Samuel Beckett began his literary career as a critic before writing novels and plays. In his criticisms Beckett advocates Marcel Proust and James Joyce, two masters of modernism, urging readers to focus on the work itself. Here, at the same time, Beckett suggests post-modern approaches as a viewpoint for new literature by emphasizing authorial self-consciousness. In his literary criticism he insists that authorial self-consciousness provide a solution to the dilemma of an artist’s “expressive possibilities, those of his vehicles, and those of humanity.” He refutes the realistic imitation and emphasizes the inseparability of form and contents in literature.
He also applies these approaches to his major dramatic works. The characters in the works are vivid evidences reflecting the author's self-consciousness exploring expressive possibilities with nothing to express. In this process Beckett’s plays take on meta-dramatic or self-reflexive forms. These features can be seen as the author's efforts, as a manifesto, to embody the audience, or the humanity.