SAMUEL BECKETT

THAT TIME
 PRESENTATION STRUCTURE
01 02 03 04
Contextualisation of the Exploration of the Comparative Critical engagement
work within Beckett's play's guiding examination of stylistic with the 'Beckett on
wider ouvre framework and content/ elements, themes, Film' 2001 production
chronological devices and symbols
breakdown of the A, B
and C narratives

PRESENTATION THEME: BECKETT IN THE CONTEXT OF HIMSELF

 CONTEXTUALISATION
1906 1923 - 27 1928 1933 1936 1938 1949 1955 1958 1961 1963

War, writing,

Molloy
All That Fall
Krapp's Last Tape

Words and Music

Cascando
Endgame
Happy Days
Born B.A + M.A Return Germany, not publishing

Three Dialogues
Italian and London Ireland,

En attendant Godot
French Pyscho- Paris, meets Murphy (first
therapy Suzanne published*
Teaching novel)
Post Mostly essays and poems
Paris

1964 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1976 1980 1983 1984 1986 1989

Nobel Not I Worstward Stirrings

Quad
Prize Ho Still
Play Footfalls Suzanne dies
Eh Joe The Lost Catastrophe Diagnosed
Ones That Time Company Beckett dies
Film with
Come and Go A piece of monologue Ephysema
From an Abandoned work
THE PLAY'S STRUCTURE

• Three voices from distinct locations on stage. Contrast with stage direction
of Krapp's Last Tape.

• Written as three monologues and then intercalcated by Beckett in 36

sections. Consider aspects of musical arrangement.

• The order was changed in drafts by Beckett, but the concluding smile
written in right from the beginning.
 A, B AND C VOICES
Three different ages of the protagonist, each of which is recollection of past temporal periods (with recollections of
further previous temporal periods within them) from the 'now'. But when is the now?

MATURITY YOUTH OLD AGE

A A final return to his

hometown, attempting
(without success) to visit the
B Not expressed at the time of
folly he hid in as a child,
whilst his family had
searched for him. In the
present of this re-visit, the
trams do not run, and the
station is closed. AS he
recalls (or makes up?)
stories of his childhood, he
recognises he will not make
this journey again. But does
he?
youth, but from reflection at
two points in the future - the
C The oldest version of the
'present' and (or only?) as
reflection in a reflection of
sitting beside a windown in
the dark with an owl). A
recollection of a
recollection, where he
expresses affection for and
lies with a girl in a field, and
also remembers being alone
in the same settings.
protagonist is more
comfortable spending time
alone in public space. He
struggles with his own
reflection, which differs in
its immediacy from his
'reflections' of the past. The
final contemplation of an
abandoned library
constitutes a 'return to dust'.
 CHRONOLOGICAL TRACKING (!?)

a: b: b: B: A: Recollection C: Recollection
Recollection Times spent Before, after Recollection from present of of various
within with a love in or during the of recalling at the final (?) moments across
recollection A the field. (Is field moment? the window revisit to the latter time,
of the this a striaght b A moment times spent folly
childhood recolleciton alone in the with a love in
moments at ciffering from sand the field. Is b
the folly construction of this
b memory in recollection or
B?) is it alternate
reconstruction
of b?
 DEJA VU
As one of Beckett's later plays, the characterisation, symbols, structural elements and themes all 'borrow' from and 'remix'
devices we've seen used in previous works. How do they compare and contrast?

STAGING AND NON-MOVEMENT

TIME, MOMENTS, MEMORY, SELF
NECESSITY AND INSUFFICIENCY OF LANGUAGE
SMILE AS PHYSICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL GESTURE

A caveat to the following analysis: "Beckett’s writings contain a kind of arbitrary collection or bricolage of philosophical ideas. His
characters exult in endless, pointless, yet entertaining, metaphysical arguments. His work exudes an atmosphere of existential Angst,
hopelessness and human abandonment. This stark Beckettian world cries out for philosophical interpretation... Indeed in his plays
are embedded vague hints and suggestions of deliberate philosophical intent. many critics to try to pin down the overall
philosophical position to which Beckett supposedly subscribes...

Yet Beckett’s relation to philosophy is difficult and complex. He was not a philosopher ... as an author, he strongly resisted every
attempt to impose any philosophical interpretation or meaning on his work. Beckett’s answer to philosophy is to refuse it, give it a
‘kick in the arse... Beckett compounded this refusal to interpret his own work philosophically by claiming not to understand
philosophers: ‘I never understand anything they write.’ And again he wrote:‘I am not a philosopher. One can only speak of what is in
front of him, and that is simply a mess." (Moran, in Murray, 2006)
STAGING AND NON-MOVEMENT
""Fade up to LISTENER'S FACE about 10 feet above stage level midstage off centre. Old white face, long flaring white hair as
seen from above... Voices A B C are his own from coming from both sides and above"

Unnatural improbilities of physics to highlight audience positionality: Not I

Staging as meta-commentary on the relationship of art forms: Beckett's work as 'intermedial, narrowing the gulfs
between theater, film, and radio' (Miller, 2012). And painting? Caravaggio?
Where have we seen this before: Cascando, Words and Music, All That Fall

Paralysis/non-movement as a device of philosophical/existential

discourse and/or psychological mood? Where have we seen it
before: Happy Days, Endgame, Play

Disembodiment as cartesian duality (Kenner, 1968),

identification of the self, and the existential role of
language.
 TIME, MOMENTS, MEMORY, SELF
"The film makes audible the patterns of memory and
renders visible how a self bends toward the occurrence
of a voice" (Miller, 2012)

'That time, was the ruin still there?'

'Was that another time?'

Logical temporal progression versus the 'moment' as a construction of memory. The relevance of both to self.

"Are they memories or fictions…? Is all memory a fictional process…?" (Mercier, 1977)

Language of recall as maintaining discrete spatial/temporal space, the relationship of time as contained moments,
versus time as continuum: where have we seen it: Krapp's Last Tape - also, the sand in Happy Days.
 NECESSITY AND INSUFFICIENCY OF LANGUAGE

Beckett's contrivance of a temporal structure almost inexpressible in language

Language as existence: the externalisation of the language from the object through the disembodiment of voice

Broomfield on Beckett's perspective: "Pure language is reality... what we perceive in the existential
world can never be proved to exist, while language survives scrutiny, and will 'go on' to become the
real, once it has been divested of its connection to the corporeal."

But athe same time:

‘pure language is beyond the text, it is the unpresentable presence, Hamm's 'life to come'. (Broomfield,
2014)

So how can we present the existence of oneself to others, if language is both

fundamental to existence, but text/words are also deficient as a tool for
communication of the nature of that existence to others?

How language serves the internal and the external operates on different rules:
Beckett's voice serves the internal - fragmentary, non-grammatical, etc, and yet
is still insufficient.

Where we've seen this before: Music and Words, Cascando, Play
SMILE AS PSYCHOLOGICAL AND
PHILOSOPHICAL GESTURE
'A smile in grief from a person acquainted with grief is all the more striking for that’. (Brydon, 1995)

"The bitter, the hollow and—Haw! Haw!—the mirthless. The bitter laugh laughs at
that which is good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is
not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well, well. But the
mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout—Haw!—so. It is the laugh of
laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting
of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs—silence please—at that which is
unhappy" - Watt, Beckett

Duality and incidental relationship between the corporeal and the self.

Concepts of palimpsest - assembled or discrete selves?

Where we've seen this before: Happy Days, Waiting for Godot, All That Fall, Postcards
on Dante, Watt
CRITICAL
EXAMINATION OF THE
2001 'BECKETT ON
FILM' VERSION
Where it fails:

Imposition of pacing, pausing,

punctuation subverts the linguistic
intent?

Use of 'dynamic' camera reduces

impact of 'memory as discrete
moment'?

Close-up intimacy reduces sense of

disembodiment/duality?
THIS PRESENTATION WAS INSPIRED BY FREUD: