Abstract

The main purpose of this dissertation is to examine Beckett’s three plays Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I, and Endgame in the vein of Gilles Deleuze’s tenets such as becoming, body without organs, smooth space and nomadic character. Deleuze and Guattari’s creation of schizoids has been one of the most controversial projects in during the recent decades in fields such as philosophy, psychology, linguistics and singular modes of art especially cinema. The schizoids create a world of randomness or fortuitous oscillations in which possibility resides everywhere. This chaos, this flow, this body which has lost its organs is able to demolish whatever is in its way; it is however capable of fabricating any new machine by its connection to other machines accessible. The main aim of this thesis is in the first place to investigate the way each individual loses its individuality by becoming and to introduce the main dangers of one constant machinic connection resulting in entropic dullness. In such situations, the lines of flight or deterritorializations provide an exposure by another coherence. Secondly the writer wishes to have a more analytical view on the process of subjectivations produced in each becoming by emphasizing the operation of body without organs.

    Key Words:

Body without Organs, Deterritorialization, Becoming, Identity, Smooth Space, Lines of Flight.

Table of Content:

1. Chapter One: Introduction
2. General Overview . …5
3. Statement of the Problem ….. 10
4. Significance of the problem .. … 12
5. Delimitations .. .. 17
6. Approach and Methodology 19
7. Literature Review … .. .21
8. Definition of the Key-terms .. …23
9. Chapter Two: Deleuze’s tenets in Krapp’s Last Tape .26
10. “Arbre”, “Rhizome”, and “Becoming” in Krapp . ..27

Becoming Imperceptible in Krapp .. . 31

1. Language in Deleuzean perspective in Krapp’s Last Tape. .. ..37
2. Krapp’s Last Tape and Body without Organ . …41
3. Krapp and Smooth Space . .44

III. Chapter Three: Deleuzean perspectives in Not I . 46

1. Not I and Nonsignifying Language . ..46

Regimes of signs … . 53

1. Becoming process in Not I 59

2. 

3.  

4. Not I and Body without Organ (BwO) ..64

Smooth Space 67

1. Negation of Ego- Not I ..70
2. Chapter Four: Deleuzean themes in Endgame .. ..76
3. Endgame and Language 1 .77
4. Endgame and Language 2 .89
5. Endgame and Repetition …96
6. Endgame and Body without Organs (BwO) .99
7. Endgame and Smooth Space 110

Endgame and Nomadic Characters .114

1. Chapter Five: Conclusion
2. Conclusion 117
3. Summing up …121
4. Findings .125
5. Suggestions for Further Reading ..126
6. Bibliography ..128

Chapter One

1.1 General Background

Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) is an outstanding Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humor. Beckett is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century. He is considered one of the last modernists. As an inspiration to many later writers, he is also sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists. Furthermore, he is one of the key writers in the “Theatre of the Absurd”. Besides, Beckett’s work has extended the possibility of drama and fiction in unprecedented ways, bringing to the theater and the novel an acute awareness of the absurdity of human existence_ our desperate search for meaning, our individual isolation, and the gulf between our desires and the language in which they find expression. Beckett was awarded Croix de guerre (France), Medaille de Resistence (France), honorary doctorate from Trinity College (1959-Dublin), International Publishers’ Formentor Prize (1961), Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1968), and in 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation”. Beckett studied French, Italian, and English and he went to Paris while there, he was introduced to a renowned Irish author James Joyce. This meeting had a profound impact on the young man.

No doubt the best known of Beckett’s mature efforts written originally in English, Krapp’s Last Tape carries his theatrical experiment one step further, reducing the cast of characters to a single human actor, supplemented by a tape recorder playing back the same voice at a much earlier age, with references to still earlier recordings. Going well beyond the usual dramatic monologue, the interaction of the aging Krapp with his former self (or selves) raises Krapp’s Last Tape to the dimension of full-scale theater. Set “in the future”- tape recorders being relatively new at the time of the play’s composition—Krapp’s Last Tape presents the title character under the strong, merciless light of his workspace. This light is demanded by his increasingly poor eyesight. In this way, light and shadow, sight and blindness figure prominently in Beckett’s attempt to examine. Krapp has apparently intended to surprise himself with memories kept “fresh” on tape, but there are few surprises to be found. Like Vladimir and Estragon, Krapp is rather clownish in appearance and dress, prone to a variety of ailments no doubt inflicted by his lifestyle. A heavy drinker who interrupts the tape more than once to take a nip offstage, Krapp is also hopelessly addicted to bananas, despite chronic constipation. As it could be imagined, dramatization of this play on the stage would expand the boundaries of what can be realized in theatre.

Endgame is a break, from previous on-stage brutalities having a non-linear, freer, more fragmented poetic without any specified stage direction or characters’ movement. It consists of four characters. The setting for Endgame is a bare room with two small windows situated high up on the back wall. This is a shelter for the four characters; the rest of the world is supposed to be dead. Hamm is onstage, seated in chair, and covered with a sheet when the play opens. Clov enters and proceeds to set up a ladder so he can look out both windows. Once he has completed this ritual he leaves the room and goes to his kitchen. Hamm wakes up wanting to play games. He whistles and Clov immediately appears. They discuss Hamm’s eyes, which Clov has never looked at. Hamm asks Clov to put the sheet back over him, indicating that he wants to go to sleep. Clov refuses, and Hamm threatens not to feed him anymore. Clov says that then he will die. Hamm finally asks Clov why he does not leave. Clov indicates that he is trying to leave, and that someday he will. Hamm then wants to know why Clov will not kill him. Their conversation is stunted by the fact that whenever one of them makes a statement, it is countered by the other person. The first speaker then agrees with the counter argument, meaning that