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Desire in Beckett : a Lacanian approach to Samuel Beckett's plays Krapp's last tape, Not I, That time, Footfalls and Rockaby

This thesis argues that desire is a major theme in Samuel Beckett's dramatic works. Central to our analysis is Jacques Lacan's concept of the Desire for the Other, as the outcome of the human subject's division. We will investigate how desire is expressed at the level of Beckett's characters' utterance. The characters' attempts at and inability to achieve a reconciliation with their speech correlate with the impossibility of reunifying Lacan's split subject. The first part of our discussion focuses upon desire-as-paradox--the lack of will to desire and the continuation of desire--in Not I, Footfalls and Krapp's Last Tape, whereas Rockaby and That Time are indicative of the regression of desire leading toward the characters' death. The second part emphasizes the dramatic presentation of these plays, except for Footfalls. It will become clear that desire affects the performance and the audience, thus preventing them from attaining a unified perception of self and other.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.59554
Date January 1989
CreatorsWulf, Catharina
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Arts (Department of English.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001067423, proquestno: AAIMM63701, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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