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Krapp’s Last Tape, Beckett and Ireland

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2008, 21(1), pp.5-30
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

김소임 1

1건국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Krapp’s Last Tape has been regarded Beckett’s most autobiographical work by a few critics and biographers. The play, set in the late evening in the future, is composed of 69-year-old Krapp listening to and commenting on the tape that he recorded 30 years ago. All three episodes found in the old tape can be traced back to Beckett’s own life but the relationship between the play and the playwright’s own life in Ireland is not directly reflecting upon each other. The play takes a distance with Beckett’s own life in many ways. First of all, the specific geographical references are omitted in the episodes of 30 years ago. The setting, the people, and the nature of the experiences are also changed to blur the direct reflection of Beckett. For instance, the place where Krapp achieves the literary vision was changed from his mother’s room where the playwright was said to have had his own vision to the very romantic jetty. Krapp’s episodes with women are also fragmented through out the tape so we can neither be sure of how many women Krapp refers to nor whether the women are originated from the single source and if then who that would be. The old Krapp has an emotional as well as cognitive distance from the young Krapp who apparently lived in Ireland. He doesn’t recall the entries of the tape, supposedly the most significant incidents of his life, such as “the black ball” that he held when his mother died and “memorable equinox,” the day he achieved the vision about life and literature. Throughout the play, the old Krapp ridicules his young self’s pretension, optimism and, the pompous use of language. During the episode titled “memorable equinox,” being disgusted with the young Krapp’s overconfidence in life and work, the old Krapp forwards the tape and hinders it from revealing the specific details of the vision. Even though the old Krapp disclaims his younger self as “that stupid bastard” and his past “all that misery,” he cannot give up listening to his past. For the old Krapp, stuck in the dark den all by himself, the past preserved in the tape seems to be his only real life. Krapp, while disclaiming his own past, at the same time reveals the obsession with the past apparently related to Ireland. It’s ironical for both Beckett and Krapp to keep a distance from Ireland but never completely discard both the country and the past spent living in it.

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