Beckett's Absurd Characters

Beckett's Absurd Characters

Beckett did not view and express the problem of Absurdity in any form of philosophical theory (he never wrote any philosophical essays, as Camus or Sartre did), his expression is exclusively the artistic language of theatre. In this chapter, I analyse the life situation of Beckett's characters finding and pointing at the parallels between the philosophical background of the Absurdity and Beckett's artistic view.

As I have already mentioned in the biography chapter, Beckett read various philosophical treatises; he was mostly interested in Descartes, Schopenhauer, and Geulincx. These thinkers are the main sources which influenced and formed Beckett's view of the world as well as his literary writings.

Beckett's major and the only theme appearing and recurring in all his works, is exclusively the theme of man. Beckett is interested in man as an individual, in his subjective attitude to the world, in confrontation of individual subject with the objective reality.

According to Descartes, human being is composed of two different substances: body (res extensa) and mind (res cogitas).21 The body is a part of a mechanical nature, a material substance independent from spirit; and the mind, a pure thinking substance. This distinction of the two qualitative different substances is called subject-object "Cartesian dualism", 22 and it gave rise to number of philosophical problems, the essence of which is Their mutual connection.

Beckett's characters are such subjective thinking substances surrounded by mechanical material nature; and as the subject-object connection was the most problematic part of Descartes' concept, it is one of the major motifs Beckett deals with. He uses dramatic symbols, to express the barriers and the walls between the worlds "in" and "out" as to demonstrate their incompatibility. His characters are physically isolated from what is happening "outside" and the space they are imprisoned in, is their inner subjective world. "A Beckett hero is always in conflict with objects around him... he is divided from the rest of the world, a stranger to its desires and needs. The dichotomy between his own mind and body finds an analogy in the outside world in the dichotomy between people and objects. ...tension is created between mind and body, on one hand, and people and objects, on the other. ..."23

Hamm and Clov are closed in a small room separated from the external reality by the walls.

Hamm: Nature has forgotten us.

Clov: There's no more nature.

(End 97)

Nell and Nagg, the human fragments vegetate in two ashbins, their space is reduced ad absurdum, as though they are constantly getting closer to death. In addition, all of the characters are immobile; Hamm cannot stand up and walk, and although Clove can, he can even see the world out of the windows giving onto the sea, he is unable to escape from the room, unable to open the door and run away.

Clov: So you all want me to leave you.

Hamm: Naturally.

Clov: Then I leave you.

Hamm: You can't leave us.

Clov: Then I shan't leave you.

(End 110)

Vladimir and Estragon are in the same situation. They are in an open empty road surrounded by the natural world, but unable to move on.

Estragon: It's not worth while now. (Silence.)

Vladimir: No, it's not worth while now. (Silence.)

Estragon: Well, shall we go?

Vladimir: Yes, let's go. (They do not move.)

(Godot 52)

Although they are not limited by any barriers waiting in an open space, surrounded by nature (tree), they are indifferent to this world as it is indifferent to them. Their time passes in a very different way from the world around them. (See chapter V.)

Pozzo: What time is it?

Estragon: That depends what time of year it is.

Pozzo: It is evening? (Silence. Vladimir and Estragon scrutinise the sunset.

Estragon: It's rising.

Vladimir: Impossible.

Estragon: Perhaps it's the dawn.

Vladimir: Don't be a fool. It's the west over there.

Estragon: How do you know?

(Godot 79)

A similar symbol illustrates the situation of Winnie, who is anchored up to her waist, later up to her neck in the ground in centre of a stage. Though she is not isolated in a small claustrophobic space, as Hamm and Clov are, the physical position to which she is sentenced, forces her into static existence.

Winnie: I speak of when I was not yet caught - in this way - and had my legs and had the use of my legs, and could seek out a shady place, like you, when I was tired of the sun, or a sunny place, when I was tired of the shade, like you, and they are all empty words. ...

(Happy 154)

Krapp's situation is analogous to Hamm's and Clov's. He is sealed off in his room, surrounded by his voice and memories, closed up in his own world, his own mind.

Krapp's tape The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness round me I feel less alone. (Pause.) In a way. (Pause.) I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to...(hesitates)...me. (Pause.) Krapp.

(Krapp 217)

The limitation and isolation of man from the world, having its roots in Descartes' dualism, is, at the same time, the foundation of the Sisyphusean feeling of the absurdity as it is described by Camus. (See chapter III.) They are one of the feelings, that "...admit of the absurd. Still, the enumeration finished, the absurd has nevertheless not been exhausted. ...strangeness creeps in: perceiving that the world is 'dense', sensing to what a degree a stone is foreign and irreducible to us, with what intensity nature or a landscape can negate us."24

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