Key Words: Beckett, Language, Postmodernism, Identity, Communication

Transcription

1 1 Key Words: Beckett, Language, Postmodernism, Identity, Communication Abstract The value of language on the physical stage results in many complex consequences. In making a literal reality from an immaterial concept, the performance of any form enacts a paradox of identity; the character at once exists in situ and yet remains a spectrum, a projection through a secondary body. The dramatist s use of language in creating this subcorporeal being is, therefore, crucial. Samuel Beckett is one of the most influential playwrights of the modern and postmodern period, and his mastery of language reveals the very paradox of language as a vehicle of communication. Focusing on two of Beckett s plays, Waiting for Godot and Not I, this essay demonstrates the arbitrary nature of language, and thus of identity through language. Our reliance on this form is made explicit, and by deconstructing the structure of the plays, the argument is made that our notion of self-identity is, in fact, inconsequential. I begin by exploring how Beckett s plays reveal the mechanics of language and how these mechanisms operate to create a fictitious but naturalised reality through which the subject ascribes identity to his context and, subsequently, himself. The essay then proceeds to examine the ensuing uncertainly which is created in the absence of language and thereby evidences the origins of the anxieties of identity. The displaced origins of language are exposed, through the charting of the progression of the modernist subject in Beckett s work, consequently reconfiguring language as a means of communication. I explore the consequences of the presence and absence of the physical body, and also examine the influence of the theological metanarrative on this creation of subject. The essay concludes by exposing language as a parasitic form, and calls for a re-assessment of the standardised and accepted notions of categorization. The Consequence of Language: The Implications of Beckett s Deconstruction and Reconfiguration of Language and Identity on the Postmodern Tradition. The negotiation of language in the postmodern tradition continues to attract significant academic attention. In examining two plays by Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot and Not I, I intend to demonstrate the progression of the modernist subject in Beckett s works and its subsequent effect on the Postmodern dialogue. Language in postmodern drama functions not as an infallible mode of communication but rather as an arbitrary system without origin which, in its current state, cannot sufficiently negotiate the realities of the human condition. Beckett s dramaturgy deconstructs and reconfigures language and identity which, in so doing, denies the possibility of categorising his works beyond superficial points of reference. Thus Beckett as a modernist, high-modernist or postmodernist is one and the same identity, that is to say a non-identity, which transcends classification, boundaries and language itself.

2 2 The obscene revelation of the mechanisms involved in the creation of meaning and reality through deliberately instituted social apparatuses is a frequently reoccurring motif in Beckett s dramatic works. Upon the physical stage Beckett materialises language thereby revealing the subordination of his characters, and his audience, to it. In his essay, Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses, Louis Althusser recognises this subjection of identity to language, and thus ideology. He states it is not to their real conditions of existence, their real world, that men represent themselves to in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of existence which is represented to them there. 1 Slavoj Žižek extends this further suggesting that reality is an experience made meaningful through language. Reality in itself, in its stupid existence, is never intolerable: it is language, it symbolisation, which makes it so. 2 The dialogue of Vladimir and Estragon reflects this. It is only when the characters recognise their situation through the application of language it is made into a reality, be it only momentary. Accordingly, when each Vladimir and Estragon state we are happy 3 they are creating a condition of existence. An extension of this argument further reveals language as a power not only to create reality but as the single means of creating materiality. Referring once again to Althusser, his theory of interpellation 4 infers that to name an object is to call it into being; it is from this name it is afforded value and, therefore, recognition of being that which it is in comparison to that which it is not. In applying this to Waiting for Godot it becomes apparent that the physicality of Godot is irrelevant, just as the actual type of tree upon the stage is irrelevant. Godot is because Vladimir and Estragon called him as such, the tree is a willow 5 because it is declared as such. He is a concept made material through the application of language. 1 Louis Althusser, Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses in Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook ed. Colin Counsell and Laurie Wolf, (London: Routledge, 2001) p37. 2 Slavoj Žižek, Violence: Six Sideways Reflections,(London: Profile Books, 2008) p55. 3 Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works, (London: Faber and Faber, 2006) p56 4 Althusser, Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses, p39. 5 Beckett, Waiting for Godot, p15.

3 3 Martin Esslin notes that in Waiting for Godot, the feeling of uncertainty it produces, the ebb and flow of this uncertainty- from the hope of discovering the identity of Godot to its repeated disappointment- are themselves the essence of the play. 6 The uncertainty to which Esslin refers is the uncertainty of identity. In questioning Godot s identity the audience is questioning the construction of identity itself thereby exposing the nature of composition of their self-identity, often resulting in a state of anxiety which permeates the play. Beckett is, in effect, exposing language through language itself. He has created a character who exists in reality, yet only exists because language has declared this existence and, in addition, the conditions of this reality. Beckett suggests that the highest goal of a writer is to bore one hole after another in it [language], until what lurks behind it- be it something or nothingbegins to seep through. 7 The physical nothingness of Godot, therefore, deconstructs the authority of language, revealing it instead as a system designed to conceal the void which lies beneath the superficiality of identity. Indeed, the void in itself has become an object which we can recognise only because of its classification as such. Beckett reveals the power of language to obscure what is actual and, in so doing, questions the construction of reality and the real. Following the succession of Beckett s plays, it is possible to see a progression of form and attitude towards a practice which questions the authority of language. Not I, written twenty years after Waiting for Godot was first published, documents a distinct alteration in the style of Beckett s dramaturgy. In this streaming narrative Beckett extends the modernist subject to new, and disconcerting, frames which have been established from his previous works. Thus, Not I draws upon a fearfully omnipotent language system identified in earlier plays. Having deconstructed this system Beckett begins to question the authority of its 6 Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd: Revised and Enlarged Edition, (Hamondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980) p45. 7 Samuel Beckett, cited in Enoch Brater, Beckett s Beckett : So Many Words for Silence in Reflections on Beckett: A Centenary Celebration ed. Anna McMullan and S.E Wilmer, (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2009) p192.

4 4 source. Walter Benjamin, in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, writes the presence of the original is the perquisite to the concept of authenticity. 8 Beckett seeks to reveal language as a structure without origin and therefore without authenticity. This is consolidated by Ferdinand de Saussure s theory of the sign, signifier and signified. Saussure argues that the signifier is unmotivated, i.e arbitrary in that it actually has no natural connection with the sign. 9 This reveals the language system as an arbitrary yet paradoxically mathematical construction which allows for an exponential expansion of meaning. The origin of language is, therefore, founded upon an equation, where X signifies one signifier and Y another, whose product, Z, can be to an infinite value: X + Y = Z. This equation evidences the empty value of language, for if language means everything, as it has no fixed point of reference, then it must also mean nothing. John Spluring suggests Beckett s plays continue to inhabit and tease the mind with the persistence of objects whose original purpose has been forgotten or become obsolete and whose presence existence is there strictly meaningless. 10 This assertion could equally be applied to the object of language as to another physical concept to which Spurling may be referring. In fact, language has become so obsolete, in Beckett s plays, that Lois Gordon recognises that is no longer an effective means for the communication and discernment of meaning. 11 In Not I Beckett reconfigures the nature of language as a vehicle of communication. While still using the physical form to communicate he simultaneously reveals the futility of using language to convey. The narrative in Not I is based upon a question of self-identity, yet Beckett has denied the physical identity to the audience through his staging of the piece. This staging, combined with the constant overflow of words, becomes overwhelming and renders 8 Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Illuminations trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt, (New York: Schockeen, 1968) p Ferdinand de Saussure, from Course in General Linguistics in Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook ed. Colin Counsell and Laurie Wolf, (London: Routledge, 2001) p5. 10 John Spurling, Into Action in Beckett: A Study of his Plays ed. John Fletcher and John Spurling, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), p Lois Gordon, Reading Godot, (New Haven and London: Yale university Press, 2002) p56.

5 5 the actual meanings of the words incomprehensible. The audience is transfixed not by the story but by the discomfort of the audio visual spectacle. In addition, the violent force of the language, such as in the whole brain begging [ ] begging for the mouth to stop [ ] trying to make sense of it or make it stop 12 combined with the direct reference to the urge to start pouring it out 13 into the nearest lavatory causes the language to self-connote a form of excretion and desired expulsion from the body. Beckett is, in effect, levelling the value of language with that of a waste product and, in doing so, is denying its authority as an overarching apparatus. In denying visible identity of Mouth, Beckett is forcing the audience to construct an identity for her. Much like that of Godot, language is used to create this identity; Mouth is what she says she is. Yet here, Beckett is simultaneously critiquing language as worthless therefore suggesting that identity created through language, which is all identity, is, by extension, worthless. Thus, Beckett manifests upon the stage the essential modernist ethic: what is truth? The deference in form apparent in Not I further draws away from the traditional modernist stance through its approach and consideration of the theological metanarrative. In order to appreciate this change it is imperative to first examine Beckett s approach to this in Waiting for Godot. The theological resonances within Waiting for Godot have been scrutinised extensively, although it not my aim to argue the justification of such claims but rather to explore Beckett s relationship with the overarching, and commonly recognised, social narrative. The implication of religion as a structure of language is clearly evident in this play. The biblical creed and so the word became flesh has, it could be argued, more than a coincidental relationship to the structure of Waiting for Godot. The idea of a belief based upon an object in absence which is instead created through the verbalisation of language invites clear connotations virtually identical to those created through the 12 Samuel Beckett, Not I in Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works, (London: Faber and Faber, 2006) p Ibid, p382

6 6 establishment of being of Godot. Yet Beckett s work neither subscribes to this narrative nor condemns it. The multiple theological references within Waiting for Godot rather acknowledge the presence of the metanarrative and its almost invisible influence on society. Beckett s approach to this metanarrative in Not I, however, is quite different. The laughter which accompanies the reference to a merciful [ ] God 14 demonstrates that in ridiculing the authority of language through Mouth s narrative of excretion Beckett is also ridiculing the accepted omnipotent power of a religion founded upon language. It follows that, if language has no authority then, consequently, a religion such as this must too be devoid of authenticity and authority. Indeed, Beckett extends this further in examining that notion of punishment 15, a result of the recognition of sin which, through its verbal definition as such, becomes more than a concept but a material action. This approach to the theological discourse is, arguably, much more postmodern in character than that of Waiting for Godot. In fact, Jean-François Lyotard defines postmodernism as incredulity towards metanarratives. 16 He goes further suggesting the narrative function is losing it functors we do not necessarily establish stable language combinations, and the properties of the ones we do establish are not necessarily communicable. 17 Beckett has developed his writing to a point beyond acknowledgment towards deconstruction and ridicule which stems from an exhaustion of the illogical social acceptance of such a narrative. Beckett s drama does not rely solely on language as a system of communication; in fact several of his plays discard it altogether. Yet in the absence of language another system of communication must be set up, whether that is through gesture, stage scenery or audio techniques, which in turn must follow certain semantic rules. Roland Barthes notes that the paradox is that, the raw material [language] becoming in a sense its own end a tautological 14 Ibid, p Ibid, p Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004) pxxiv. 17 Ibid, pxxiv.

7 7 activity. 18 Language serves only to produce more language, yet this reproduction does not offer new meaning. Language is an exhausted commodity and so must participate in a cyclical process of self-reproduction, engaging in a parasitic activity of expelling old, dead signifiers and engulfing new ones. This, according to Frederic Jameson, is the essence of postmodernism which he identifies as the consumption of sheer commodification as a process. 19 Beckett s exposé of language forms much of the foundation of the postmodern language dialogue. The deconstruction of language, and as a consequence identity, is a more recognisably modernist function. Beckett, however, stretches this function to inhabit a space somewhere between the modern and the postmodern, a space which could be defined as the sur-modernist, or more commonly high-modernist, in which identity is not only shattered but made completely redundant. Yet, to attempt to identify Beckett s work is, in itself, a task of recognition through language and, so, a futile task. The postmodern is the exhaustion of the modern. It is what is left after the destruction from which new modes of recognition and logic must be composed. Beckett s work extends beyond the modern because it does not simply discard this debris, as in the modern tradition, yet nor does it consume it, as in that of the postmodern. Instead, Beckett offers a type of liberation by simply acknowledging the presence of language and its (dis)function in society. Thus, Beckett s work is both a reference for and a critique of the disparity of the modern and the commodification of the postmodern. It is a consequence of language, and a rebellion of the identified. 18 Roland Barthes, Authors and Writers in A Barthes Reader ed. Susan Sontang, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982)p Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, (London and New York: Verso, 1991) px.

8 8 Bibliography Althusser, Louis. Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses in Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook ed. Colin Counsell and Laurie Wolf. London: Routledge, Barthes, Roland. Authors and Writers in A Barthes Reader ed. Susan Sontang. New York: Hill and Wang, Brater, Enoch. Beckett s Beckett : So Many Words for Silence in Reflections on Beckett: A Centenary Celebration ed. Anna McMullan and S.E Wilmer. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, Beckett, Samuel. Not I in Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Illuminations trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schockeen, Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd: Revised and Enlarged Edition. Hamondsworth: Penguin Books, Gordon, Lois. Reading Godot. New Haven and London: Yale university Press, Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London and New York: Verso, Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, Saussure, Ferdinand de. From Course in General Linguistics in Performance Analysis: An Introductory Coursebook ed. Colin Counsell and Laurie Wolf. London: Routledge, Spurling, John. Into Action in Beckett: A Study of his Plays ed. John Fletcher and John Spurling. New York: Hill and Wang, Žižek, Slavoj. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books, 2008.