Confrontations with the Past in Samuel Beckett’s Play Krapp’s Last Tape and Wiesław Myśliwski’s Novel Ucho Igielne

Abstract

The aim of the study is to compare Samuel Beckett’s monodrama Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) and Wiesław Myśliwski’s novel Ucho Igielne (2018) in the context of the construction of time, which, despite the genre and content differences between those literary works, is parallel. The characters are returning to the past by reconstructing the figure of their younger selves and entering into a specific dialogue with them. The relationship between the past and the present is interpreted in the context of Paul Ricoeur’s concept of narrative identity. Each of the works is an unusual study of the old age and the structure of human memory.