Beckett once remarked that he was interested in ‘fundamental sounds’ and the challenge for Beckett critics has been to find a metalanguage in which they can adequately comment on the profound noises of his drama and prose. A number of studies have considered Beckett’s work alongside analogies from philosophy and, more recently, there has been an interest in Beckett as a sort of ‘dud mystic’ and espouser of what in theology is called theVia Negativa. Aesthetically he has been seen as a minimalist minimalist.

But what is ‘fundamental’ can also include the psychological, and there have been several attempts...

It is often said that the opening words of the psychoanalytical session contain the totality of what is to come. Thinking this true of the scholarly text, I find myself writing that this study is primarily about love. This might seem somewhat odd for a reading of Beckett, but I hope that in what follows the reader will gain an appreciation of what I believe to be the fundamental emotional force that organizes his work – a need for contact with a primary, loving other. I will suggest that deeply embedded in his fiction and dramatic work is an enduring psychological...

This chapter presents a general outline of the psychoanalytical framework that forms the background of this study, followed by a reading of Beckett’s dissertation on Proust.¹ I try to minimize the inclusion of theoretical references and material in the main body of the text; this may allow for a more direct response to the flow of textual material. The concepts presented here provide a framework within which the reading takes place but, in the end, the textual material must speak for itself. If the reader feels something in Beckett appears more interesting or exciting, though there is doubt about a...

Murphy, Beckett’s first novel, centres on the title character’s search for a tranquillity born of nothingness. A deeply schizoid, middle-aged man, Murphy lives in dire poverty and, when first encountered, has recently begun a relationship with Celia, a prostitute who wants them to begin a life together. He feels the world is hostile, offering him nothing but, at Celia’s coaxing, he finds a job in a mental institution. Attracted to the erasure of reality he believes to exist within the schizophrenic mind, he is drawn to one patient, a Mr. Endon. Soon after imagining this man does not value him,...

Beckett’s second published novel,Watt, tells the story of the title character’s journey to, stay in, and expulsion from the house of a Mr Knott, to which he has been drawn, or summoned, to act as a servant. After his stay in the house, Watt becomes psychotic, ending up in a sort of asylum. Sam, the narrator, befriends him there, but admits the text may not approximate reality, since he can trust neither Watt’s recollection (of his stay with Knott) nor his own recollection (of Watt’s telling). Central to the book is the ‘unknowability’ of Knott, and ‘unknowability’ permeates the...

Waiting for Godot, a ‘tragicomedy’ in two acts, was first performed in Paris in 1953, quickly becoming an international success that established Beckett as a major figure in twentieth-century literature. Early commentators viewed the play in existentialist terms to such a degree it became almost synonymous with that movement (Kiesenhofer, 1993). Others have read the play in political or religious terms – Mittenzwei (1969) presents a Marxist perspective, Zeifman (1975) highlights the sense of suffering and its connection to the divinity, and Cohn (1962) sees Beckett as mocking classical Christian traditions. Anders (1965) believes the play is a parable, and most...

Preceding chapters have examined the experience of primal disconnection in several of Beckett’s works. Murphy’s failure to recognize emerging, loving feelings, Watt’s inability to connect to an enduring, whole internal presence, the disrupted, enmeshed relationships inWaiting for Godot,the images of primal maternal absence in …but the clouds … , Footfallsand so forth, all reflect a central feeling-state of non-recognition within narrative-self. This chapter focuses on first-person short fiction, exploring primal ruptures within the narrative-self in the direct fiction, as well as in the ‘created’ tales of the narrator. The first section examines ruptures of the primary...

Like Beckett, psychoanalysts tend to be better with beginnings than with endings. That said, I still believe this study is primarily about love. But how to finish? Perhaps a dream would be best, a dream that came to me after I completed the first draft of this book.I was walking in a city that I immediately knew to be Paris, along a narrow avenue lined with small trees. At an intersection, waiting to cross, was Beckett, and I approached him, inviting him to a small café for a pint of beer. He agreed, was very gracious, very quiet. We...