Breaking Beckettian borders

Abstract

This dissertation will deal with how Samuel Beckett manages to break borders and exist in an in-between space. The main works that will be discussed are Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, which will be further noted as his trilogy. The latter will be discussed in the first chapter wherein the research explores the philosophical ties between Beckett, Deleuze and Bergson. This will be followed by a more theatrical based chapter with a close reading of Endgame and Happy Days in which the relationship between character; writer and spectator will be studied. This research will lead to what this dissertation believes to be the culmination of Beckett‘s brilliance and most boundary breaking work, Not I. The main concept of this thesis is how Beckett exists in an in-between space. This concept goes through a process in the three chapters to finally prove how this happens and the Beckettian image attached to being in this in-between space. Therefore Deleuze‘s notion of becoming is analysed and how an image can be exhausted is tackled alongside Bergson‘s notion of durée in order to showcase how Beckett starts to create his own image by having it become a process. This is furthered with Enoch Brater and S.E. Gontarski‘s analysis of Beckett‘s works which speak of Beckett‘s minimalistic management of stagecraft and how his plays offer an idea of movement, flow and instability. Furthermore, how the characters are affected by the plays they are in will be heavily analysed with a shift in focus from the tale onto the teller and how the teller of the tale actually affects the audience. Finally, both the theatrical borders and the philosophical borders discussed in the chapters will be conjoined in a deep analysis of Not I to show how Beckett works with instability and movement to create a process of becoming which places his art in an in-between space.