During the 20th century, there was an evident
disillusion and disintegration
in religious
views and human nature due to the horrific and appalling events and
improvements in
technology of this time, such as the Holocaust and the creation of
the atom
bomb. This has left people with little,
if any, faith in powers above or in
their own kind,
leaving them to linger in feelings of despair and that life is an
absurd joke. From these times grew the Theater of
Absurd. Here they attempted
to depict the
very illogical and ridiculous life they were living. In comparison to
traditional
characteristics of earlier plays, the plots are seemingly deficient, if not
sparse with
little resolution. Yet despite this,
these plays make very bold and
philosophical
statements about life in the 20th century.
The playwrights
indiscreetly
utilize metaphoric and symbolic details to support their message. In
"Krapp's
Last Tape," Samuel Beckett exploits such techniques in expressing his
own bleak and
pessimistic view of the world.
In his middle years of his life, Krapp retained
this rigid and anal retentive
nature. He kept these tapes in which he would
constantly reevaluate his own life
and try to always
improve it, using these tapes as "help before embarking on a new
retrospect"
(1629). He had also stored these various
tapes organized in boxes with
their location
written in a ledger. Yet in his latter
years, there is an apparent decay
of this
regimental attitude. His very appearance
is an indication of this decline.
He is described
as wearing "Rusty black narrow trousers to short for him. Rusty
black sleeveless
waistcoat. Surprising pair of dirty
white boots. Disordered gray
hair. Unshaven. Very near-sighted (but unspectacled),"
which is not the
description of an
anal retentive person (1627). Also
despite the ledger and the
boxes, he still
cannot find the tapes which evidently have obviously become
disorganized over
time. And in his ledger, he has made
various notes about the
subject matter of
tapes, but he fails to understand them.
In addition, while
reviewing his
last tape, his younger self begins to speak of his profound revelation
that has changed
his life, but impatiently the elder Krapp forwards past it. His
goal of
self-improvement has unmistakably been abandoned and replaced by an
uncaring and
callous temperament. These remnants of
his once fastidious nature,
further support
the deterioration of his former self.
Beckett also bestows the use of color to
further uphold his view on life. He
manipulates
imagery of the color black to further intensify the mood of pessimism
and death. By the house on the canal, Krapp recollects
of a "dark young beauty
with a black
hooded perambulatory" (1630).
Beckett describes this baby carriage
as being a
"most funeral thing," resembling the lack of hope that baby has as if
it
would better off
dead (1630). This usage of color can
also be seen when his
mother had passed
away. At the very moment his mother was
"all over and done
with," Krapp
is sitting holding unto "a small, old, black rubber ball" that he had
been playing with
a dog with (1630-1). For a moment, he
considers keeping this
as a cherishable
memento of his mother's death which he would "feel until his
dying day. But I gave it to the dog" (1631). He simply imparts these reminiscent
and sentimental
thoughts of his mother to a dog, reflective of the relationship and
his feelings
towards his mother.
Further use of color as symbolic imagery is
seen with the various women
Krapp encounters
in his life. As he attempts to find
happiness in his various
relationships, he
merely just falls further from this goal, which is represented in
the decline of
color. During his youngest years, he is
involved in a relationship
with Bianca,
"a girl in a shabby green coat" which ends up failing (1630). He next
encounters a
nurse "all white and starch," representing her purity and perfection
(1630). Though despite her beauty, she is
unattainable for Krapp for she threatens
to a call a
policeman. He is next in a relationship
with Effe, who is not physically
described besides
the scratch on her thigh. For Krapp,
because of this flaw, she is
imperfect,
therefore he cannot find any happiness with her. Then finally, he
resorts to Fanny,
"a bony old ghost of a whore" (1633).
Their relationship is not
even described,
but is merely implied as purely sexual on Krapp's part. As the
colors disappear
to nothingness so does his chances of acquiring any possible
happiness.
Though
Samuel Beckett does not yield any kind of complex profound plot,
he provide an
intriguing and outstanding job of exploiting the details of imagery
and dialogue to
express his despairing and cynical interpretation of the world.
Because of his emphasis upon the "trifles" of
the play, he is able to reemphasize
and convincingly
convey Krapp's disenchantment with his own life.
Works Cited:
Beckett,
Samuel. "Krapp's Last Tape,"
The Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Ed. Michael
Meyers. Boston: Bedford Books of St.
Martin's Press,1993. 1627-
1633.
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