Alyssa DiPanfilo

Directing 1
Prof Posnick
February 5th 2014

An Act Without Words is written by Samuel Beckett. Many scholar’s believe the

play is loosely is based off of the mythical story of Tantalus. Tantalus was welcomed by

the Gods to sit at their table and dine with them in Mount Olympus. He committed a

great crime by supposedly stealing ambrosia and nectar to bring back to his people

which would revel all the secrets of the Gods (3). Tantalus is also known from offering

up his son, Pelops, as a sacrifice to the Gods. He killed him, cooked him, and served

him to the Gods as dinner. Cannibalism is greatly looked down upon and once the Gods

knew of Pelop’s death none of them touched the meal. Zeus reconstructed the boy and

sentenced Tantalus to a life time of suffering. His punishment was to stand in a pool of

water underneath trees with low hanging branches of fruit. Every time he would bent

over to have a drink the water would recede before he could get any. Every time he

reached for something to eat the branches would pull away from him. He was forever

punished to crave things he could never have. (3)

Flung into the desert the man has nothing to do and no where to go. He tries a

number of times to escape and each time he gets flung back into this desert place.

Each time his response is to brush himself off and reflect on the events that just

occurred. Looking at his hands he realizes they are what separate him from animals

and that they are his only tools (2). Suddenly scissors descend and he clips his nails,

maybe to make sharp points out of them to be used as tools. When the water descends

we see another reference to the Greek myth of Tantalus. The man tries so hard to get
the water but he cannot reach it, just as Tantalus tried so hard to drink the water but it

always receded right before his eyes. He tries everything even moving the boxes to get

what he wants. Then man is thinking outside of the boxes, he is using every resource

he has, but still “life” says no to him. He finally lays down, defeated, with the water

dangling inches from his head but he does not reach for it. The man continues to lay

there as everything disappears from stage. He cannot control what is happening and is

now consciously ignoring the whistles, the water, and anything that “life” is putting in his

face. He is simply laying on the ground completely defeated and pondering how he got

stuck in this place (2). All the objects were removed once it was realized that these

objects he possessed could possibly aide in him committing suicide. He is forbidden to

ever get what he desires even if it is his own death. This ending could also be

interpreted in his disobedience. He is actively rebelling against all the things that have

been punishing him in this play.

As human beings we always are striving for bigger and better things. Nothing is

ever good enough for us and in an age of instant gratification this causes a lot of anxiety

when we do not get something that we want right away. I believe that we are both the

victims and the rebellious. There are times when life has outside forces that we cannot

control no matter how hard we try, but I believe that what we choose to do with these

forces is what either makes us the victim or the rebiller. We cannot stop the world from

happening to us, but we do have a say in how we react to it. In the journal “Birth astride

a grave: Samuel Beckett’s ‘Act Without Words 1’”, written by Stanley E. Gontarski,

Gontarski writes,
 “As he refuses the summons of the outside force, as he refuses to act

predictably, in his own self-interest, as he refuses the struggle for the most

elemental of man’s needs, Man, in a frenzy of inactivity, is born. If at first we saw

man created by another, we end with man creating himself. In his refusal to

devote himself to physical existence, solely to survival and pleasure (shade, the

off-stage womb), the protagonist has created a free man, a separate, individual

self.” (4).

As humans we recreate our own self every time we say “no” to a societal norm. We

constantly push those boundaries daily because we all hope that their is more to life

than the oppressions that we face and feel because of things that are not in our control

at that given moment. People constantly recreate themselves. Existentialist is the nature

of the mind to be free and do as it pleases (4). Existentialists do not tell others how to

live because that would be detrimental to the free creative process of the individual. The

only person who can decide how to live is the individual because we must be true to

ourselves. It is very hard to stay true to ourselves in a society who believes that different

is wrong. We must have the straight to break through the norms and be the person who

we want to be as individuals. Beckett touched on existentialism in the sense that the

man made a conscious decision to say no to the “norms” in life. He is rebelling and

remaking himself as an individual, which is something we all as human beings should

strive to do.
 Works Cited

1. "Act Without Words I." Act Without Words I. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb.
2014. <http://samuel-beckett.net/Act_Without_Words.html>.

2. "Birth astride a Grave: Samuel Beckett’s ‘Act without Words 1’." Birth
astride a Grave: Samuel Beckett’s ‘Actwithout Words 1’. N.p., n.d. Web. 12
Feb. 2014. <http://www.english.fsu.edu/jobs/num01/Num1Gontarski.htm>.

3. "Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology: Tantalus." Encyclopedia of Greek

Mythology: Tantalus. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/tantalus.html>.

4. "Lecture 12: The Existentialist Frame of Mind." Lecture 12: The

Existentialist Frame of Mind. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture12.html>.