

The womb as tomb has haunted Beckett's people from

Belacqua on. 10 Malone feels he is "being given ... birth unto death" and that his "feet are clear already of the great cunt of existence. Favorable presentation

I trust. My head will be the last to die" (Malone, p. 391). Indeed, like Malone, some characters are trapped half 'in utero' and half out. Legless Nagg and

Nell are held in ashcans. Mahood, with neither arms nor legs, is stuck in a deep jar hoping to "give up the 11 ghost" and "be born at last." Winnie is trapped up 5 to her waist and then her neck in the earth. The nar- raters of Ping, All Strange Away, Imagination Dead

Imagine describe naked figures locked into foetal posi- tions. None of Beckett's characters can "be born anew"

(John 3:4) and come "to the light" (John 3:20), however, because it is their more likely portion to be "born dead of night," as was the wretched subject of A Piece of

Monologue (p. 70).

Since birth is the beginning of death, sexual reproduction is abhorrent to many of Beckett's charac- ters. The narrator of First Love tries hard to avoid intercourse with his prostitute, is angry at himself for allowing the seduction. Their relations on a garbage dump are almost as ridiculous as those of Macmann and

Moll at the insane asylum in Malone Dies. Reproduction, for the misery it brings, is to be avoided or ridiculed.

Molloy does his best to avoid Lousse. For her sexual favors Pam Prim of How It Is is defenestrated and ends up in the hospital with a broken back! Hamm is appalled at the discovery of a flea in Clov's pants: "But humanity might start from there all over again!"

(Endgame, p. 33) Horror of horrors, the wretched evolutionary cycle could recommence.

Colin Duckworth has remarked,

Beckett's attitude towards loving relation­ ships between men and women is deeply 6

affected by the probability that those re­ lationships will result in another birth, another estrangement from the ideal state of timelessness in which we were before birth.l2

Indeed if humanity ever knew happiness it might have 13 been in that time before birth; "La belle epoque," for Clov, and for Molloy, despite his mother's attempts to abort him, "the only endurable, just endurable, period of my enormous history" (Moll. pp. 19-20).

According to Christian theology man is born into a state of sin as a result of Adam's fall. But for

Beckettian man, spea~ing through Estragon and the

Unnarnable, birth itself has inexplicably become the first transgression, the original sin, and the cause of human condemnation to the hell of life's suffering.

Beckett is obsessed with death. It is a constant in his canon and the yardstick against which any mean- ing must be measured. For Beckett's people, living is a forced limp to oblivion, and during the death wait they must keep busy with the motions of living, sending the ball back and forth to each other "to give us the impression we exist" (Godot, p. 44). In A Piece of

Monologue the narrator reflects on the constancy of death: "Beyond that black beyond ... trying to treat other matters. Never were other matters ... The dead and 7 the gone. The dying and the going. From the word go"

(p. 79).

Death images crowd the pages of Beckett's prose, poetry, and theatre scripts, and death symbols form the backdrop of his stage settings. "Condemned to life"

(Unnam., p. 450), alone, old, sick, destitute, wearing the funereal mouldy overcoat too large for his shrunken frame and topped by his battered black hat, the Beckettian derelict, in wornout boots, crawls, hobbles on crutches or stumbles with his stick across harsh wastelands, at the mercy of snow, wind, rain, and blaz- ing sun. Sometimes his naked body is imprisoned in an issueless box or cylinder where walls compress and contort, light waxes and wanes and signs of life are minimal--"murmuring, no sound,"14 "black right eye ... like hell gaping" (All Strange, p. 59), "heart beating,"15 16 "infinitesimal shudder." Remarkable for his "savoir 17 crever," he is never sure whether he is still alive or already dead. Sometimes he is found "alone on his 18 back in the dark," so moribund that he is unsure of what his decrepit senses are telling him. Wearing in recent works a long black garment or a stark white shroud-like gown, he is left with little in the way of possessions, one of the most persistent of which is the death bed in different forms. In various stages of 8 decomposition, haunting graveyards and preferring the 19 pungent reek of the dead to the stench of the living,

Beckettian man is death personified over and over and over again.

Dying and living are one for Beckett's people, and 20 during this "lingering dissolution" suffering is the best indicator of being. For his blind, mutilated, asthmatic, arthritic cast of the infirm, and the im- prisoned, pain is the primary vital sign. Says Clov of

Nagg, "He's crying." Retorts Harnrn, "Then he's living"

(Endgame, p. 62). The Unnamable can be sure of his open eyes only "because of the tears that pour from them unceasingly" (Unnam., p. 420). The hero of First

Love cannot understand other human beings at all because,

"What I understand best," he says, "which is not saying much, are my pains" (p. 22). The Unnamable is convinced that pain is "the irrefragable proof of animation"

(Unnam., p. 490). Pain is indeed one of the few, ever- present, verifiable.certainties in the Beckettian universe.

Although Beckett's people often fail to distinguish living from dying, the actual moment of death's release is wearily longed for--they are not afraid. Vladimir dreams of "the last moment. It's long but it will be 21 good." "No more weeping," says Estragon a s he 9 contemplates the dead tree enviously (Godot, p. 10).

"When I fall," says Clov, "I'll weep for happiness"

(Endgame, p. 81). The Unnamable waits for "the true silence, the one I'll never have to break anymore"

(p. 547). "To end would be wonderful, no matter who I am, no matter where I am," he declares wistfully

(p. 417).

Death may be desired, but it is never precipitated.

Says Ha:rrun, "Yes, there it is, it's time it ended and yet I hesitate to . . • to end" (Endgame, p. 3) . Pain killers are used without permitting "the lethal dose"

(Unnam. p. 443). Death must take its course lest the

Unnamable become "one buried before his time" (p. 547) and be deceived into false deaths. Suicide is contem­ plated but avoided by Didi, Gogo, and Molloy. Murder is invited by Hamm, considered but rejected by Clov.

Winnie's revolver remains with her to the end, unused.

"The end is in the beginning," says Hamm biblically,

"and yet you go on" (Endgame, p. 69).

Nevertheless, while they wait for death, Beckett's people pathetically tantalize themselves with dreams of purpose. Asks Hamm hesitantly, "We're not beginning to ... to ... mean something?" Clov's reply scathingly cuts him down, "Mean something, you and I, mean something~ Ah that's a good one!" (p. 33) The 10

Unnamable resigns himself to aimlessness, "No, one can

spend one's life thus unable to live, unable to bring

to life, and die in vain having done nothing, been

nothing" (p. 497). And yet Winnie is convinced that

meaning, if it be possible at all, has nothing to do

with physical existence. Says her Mrs. Cooker to

Mr. Cooker, who wonders what sense can be made out of

Winnie's truncated body, "And you, she says, what's the

idea of you, she says, what are you meant to mean? Is

it because you're still on your two flat feet, with 22 your ditty full of tinned muck and underwear ... "

As they ceaselessly interrogate their surroundings,

Beckett's people are on a spiritual quest for the true

self beyond the prison house of language and the

barrier of appearances. "My concern," says Malone,

is not with me, but with another far beneath me . To show myself now on the point of vanishing, at the same time as the stranger and by the same grace, that would be no ordinary last straw. Then live long enough to feel, behind my closed eyes, other eyes close. What an end. (Malone, p. 267)

This spiritual goal, impossible to attain as it

repeatedly proves to be, is the main concern of

Beckett's people, and they have only their own indefatig-

able honesty to guide them. 11

For there is no comfort for their intolerable con­

dition in the knowledge of a benevolent deity. Should

God exist at all, he would be an arbitrary God of

cruelty, who shuffles cards and rules by dice. "A

sporting God ... ravening in heaven ... to plague his

creature, per pro his chosen shits" (Unnam., p. 267).

Sam and Watt enjoy playing at being God when they sadistically feed the little animals to the rats and the

rats to each other. Hamm fantasizes about having the despotic power of God, able to pull the strings of life

and death of the human puppets he controls. Says

Richard Coe in "God and Samuel Beckett"--the best explication to date of theological elements in the canon--Beckett's people "look at man and conclude that

God is unforgivable ... for having made the world the way it is when any rational creature (such as the 23 tailor in Nagg's story) could have made it better."

Nor does God, unlike man, have to justify his actions. Remarks Malone with quiet sarcasm, "To tell the truth, God does not seem to need reasons for doing what he does, and for omitting to do what he omits to do to the same degree as his creatures, does he?"

(Malone, p. 336) Lucky 's vocal treatise on civiliza­ tion's regression dispels any lingering notions of a merciful divinity , "of a personal God quaquaquaqua with 12 white beard quaquaquaqua," and goes on to underscore the patent indifference of any would-be Creator who from

"the heights of his divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us all dearly with some exceptions"

(Go dot , p . 2 8 ) .

For Coe, God in the Beckettian vision is no more than a postulate. And for Ludovic Janvier too,

Dieu est ce present/absent que la parole prend pour cible. On se doute bien que c'est postuler sa presence. [God is that absent presence which is targeted by language. One suspects it is a way of postulating his being.] 24

But at his alternative non-existence Hamm vents his fury: "Let us pray to God ... " he suggests, and then concludes, "The bastard! He doesn't exist!" and Clov adds enigmatically, "Not yet" (Endgame, pp. 54-55).

Concludes Coe, "God's non-existence is simply the last and dirtiest trick which the sadistic creator has 25 played on his victimized and miserable creation."

Unlike his Christian counterpart Beckettian man does not have to be wary of Satan's mischief--God's is enough.

The anger in earlier works, before and including

How It Is, at a hypothetical diety gives way in some later works to an emphasis on the absence of God-as-Love and to the consequent absolute solitude of man who must 13 suffer and die without the comfort of a saving creator.

Both views coalesce in the canon but, whereas Belaqua,

Watt, Hamm and "all these Murphys, Molloys and Malones"

(Unnam., p. 419) express their horror and anger with sarcastic wit and ironic humor, the heroines of Rockaby,

Not I, Footfalls, Ill Seen Ill Said, the narrators of

Company and All Strange Away, and the people in The Lost

Ones are suffering helplessly from abandonment and comfortless solitude. "God is love. Yes or No?" asks the narrator of Company. "No," is his own unhesitating reply (Company, p. 73).

I --..! 26 Salvation I: the "old style"

For the Christian faithful it is belief in

Salvation--the saving of man from the power and effects

of sin through Christ's death and resurrection27--which

gives ultimate significance to the human experience.

The Christian's understanding of birth, life, and death is illuminated by means of a complex system of mental constructs which convey the spiritual message of

Salvation and all its ramifications. Doctrines concern­

ing sin, redemption and damnation, repentance and for­ giveness, Purgatory, Limbo, Hell and Heaven are the

familiar metaphors which transmit what the Church terms

"the universal salvific will of God" 28 to man. The

Salvation of mankind through Christ is the cornerstone of Christian life and the solace which gives meaning to all human suffering. Indeed, by imitating the agony on the cross, the Christian believes he can prepare his soul to meet its creator.

Whereas the Christian seeks to know his God,

Beckettian man seeks to know himself. He has no faith in divine salvation but his quest is deeply spiritual; he must search for the inner self behind the masks of

14 15 the physical and mental world and grasp the essence of his being. And in the face of chaos, Beckett is obsessively drawn to a reexamination of the familiar credo. The doctrines and dogmas which cluster around the cardinal tenet of Salvation become the cornerstone of his canon. It is in the crucible of this contempla- tion that the Beckettian search goes on and that

Beckett's art has been refined.

Just as the "scaffolding" of Proust's oeuvre, according to Beckett, was established on the succession of involuntary memories tnat flooded Marcel's mind in the library of the Princess de Guermantes, 29 so the structure of Beckett's work seems often founded on the leitmotif of Christian Salvation, as "the old questions"

(Endgame, p. 38) about the doctrine continuously recur in the mind of Beckettian man, in drama as in fiction.

In early works such as Dante and the Lobster,

Beckett was inspired by Dante's depiction of Belacqua's journey through Purgatory. Belacque Shua, the hero of

Beckett's black comedy, is absorbed by recurring reminders of death in life, of purgatory on earth, but

Dante's anticipation of Salvation and Paradise is replaced by Beckett's horror at the individual's arbi- trary state of helplessness in a perpetual purgatory, with no hope of Heaven. 16

Beckett indicated, according to Ruby Cohn, that his story The End about a man's preparation for death could have been subtitled "Limbo," the Christian Limbo being that other Hell to which the unbaptized are con­ demned.30 Beckett's triology with its climax in The

Unnamable could have been similarly titled. But nothing more resembles a living death in perpetual purgatory than the grovelling, clawing, groping lives of the parchment-skinned mummies of Beckett's The Lost Ones.

Catholic authority affirms that the "favorite simile in patristic literature for the Church's absolute need to be saved is the Ark of Noah outside of which there is no prospect of deliverance from the deluge 31 of sin." Ruby Cohn sees this biblical structure in

Endgame. Safe in their shelter/ark, Nagg and Hamm recall the Noah and Hamm of Genesis. They are survivors of some catacly smic disaster. Of his shelter Hamm declares, "Outside of here it's death" (p. 9). Cohn points out the difference when she says,

But the central parallel underscores the central contrasts. Biblical Noah was be­ loved of God who made a covenant with him, issuing an injunction to be fruitful and multiply. Beckett's Nagg has fructified the earth with Hamm who tries religiously not to multiply but to diminish life on earth.32 17

As other have done, Cohn suggests that the source of

Waiting for Godot is St. Augustine's summary of the

crucifixion. "Do not despair, one of the thieves was

saved. Do not presume, one of the thieves was 33 damned." In this play the two tramps (the thieves) wait before a tree (the cross) for Godot (the deliverer) who does not come.

When Didi, with faint echoes of. devotion but more

fearful perhaps that he may not be among the elect, anxiously suggests, "Suppose we repented?" Gogo scorn­

fully demands, "Repented what? ... Our being born?"

(Godot, p. 8). For him birth is the only sin worthy of the name, and he obviously had nothing to do with it.

The most sense that he (like the Unnamable and Malone) can make out of the story of the two thieves is that if one of the two were saved, "It's a reasonable percent­ age." For Beckettian man, the message of the crucifixion is one of chance.

The uncertain chronology that is offered to the reader of Malone Dies seems to reflect the shape of the

Christian liturgical year, culminating in the Easter weekend when Macmann (the son of man) leaves the security of the insane asylum of St. John of God (where he is 'entombed') for the world outside (Hell/Purgatory) where he is even more savagely punished than before. 18

Beckett's radio play Embers, about the artist's creative decline and his desperate plea for help, has been interpreted by Hersh Zeifman as "a paradigm of human suffering and divine rejection," 34 "the dramatiza­ tion of a quest for salvation which, as always, proves 35 fruitless." Jan Hokenson has noted the biblical paradigms underpinning the shape of Beckett's trilogy 36 where an apocalyptic "framing pattern" will be drawn upon only to be inverted, then rejected in a succession of parodic, comic images. The Christian scaffolding is there, but Beckett relentlessly hacks away at its theological supports. As dogmas crumble under Beckett's literary attack, the promise of Salvation is repudiated again and again.

Steeped in Christian tradition as a heritage of

Western civilization in general and Irish culture in particular, Beckett has drawn liberally on the language and imagery of his Christian upbringing. When Beckett's characters yearn for salvation and an end to despair, they do so in Christian terms. Like pilgrims and penitents, the two tramps wait for Godot "on our hands and knees," with "a kind of prayer ..• A vague supplica­ tion" (Godot, p. 13}. When Didi imagines that Godot has arrived, he cries triumphantly, "We're saved!" but

Gogo cannot forget his wretchedness for an instant, and 19

despairs, "I'm in hell" (p. 47). At first in Happy

Days Winnie tries to be a model of Christian fortitude

in adversity. She prays dutifully to Jesus Christ,

just as she has been taught, is grateful for the gift of daily existence, and pities Willie who has "no goal 37 l.·n l1.'fe." Bu t l.n· the en d Go d d oes not respond, her prayers die on her lips, "the old style" will not do.

St. Augustine might well have written Malone's description of the soul aching for delivery from doubt,

"the soul that must be veiled, that soul denied in vain, vigilant, anxious, turning in its cage as in a lantern, in the night without haven or craft or matter or under- standing." Malone immediately dismisses such musings as meaningless, no more than "my little pastimes"

(Malone, pp. 303-304). 38 In the matter of "sacred discourse" Beckett can be compared to his onetime friend and mentor James

Joyce. According to Richard Ellman, Joyce appropriated

Christian vocabulary as "an adroit maneuver ..• for his 39 own secular purposes." In his works he celebrated life, the particular kind of his own rebellious making, but still using the language of the church. Stephen

Dedalus achieves "resurrection," through his separation from Christianity, says Ellman, and even a kind of priesthood, seeing himself as a "priest of eternal 20

imaginings transmuting the daily bread of experience

into the radiant body of everlasting life" ("Ellman,"

p. 29). Sacred rhetoric has enriched his prose and has

become the vehicle to express his new consciousness.

But, as Ellman explains, Joyce's hero is no true

"pagan" (p. 29) and like the novelist himself was never

completely free of the remnants of his early piety.

Remarks Ellman, "The marrow in his bones is at variance

with his brain" (p. 28). By contrast, in Beckett's

appropriating of Christian concepts, there is little

hint of personal antagonism to the Church. Perhaps the

immediate difference between the religious allusions of

these two writers is an affective one, partly explained

by the fact that Joyce was raised as a confessing Irish 40 Catholic and Beckett a social Irish protestant. When

he compared these two forms of Christianity Beckett

observed, "Irish Catholicism is not attractive, but it

is deeper" ("Driver," p. 220).

It is interesting to compare the Unnamable's grasp

of his role to Stephen's. Whereas the latter is glory­

ing in the creative powers he can express in sacred

language, the former is grovelling in uncertainty,

recalling only shreds of prayers and petitioning empty heaven for self-destruction. "I am he who will never be caught, who crawls between the thwarts, towards the 21 new day that promises to be glorious, festooned with life belts, praying for rack and ruin" (Unnam., p. 4 71) •

For Beckett, the divine power of language has gone. 41 The "stuttering logos" has lost the assurance of its creative command over reality; it can only assert negations.

Unlike the majority of the Christian faithful,

Beckett's people do not need to be urged towards an imitation of Christ's passion; suffering is their natu­ ral element, even their preferred domain. Their agony is a mirror image of Christ's but with the added pain that they see no heavenly justification for it. Gogo has always compared himself to Christ but is convinced that suffering is pointless. Moreover he feels that he has suffered more than Christ because he is dying slowly whereas in the Holy Land, at least, "they crucified quick" (Godot, p. 34). Molloy sees his journey as "a veritable calvary with no limit to its stations and no hope of crucifixion ... and no Simon" (Moll., p. 103).

On the roadway he is crouched like Dante's Belacqua in the shadow of a rock at the gates of Hell. The

Expelled is crucified "all of a heap." 42 They are all sacrificial victims "served up on a plate ".4 3 to no purpose. 22

Like the saints and martyrs who "crucified the

flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal. 5:24) in

order to have "the light of knowledge and of true under­

standing,"44 Beckett's characters regard suffering and

deprivation as possible means to spiritual insight.

Murphy, sweating and straining against the tightening

thongs of the seven scarves that _bind him to his rocking

chair, seeks an appeasement of his body so that he can 45 be "set free in his mind." Watt, according to the 46 text, most probably "a university man," presumably

with wide economic options but certainly with no fixed

address and only four shillings and fourpence in his

pocket, is one of the first of Beckett's familiar tramps

to reject the comforts of bourgeois existence and to go

off in search of self-understanding through a life of

austerity.

Prefigured by Mercier and Camier, Didi and Gogo

the music hall hobos of Waiting for Godot are stripped

o£ all the dignified accountrements of civilization,

including good health, and left to ponder the bare

facts. Presumably their understanding is sharpened by

pain and unencumbered by possessions. Like blind Pozzo

and dumb Lucky, arthritic Clov and blind, crippled Hamm

live with their legless elders, inhabiting a barren world of decreasing physical possibilities. Perhaps 23

they will be more receptive to the significance of what

is left of human existence when so much is gone.

More deliberately the monologuists of the trilogy

systematically attempt to rid themselves of the world's

distracting comforts, accepting with no more than an

occasional lament and more often a keen evaluative

interest the loss of possessions, faculties, physical

functions, body parts, human relations, and personal

identity. Molloy, Malone, and the Unnamable are dying

and have reached that point in their existences when

the last questions are their only concern.

In the end, asceticism and self-mortification shed

no light on the experience of Beckettian man. A charac-

ter in All That Fall quotes the Bible: "The Lord up-

holdeth all that fall and raiseth up all those that be

bowed down" (Psalms 145:14). The words are greeted with

"wild laughter" (p. 88). The Way of the Cross does not

work for Beckett's people but only provokes bitter humor

about "the same questions, the same answers" (Endgame,

p. 5) •

The confessor who justifies suffering as "expiatory

in removing the stain of guilt and debt of punishment 47 that the sinner has incurred" would readily obtain an admission of guilt from Beckettian man. He is haunted by guilt, but the crime that he may have committed is 24

unknown and unknowable. The guilt is ever present, however, with no chance of pardon except perhaps in the release of death.

When Malone describes Macmann's customary feelings of guilt he adds, "without knowing exactly what his sin was he felt full well that living was not a sufficient atonement for it or that his atonement was in itself a sin, calling for more atonement, and so on" (Malone, p. 329). Macmann wonders whether one actually has to have committed a sin in order to be sentenced, and rapidly the notions of crime and punishment begin to merge .

Nothing in Beckett's canon better illustrates the misery inflicted by hounding, undeserved guilt thati: the painful self-chastisement suffered by Mouth of Not I.

She is being punished for her sins even though she is sure that the greatest "flaw in her makeup" is that she is "incapable of deceit" (Not I, p. 17). The one corporal gesture allowed her in the stage directions of the French version is "une sorte de haussement des bras d ans un mouvement f a1t' d e bl arneA et d e p1t1e ' ' ; 1mpu1ssante' ' It 4 8

[a kind of raising of the arms in a movement of blame and helpless pity]. Suffering without faith in the reward of eternal life, guilty without hope of ultimate forg iveness, Mouth expresses the worst terrors of the 25 truly godforsaken. Hers is perhaps the most sustained voice of terrible apprehension and dread in Beckett's canon.

In contemplating the multiple facets of Christian

Salvation, Beckett recognizes the human nostalgia for order and meaning in a chaotic universe. But he is forced to reject the handed-down Christian solution, and his uncompromising search for a truth behind the old ways has led him to evolve new solutions within the forms of his art that might, even if briefly, better 49 "accommodate the mess." ,.., I

Salvation II: "A chance of renovation ••. 50 perhaps"

Given the deep sense of pessimism expressed by

Beckett through his people, it is to be wondered where he and they find any reason to continue living at all.

Surrounded by blasted landscapes, enclosed in doomed refuges, or alien cylinders, reduced to legless crip- ples or oozing brain, and imprisoned by matter and language and heritage, why do Beckett's people go on?

What is the inner impulse that keeps Winnie attached to Willie, that forever directs Hamm to continue play- ing the game, that compels Moran in his quest for

Molloy, that forces the Unnamable and Mouth to go on with their verbal discharges? Where are their "anchors 51 of salvation," their counterpoints to despair, which give more meaning to living than to suicide?

Beckett's work is about the suffering--"distress" he called it ("Driver," p. 220)--and "the destitution 52 of modern man" for whom "total salvation" ("Driver," p. 220) in an inscrutable universe is no longer even imaginable. The assurances of Western man's Christian heritage with its claims to "omniscience and

26 27 omnipresence" are the antithesis of the "impotence and ignorance"53 with which Beckett feels he is working. 54 By drawing on the "mythology" of Christian

Salvation, however, and finding in its doctrines and imagery the means to express their inadequacies and contradictions, he has evolved a vision which, despite its deep vein of pessimism, depends entirely on him- self, "non-knower, non-can-er" ("Shenker," p. 148) that he is. He has asserted the "fear and trembling" of the individual self who will seek his own salvation in the interrogation, not the acceptance, of the answers already provided.

From his early attempts at self-expression through literature, Beckett has been impelled towards a nar­ rower, more demanding goal: pure self-definition in literary form. "I can't go on, you must go on, I'll go on, you must say words as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me" (Unnam., p. 577).

Only by endeavoring to decipher the true identity of

"I" and narrating his findings about the inner self, provisional though they may be, can he go on.

His quest has led him down many avenues of dis- covery, one might even say rediscovery, because, after painful examination of "the woes of [his] kind"

(Company, p. 80), he has time and again come full circle 28

only to find some measure of comfort, albeit ambivalent, in the ancient human values he had originally absorbed as a Christian child. Truth, order, the significance of human events, and the inextricable interdependence of doing and being, the power of words to express, the importance of loving human relationships, the fact--if

not of a Creator--then of the human creative act; all those concepts that the writer's sardonic pen has so successfully upended, repeatedly bounce back through the seemingly nihilistic surface of Beckett's canon. It is their persistence which has saved him from dis­ integration and despair. Facing truth, however construed, is Beckett's first article of faith. Malone is, "scrupulous to the last, finical to a fault" (p. 320), and Molloy's im­ mediate concern is not with his own honesty but with the problem of deciding what is real as opposed to what is imagined. When Gogo comes on stage at the beginning of Waiting for Godot, he is greeted fondly by Didi, who exclaims, "Well, there you are again." Punctiliously questioning appearances, Gogo replies, "Am I?" (p. 7). For the same reason Moran cannot reply to the bowler­ hatted stranger who accosts him and asks what he is doing "sur ses terres•• [on his land, also suggesting 'on this earth']. Moran remarks to himself, "If there 29

is one question I dread, to which I have never been

able to invent a satisfactory reply, it is the question

what am I doing" (Moll., p. 236). Unable to reply

truthfully to the deeper question behind the words he

deflects it. Molloy with "his passion for truth"

(p. 41) confesses that whenever he is asked what he is

doing at any particular place he is never able to come

up with "the correct reply" (p. 77). Beckettian man is

totally committed "in the frenzy of utterance," to

"the concern with truth" (Unnam., p. 413). But pursuit

of his kaleidoscopically ?isintegrating self proves

repeatedly hopeless although he remains remorseless in

his self-interrogation. And he will never give up.

"I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you

must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on" (p. 577).

Although Beckettian man is desperately seeking a

nonmaterial explanation for being, he is constantly distracted in between his soundings of inner existence by the seemingly dependable world of systems and shapes. As he scrambles the old order and forms of

Christian liturgy and rite, he still yearns for the security of principles and the satisfying mystery of symbolisms. Thus, the absolutes of mathematics prove attractive. Molloy, who "always had a mania for sym­ metry" (p. 112), enjoys reviewing the alternative 30

configurations of an equitable distribution of his

sucking pebbles. The narrator of Company recalls,

"Simple sums you find a help in time of trouble. A

haven. Even still in the timeless dark you find

figures a comfort" (p. 54).

Shifting geometric structures of reordered planes

and surfaces provide the fluid settings for several of

Beckett's later works (The Lost Ones, Imagination Dead

Imagine, Ping, All Strange Away). But in the logic of

cylinders no certitudes are found, for as Beckett's work tirelessly demonstrates "absolute logic eradicates 55 absolute certainty ... Yet he never gives up his hope­

less hope that understanding may come in the next flash 56 of insight, or the one after that.

Sinking into formlessness, swirling in timeless­ ness, prey to the calmative action of codification,

Beckett's characters clutch material objects as a means of defining themselves in time and space. They all have 'sacred' things which allow them to focus their attention away from the void, in an inversion of the role of holy articles which serve to direct the atten­ tion of the worshipper towards God and his saints.

Hats, boots, bicycles, greatcoats, sticks, remnants of any of the above, clocks, pencils, chairs, beds, and old photographs are some of the varied objects that 31 furnish the bare Beckettian landscape. While they are necessarily empty of any mediative power their repeated appearance throughout the canon suggest Beckett's faith in symbolism, the power of things to convey meaning, however reduced that meaning may be.

Significance is also sought in parables and the weight of events, in the hope that 'doing' may have something to do with 'being.' Beckett's characters are

"caught up in stories ... they equate stories with shape and meaning and even a modest if inaccessible 57 Salvation." Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. They show purpose and progression, and their logical sequence in microcosm implies a 'grand design' in macrocosm. But from his early work on, Beckett has not set much store by plot. Watt and Mercier and

Camier, deceptively anecdotal, are still a far cry from the biblical omniscience of the nineteenth century novel. With the trilogy and How It Is Beckett abandons the comfortable boundaries of consequential narrative form. Gradually traditional structure collapses.

Everything goesi chapters, paragraphs, sentences, punc­ tuation, capitalization. In How It Is the dictates of divine order in a balanced cosmos have become senseless screamings in a chaotic void. 32

On stage, too, the drama has been pared down to

uncertain happenings, stark images, agonised moans.

Waiting for Godot, which has been described as a play 58 where "nothing happens, twice," is nevertheless chock-full of action compared to Beckett's later pieces, which rarely involve more than one character and an off-stage voice or on-stage listener.

Beckett's rejection of a divine order parallels his rejection of accepted literary norms. Just as he abandoned ecclesiastical dictates, so he has moved as 59 far from "sacred" artistic conventions as he can go, abandoning such verifiable elements as geographical location, historical setting, time frames, plot. In- creasingly, he has tried to identify the timeless self without them.

Attempting to create a work of art by reducing reliance on heretofore accepted literary conventions, his writing is not formless but, as so many scholars have revealed, intricately formal and highly structured, with multiple internal correspondences. It is always 60 a deliberately "flawed formalism," however, reminding the reader that all conventions, like all theologies, may be fascinating, but are never absolute and in- evitably contain the arguments for their own demolition. 33

Thus, Beckett has no tolerance for the "unimagin- able c1rcu. 1 ar1ty ' o f d'1v1ne ' d'1scourse nGl wh lC' h P asca1 and St. Augustine so revered. But he exploits the opacity of scriptural discourse to demonstrate the contradictions of 'the Word.' Many of the remarks that his people make are modeled on the sentence structure of biblical or patristic literature, and illustrate the capacity of words to disprove what they are saying. He is reported to have been fascinated by the shape of

St. Augustine's description of the two thieves (page 17 of this study) where the sense of nine words is cancel- 62 led out by nine more. "It is the shape that matters,"

Beckett has observed, because, like so much biblical discourse, the meaning is disturbingly enigmatic, and, as Woshinsky remarks, the reasoning " would make a 63 logician blanch."

Beckettian man has lost faith in language to tell the truth about anything, much less his inner self.

But to pursue where, when, and who he is, he must resort to words although they have repeatedly proven unreliable for transmitting meaning. When Hamm demands, "Yester- day! What does that mean? Yesterday!" Clov rages back ,

"That means that bloody awful day, long ago, before this bloody awful day. I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything anymore, teach me others. Or 34

let me be silent" (Endgame, pp. 43-44). The Unnamable

struggles to shake off the habits of thought, the pre-

digested concepts of this "catechist's tongue" (p. 495),

but he admits "they are blank words, but I use them,

they keep coming back" (p. 568). Language is the bar-

rier which stymies the Unnamable in his attempts to

define himself because he doubts the integrity of the

word 'I,' the very tool that, a priori, he must rely on.

He doggedly repeats to himself that he must go on try-

ing to say "What's happening to me" (p. 560), despite

his growing suspicion that he is nothing but "a great

talking ball, speaking of things that don't exist"

(p. 422).

Just as prayers have lost their power to elicit

help from an at best indifferent God, for Beckett words

have become opaque and lost their power to communicate.

It was part1 y to escape t h1s. 1mpass. 1n . t h e tr1'1 ogy 64

that he turned to the theatre where communication is

less directly dependent on language, and even occasion- ally to soundless drama and mime (Film, Act Without

Words I, Act Without Words II, Breath).

Yet words are Beckett's only defense in face of mean1ng. 1 essness. 65 He uses them like bullets, sabo- taging everyday expressions, comfortable sayings, and universal truisms, turning them inside out and upside 35 down, emptying them of any intended meaning and infus- ing into them a battery of new unsettling, ambiguous interpretations. Puns, proverbs, parables, twisted cliches provide fertile ground for Beckett's steady assault on the holy alliance between language and mean- ing. Godspel has not been reinstated in his work but has been transmuted into a new discourse, that "terrible 66 metaphor" of the absurd, which such language experi- menters as Tom Stoppard had greeted with such astonish- ment and appreciation. He has in fact produced for 67 literature that "savage economy of hieroglyphics" that he had so admired in Joyce's writing where "form . . f .. 68 lS content, content lS orm. His more than sixty published works would indicate that, far from giving up on language, it is "the dialogue" which has kept him 69 here and become part of his-personal salvation. Like

Malone, he will continue writing to the very last moment.

"The mistake one makes is to speak to people," says the hero of First Love (p. 22) expressing a long- held conviction of Beckett's that "we cannot know and we cannot be known," for "every human is condemned" to an "irremediable solitude" (Proust, p. 46). In their youth or in moments of weakness Beckett's people have desperately sought a reflection of themselves in 36

others as proof of their own existence. Later on, as

exemplified in the trilogy they laboriously avoid human contact, abandon family connections, flee from

gestures of friendship, gratuitously kill. As suspi­

cious of others as they are of themselves, they prefer

the solitary contemplation of their own mental proces­ ses, their own decomposition.

For Beckettian man others only serve to confuse the central issue of self-examination. If ever new characters do emerge they often prove to be fictive doubles, echoes, memories, inner voices of the questing self. But Beckett does not dismiss human love--indeed his work indicates that the fact of human compassion in the face of "dying on" (Company, p. 72) is a miracle of human courage. Cries Mrs. Rooney, "Love, that is all I asked" (All That Fall, p. 37), and it comes, not in the form of idealistic romance but in the mutually remem­ bered incidents that she and her husband share. Winnie can go on because she feels someone still cares for her, and Gogo asks Didi, "Who am I to tell my private nightmares to if I can't tell them to you?" (Godot, p. 11). Footfalls, suggesting a woman's terminal ill­ ness and a daughter's loving care until her death, con­ tains the dead mother's moving reminder to her daughter,

"There is no sleep so deep, I would not hear you 37

70 there." It is a simple statement of love, no irony

intended.

The sheer lyricism of some of the later work sug-

gests a mellowing of Beckett's vision. Lines such as

"Seen the dear face and hear the unspoken words, stay

where we were so long together, my shade will comfort 71 you," resound with poetic cadences that, aside from

the usual Beckettian possibilities of interpretation,

are pure pleasure to the ear and indicate a reserved

but undeniable faith in human contact.

Stark images are st~ll present; the painful

staccato discharges of a voice agonizing over the perma-

nent imminence of death and the wretchedness of solitary

man recur but, after How It Is, Beckett has come to

dwell on the quiet comfort of another presence. "Bent

double, our heads touching, we went silently hand in .,72 h an d .

Beckettian man is still alone in Company with his

kind but he dreams unashamedly of sharing, as the

etymology of the word 'company' suggests, his little

sustenance with another like himself. "Deliverance

from the condition of spiritual isolation and estrange- ment to a reconciled relationship of community" if not 73 "with God," then certainly with his "fellowmen," is

perhaps part of Beckett's maturer vision. God may not 38

be love in Beckett's universe but love is still

there.

Although the ultimate Creator has always been

viewed as no more than a postulate in the Beckettian

universe, Beckett has regarded the creative act itself

with mounting suspicion and desperation. The notion

of the redeeming "religious experience" (Proust, p. 51)

of the artist creating, that he had so admirably des­

cribed in Proust's work, where "Time is recovered and

Death with it" (p. 57), has gradually given way in his

own canon to a growing sense of creative sterility and

artistic impotence.

Beckett had admired Proust's achievement in litera­

ture because he had attempted to reveal "the essence of

ourselves" (p. 18) by hoisting it out of "the only world that has reality and significance, the world of

our own latent consciousness" (p. 3). By harnessing

'involuntary memory'-- that "accidental and fugitive

salvation" (p. 22), truthful because it is uncontrol­

led--Proust succeeded in vividly recreating his past experiences. For Beckett, when the guards of "habit" were down, Proust had gained access to the "smothered divinity" (p. 19) of his real self. As involuntary memory exerts its influence, "our first nature, with all its cruelties and enchantments" (p. 11), is 39

momentarily bared, paving the way, in Proust's case,

for his self-discovery as a literary creator, as an

artist.

Kierkegaard, according to Paul Bov~, "argues in

several works that 'recollection' is the fundamental 74 aesthetic impulse." But in Beckett's canon, where

habit is also seen as "the great deadener" (Godot,

p. 59), memory, involuntary or deliberate, like all

other instruments of the dissolving consciousness, is

profoundly distrusted. Laments Malone in the French

version, "Monde morte, sans eau, sans air. C'est ca J 95 tes souvenirs." [Dead world, waterless, airless. So

are your memories.] Beckettian man, subverted by the

jostling aspects of his schismatic self, cannot be sure

that he is recalling his own or another's life or that

of someone who might never have been.

The fear of the narrator/creator disappearing into

the dust of destructive words, cancelling himself out

as he parrots on, is compounded by the conviction that what the writer might have thought to be his creative

imagination is no more than the stale echoes of liter-

ary tradition or the collective consciousness. "You

invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping and all you do is stammer out a lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long

forgotten" (Moll., p. 38). 40

Beckett's narrators so often have difficulties telling their stories. Hamm never finishes his. Winnie has difficulty beginning hers. None of the monologuists of the trilogy can ever get their stories straight.

Even in Beckett's early works the omniscient author makes only ironic appearances. Murphy opens with a bored, almost impertinent intrusion: "The sun shone, having no alternative on the nothing new" (p. 1). In

Malloy and Malone Dies, again authorial omniscience is parodied; Moran begins, "It is midnight" (Moll., p.

122), and ends, "It was not midnight" (p. 240), and

Malone often laments, "What tedium" (pp. 254,257). But ultimately in the trilogy where testimony to the self's independent existence again and again proves impossible, fictive authorial control collapses altogether. The guise of the first-person narrative is torn apart as the narrator fails to reconcile his two parts, the pronoun "I" and the rest, unnamable. In his interview with Israel Shenker, Beckett said, "In the last book-­

L'Innommable--there is complete disintegration. No

'I', no 'have', no 'being.' No nominative, no accusa­ tive, no verb. There' s no way to go on" ("Shenker, " p. 148). At this point in his life it would seem that there was to be no salvation for Beckett through his art. 41

According to Peter Lawley, quoting Robbe-Grillet and Beckett himself, Beckett invents characters, "pro- visional beings," who ~re "the existence by proxy of the creator who is obliged to create himself but can­ not, since he cannot define himself." 76 And Paul Bove remarks:

Since the loss of meaning entails the loss of self, Beckett's work is also seen as the Paradigm of the disappearance of the author from the stage of creation--Beckett's work represents the loss of authority in the modern sense of writing.77

Beckett and his people are failures. Unable to create in a Creatorless universe they are patently in- capable of fulfilling the greatest dream of the writer-­ 78 to "eff the ineffable," to reach into the silence beyond "this buzzing confusion" ("Driver," p. 218) of existence.

And yet the imperative need to defy the death of the author and his depleted imagination persists.

"Imagination dead," concedes the narrator of Imagination

Dead Imagine, and then exhorts, "imagine." The inter- minable conflict between narrator and narrated is "stony 79 ground" indeed, "but not entirely." For there is always a glimmer of hope that "the fable of one fabling with you in the dark" (Company, p. 87) may yet be the 42

creative self creating, "alone" as always but tenta­

tively affirming that in writing on, the "attitude of

disintegration" ("Shenker," p. 148), which had silenced

Beckett for so long, can be overcome.

Enough went further than any of Beckett's works

and seems to suggest a reconciliation between the artist's craving for a definition of the essential inner self, independent of language and history, and his debt to all that has been and gone and yet remains a part of him. Beckettian man will not throw himself out of the window "after years of struggling" as Beckett had said of Nicholas de Stael (p. 149), but will go on being his own, continuously improvised, savior. Conclusion

The "total salvation" that is conceivable in

Christian terms but no longer even imaginable in

Beckett's world is, nevertheless, the yardstick against which his own alternative to despair has necessarily been measured. While he cannot accept the spiritual implications of a doctrine which saves some and damns others, the Christian notion of Salvation is a deeply rooted concept that he has never been able to forget; indeed almost obsessively and repeatedly he recalls it throughout his canon.

According to Jean-Paul Weber, artistic creation is a manifestation of the "unconscious · memory of child­ hood"80 and the result of a haunting obsession born of a deeply emotional experience. Beckett once admitted to Gabriel d'Aubarede that he was no intellectual at all. "All I am is feeling. Molloy and the others came to me the day I became aware of my folly. Only then 81 did I begin to write the things I feel." When asked about the religious significance of his plays he as­ serted, "Well, there really is none at all. I have no religious feeling." But then he added, "Once I had a

43 44 religious emotion. It was on my first communion. No more" ("Driver," p. 220).

It is noteworthy that, for a writer so deeply pre­ occupied with a search for meaning, and so self­ confessedly inspired by his emotions, the pivotal sacrament of Communion should have been the only mean­ ingful religious experience of his life. As the bread and wine is received by the communicant, the moment of

Christ's sacrifice for mankind's Salvation is recalled and celebrated in all its mystery. Apparently at that moment, for the already uneasy child that was Sam 82 Beckett, Christ's merciful Salvation briefly became a transcending reality.

Beckett would certainly disclaim any consequences from this event, just as he has always dismissed all biographical interpretations of his work, although it bristles with childhood memories. However, it is dif­ ficult to deny that the Christian concept of Salvation-­ 23 perhaps "la hantise dominante" which Weber describes-- is the source of much of Beckett's literary creation.

But from his "latent consciousness" the transmuted doctrine has reemerged as the antithesis of what it once was; Salvation not as answer but as question, pro- viding the matter for Beckett's writings and the dynamics of his art. Notes

1samuel Beckett, A Piece of Monologue, in Rockaby and Other Short Pieces (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1981), p. 70. Further references to this work will be cited in the text as Monologue. 2samuel Beckett, Molloy in Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable: Three Novels by Samuel Beckett (New .York: Grove Press, Inc., 1959), p. 49. Further refer­ ences will be cited in the text as Moll.

3Peter Murphy, "The nature and art of love in 'Enough,'" Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 4 (Spring 1979)' p. 27. 4Tom Driver, "Beckett by the Madeleine," Columbia University Forum, Interview with Samuel Beckett in Lawrence Graver and Raymond Federman, eds., Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1970), p. 220. Further references will be cited in the text as "Driver." "The family was protes­ tant, but for me it was irksome and I let it go. My brother and mother got no value from their religion when they died. At the moment of crisis it had no more depth than an old school tie."

5colin Duckworth, Angels of Darkness (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1972), p. 16. According to Duckworth, Beckett refers to his characters as "my people."

6 Samuel Beckett, Not I, in Ends and Odds (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1976), p. 15. Further references will be cited in the text as Not I.

7 Samuel Beckett, Endgame (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1976), p. 9. Further references will be cited in the text as Endgame.

8samuel Beckett, Malone Dies in Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable: Three Novels by Samuel Beckett, p. 330. Further references Wlll be c1ted 1n the text as Malone.

45 46

9 samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1954), p. 57. Further references will be cited in the text as Godot. 10 Alice and Kenneth Hamilton, Condemned to Life (Grand Rapids: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1976), p. 107. "Belacqua i~ captivated by the attrac­ tion of the •wombtomb. •" 11 Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable in Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable: Three Novels by Samuel Beckett, p. 474. Further references will be cited in the text as Unnam. 12 Duckworth, p. 38. 13 samuel Beckett, Fin de Partie (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1957), p. 63. The English version-­ "God be with the days" --does not convey the sense of yearning quite so humorously. 14 samuel Beckett, All Strange Awat in Rockabl and Other Short Pieces, p. 39. Further re erences wi 1 be cited in the text as All Strange. 15 Samuel Beckett, Lessness in Richard W. Seaver, ed., I can't go on, I'll go on (New York: Grove Press, 1976)' p. 557. 16 Samuel Beckett, Imagination Dead Imagine, in Seaver, p. 554. 17 samuel Beckett, L'lnnommable (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1953), p. 55. "Crever": to croak, to snuff it. 18 Samuel Beckett, Company (London: John Calder, 1980), p. 10. Further references will be cited in the text as Company. 19 Samuel Beckett, First Love (London: Calder and Boyar s , 19 7 3 ) , p . 9 . 20 samuel Beckett, .All That Fall in Krapo's Last Tape and Other Dramatic P1eces (New York: ~rove Press, Inc., 1957), p. 39. Further references will be cited in the text as All That Fall. 47

21 samuel Beckett, En Attendant Godot (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 195~p. 12. This is my translation of the French-..- "Le dernier moment. C 'est long mais ce sera bon." The English version-- "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick"-- does not stress the same point. 22 ·Samuel Beckett, Happy Days (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961), p. 43.

23Richard N. Coe, "God and Samuel J. D. O'Hara, ed. Twentieth Centur Mollo» Malone Dies, --~~~--~~--~~--~--~----~~~~an t e Unnama Prentice Hall, 1970), p. 93.

24 Lud ov1e . J anv1er, . Pour Samuel Beckett (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1966), p. 308. My translation. 25 Coe, p. 93. 26 Samuel Beckett, Happy Days (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961). This is one of Winnie's oft­ repeated phrases. 27 John A. Harden, The Catholic Catechism (New York : Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1975), pp. 119-121. 28 Harden, p. 120. 29 Samuel Beckett, Proust (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1931), p. 1. Further references to this work will be cited in the text as Proust. 30 Ruby Cohn, Back to Beckett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 101. 31 Harden, p. 234. 32 Cohn, p. 143. 33 Cohn, p. 130. 34 Hersh Zeifman, "The Religious Imagery in the Plays of Samuel Beckett," in Ruby Cohn, ed., Samuel Beckett: Collection of Criticism (New York: McGraw- Hill Book Company, 1975), p. 92. 35 Ze1'f man, p. 90 . 48

36Jan Hokenson, "A Stuttering Logos: Biblical Paradigms in Beckett's Trilogy," James Joyce Quarterly (Summer, 1971), p. 296.

37samuel Beckett, Oh Les Beaux Jours (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1974), p. 15. This is my transla­ tion; the English version says, "No interest •.. in life." 38 Barbara Woshinsky, "Biblical Discourse: Reading the Unreadable," L'Esprit Createur No. 2 (Summer, 1981). This article deals with the reading and interpretation of the scriptures by St. Augustine and Pascal. Woshinsky emphasizes the point that neither scholar was discouraged by "the impenatrability of sacred discourse" (p. 14), but rather found that the "mystery of sacred texts" is essential to man's reverence for the Divinity and "aesthetically pleasing in i~self" (p. 16). 39 Richard Ellman, "On Joyce's Centennial," The New Republic, February 1982, p. 29. Further references cited in the text as "Ellman." 40 Ellman also inclines to this point of view as he told me in a conversation, March 12, 1982. 41 Hokenson, p. 293. 42 Samuel Beckett, The Expelled in Seaver, p. 200. 43 Beckett, En Attendant Godot, p. 104. This is my translation of the French version: "Now semmes servis sur un plateau." The English version makes no such reference because in English 'plateau' does not also mean plate or dish. 44 Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, ed. Harold C. Gardiner, S. J. (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1955), p. 235. 45 Samuel Beckett, Murphy (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1972), p. 2. Further references will be cited in the text as Murphy. 46 Samuel Beckett, Watt (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1959), p. 23. 47 Harden, p. 431. 49 l

48 samuel Beckett, Pas Moi in Oh Les Beaux Joti'rs et Pas Moi (Paris: Les Ed1.t1.ons de Minuit, 1974), p. 95. My translation. 49 Beckett, quoted by, Driver, p. 219. In this interview Beckett said, "To find a form that acconunodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now." 50 Driver quotes Beckett as saying, "The only chance of renovation is to open our eyes and see the mess" (p. 218). And also, "The key word in my plays is 'perhaps'" (p. 220). 51 Samuel Beckett, Molloy (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1951), p. 194. This is Moran's ironic des­ cription of all the familiar components of his old life. The English version--"Sheet anchors"--does not echo the theme of Salvation. 52 Ham1. . 1 ton, p. 7 quot1.ng . t h e No b e 1 Comm1.ttee . I s "citation" for Beckett's · Nobel Prize. 53 Beckett, quoted by Israel Shenker, "Moody Man of Letters," The New York Times, 5 May 1956, Section II, p. 1, from Graver and Federman, eds., Critical Heritage, p. 148. Further references will be cited in the text as "Shenker." 54 Beckett, quoted by Duckworth, p. 18. "Christianity," said Beckett, "is a mythology with which I am familiar so naturally I use it." 55 Jan Hokenson, "L'Art de Beckett," Seminar on Samuel Beckett, March 8, 1981. 56 Samuel Beckett, Mal vu Mal Dit (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1981), p. 76. Non. Encore une secon~e. Rien qu'une. Le temps d'aspirer ce vide. Connaitre le bonheur. [No. One more second. Just one. Time to inhale this void. To know happiness.] My translation. 57 Michael Wood, "The Comedy of Ignorance," The New York Review, April 30, 1981, p. 49.

58 A1 ec Rel.'d , " From Beg1.nn1.ng. . to Date: Some thoughts on the plays of Samuel Beckett," Cohn, ed., Collection of Criticism, p. 64. Reid is paraphrasing Vivien Mercier's penetrating observation. 50

59 . Beckett, Proust, p. 8. Beckett described such conventions as "the sacred ruler and compass of literary geometry." 60 Antoni Libera, "Structure and Pattern in 'That Time,'" Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 6 (Autumn 1981), p. 81. 61 woshinsky, p. 23. 62 High Kenner, "Shades of Syntax," from Cohn, ed., Collection of Criticism, p. 21

63woshinsky, p. 23.

64Reid, p. 69.

65samuel Beckett, D'Un Ouvrage Abandonne in Tetes - Mortes (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1967), p. 27. "J'ai l'amour des mots, les mots ont ete mes seuls amours, quelques uns." [I love words. Words have been my only loves, at least, some of them.] My translation.

66Tom Stoppard quoted by s. s. Hammond, "Beckett and Pinter: towards a grammar of the absurd," Journal of Beckett Studies No. 4 (Spring 1979), p. 35.

67samuel Beckett, "Dante .•. Bruno. Vico .. Joyce" in Seaver, ed., p. 119. 68 Beckett, in Seaver, p. 118. 69 Beckett, Endgame, p. 48. Clov: "What is there to keep me here?" Hamm: "The dialogue."

70samuel Beckett, Footfalls in Ends and Odds, p. 43. 71 Samuel Beckett, Ohio Impromptu in Rockaby and Other Short Pieces, p. 30.

72samuel Beckett, Assez in Tetes-Mortes, p. 40. My translation. 73 one of the three primary definitions of salvation in Webster's Third International Dictionary.

74 Paul Bove, The Image of the Creator in Beckett's Post-modern Writing," Philosophy and Literature (Fall 1980) 1 P• 62. 51

75 Samuel Bee,k ett, Malone Meurt ( Parls: . Les Ed' ltlons . de Minuit, 1951), p. 49. My translation. The English version omitted the idea of dead memories which is present in the French. 76 Paul Lawley, "'Embers': an interpretation," Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 6, Autumn 1980, p. 35. "Provisional beings" is Alain Robbe-Grillet's expression, according to Lawley. "Existence by proxy" is Beckett's own phrase and Lawley reports his "repeatedly" using it.

77 Bove,.. p. 48 . 78 Beckett, quoted by Lawley, p. 12. 79 samuel Beckett in Enough in No's Knife: Collected Short Prose, 1945-1966 (London: Calder and Boyars, 1967), p. 154. 80 Weber, quoted by Robert Emmet-Jones, Panorama de la Nouvelle Critique en France de Gaston Bachelard a Jean-Paul Weber (Paris: Edition Sedes, 1968), p. 253. 81 Bee k ett, quote d ln . an lntervlew . . Wlt. h Ga b rle. 1 d'Aubarede, Nouvelles Litteraires, February 16, 1961, p. 1 in Graver and Federman, eds. Critical Heritage, p. 217. 82 Beckett, quoted by Seaver, p. xx. Beckett said that he had a "happy childhood" and then contradicted himself somewhat by adding that he "had little talent for happiness." 83 Emmet-Jones, p. 259, "Hantise dominante": dominating obsession. Bibliography

Books

Beckett, Samuel. "Dante ... Vico. Bruno .. Joyce," Lessness, Imagination Dead Imagine, in Richard Seaver, ed., I can't go on, I'll go on. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1976.

Proust. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1931.

------More Pricks Than Kicks. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1934.

Murphv. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1957.

Watt. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1953.

------Mercier and Camier. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1975.

------No's Knife: Collected Short Prose, 1945- 1966. London: Calder and Boyars, 1967.

First Love. London: Calder and Boyars, 1973.

------Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces (All That Fall, Embers, Act Without Words I, Act Without Words II.) New York: Grove Press, Inc.,• 1957.

How It Is. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1964.

------Tetes-Mortes. (D'Un Ouvrage Abandonne, Assez, Bing.) Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1967.

------Ends and Odds: Eight New Dramatic Pieces. (Not I, That Time , Footfalls, Ghost Trio, Theatre I, Theatre II, Rad1o I, Rad1o II) Grove Press, Inc., New York, 1976.

52 53

------Rockaby and Other Short Pieces. (Ohio Impromptu, All Strange Away, A Piece of Monologue). New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1981.

Company. London: John Calder, 1980.

------Mal Vu Mal Dit. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1981.

------Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable: Three Novels by Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1959.

Holloy. ·Paris: Les Editions de Minui t, 1951.

------· Malone Meurt. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1951.

------L'Lnnommable. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1953.

------The Lost Ones. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1972.

------Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1954.

------En Attendant Godot. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1952.

Endgame. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1958.

------Fin de Partie. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1957.

Happy Days. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1961.

------Oh Les Beaux Jours et Pas Moi. Paris: Les Editions d~ Minuit, 1963.

How It Is. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1964. 54

Critical Works

Cohn, Ruby. Back to Beckett. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.

------, ed. Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Criticism. New York: McGraw-H~ll Book Company, 1975.

Duckworth, Colin. Angels of Darkness. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1972.

Graver, Lawrence and Federman, Raymond, eds. Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, Inc., 1979.

Hamilton, Kenneth and Alice. Condemned to Life: The World of Samuel Beckett. Grand Rapids: William B. Erdmans Publish~ng Company, 1976.

Harden, John A. The Catholig Catechism. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1975.

Janvier, Ludovic. Pour Samuel Beckett. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1966. Kempis, St. Thomas a. The Imitation of Christ. Ed. Harold C. Gardiner, S. J. (New York: Double­ day and Company; Inc. , 1955).

Kenner, Hugh. A Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1973.

O'Hara, J. D.; ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Malloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970.

Rosen, Steven J. Samuel Beckett and the Pessimistic Tradition. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1976.

Worth, Katherine, ed. Beckett the Shapechanger. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, Inc., 1975. 55

Articles

Ben Zvi, Linda. "The schismatic self in 'A Piece of Monologue.'" Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 7, . Spring 1982, pp. 9-17.

Bove, Paul A. "The Image of The Creator in Beckett's Postmodern Writing." Philosophy and Literature, Fall 1980, pp. 47-65.

Coe, Richard. "God and Samuel Beckett," in J. D. O'Hara, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Malloy, Malone Dies; and the Unnamable. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970, pp~ 91-113.

Ellman, Richard. "On Joyce's Centennial." The New Republic, February 1982, pp. 28-31. Hammond, S. s. "Beckett and Pinter: towards a grammar of the absurd." Journal of Beckett Stud~es, No. 4 Spring, 1979, pp. 35-41.

Hokenson, Jan. "A Stuttering Logos: Biblical Paradigms in Beckett's Trilogy." James Joyce Quarterly, Summer 1971, pp. 293-310.

Lawley, Peter. "'Embers': an interpretation." Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 6, Autumn 1980, pp. 9-36.

Libera, Antoni. "Structure and Pattern in 'That Time.' Journal of Beckett Studies, No. 6, Autumn 1980, pp. 81-9.

Wood, Michael. "Comedy of Ignorance." The New York Review, April 30, 1981, pp. 49-52.

Woshinsky, Barbara R. "Biblical Discourse: Reading the Unreadable.'' L' Esprit Createur," No. 2, Summer 1981, pp. 13-24.