Hey Prestos and Humilities: Two of Beckett's Christs

Abstract

As well as its oft-noted concern with mysticism and negative theology, Samuel Beckett's work frequently returns to the figure of the incarnate Christ. This article explores two perspectives on Christ that can be found both in Beckett's work and in religious writing from the European middle ages: the triumphant Jesus known as the Christus Victor, and the suffering Jesus, or Ecce Homo. Building on Mary Bryden's work in this area, the article shows that just as medieval writers such as Julian of Norwich, Ludolf of Saxony, and Margery Kempe reject the contemplation of a transcendent or triumphant Jesus in favour of a vision of him on the cross, Beckett's characters seem to prefer to think about Jesus's suffering rather than contemplate his divinity, his miracles, or his resurrection. Although seemingly irreconcilable, the distinction between the kenotic Christ and the victorious Christ is, theologically speaking, a false one, and so both Beckett and his characters have to interpret the crucifixion in a peculiar way: the article reads Beckett's poem ‘Ooftish’ as heretical complaint that the whole thing was a slight-of-hand on God's part, an act of suffering that was staged rather than authentic. The article goes on to propose that the preference for the suffering Jesus on the part of Watt, Molloy, Malone and others is closely linked with Beckett's own aesthetic allegiances. Taking a cue from comments made about Jesus by Murphy and by the Polar Bear in Dream of Fair to Middling Women, the essay argues that the wonder-working, triumphant Jesus was seen by Beckett as analogous to an author who interferes with the natural disorder of his novel, smoothing over its moments of failure and contradiction just as Jesus righted the vicissitudes of death and disease through miracles. The resigned, suffering Jesus, on the other hand, comes closer to the quietist aesthetic – and religious perspective – of André Gide and Fyodor Dostoevsky, writers that Beckett admired and wished to emulate. The article concludes with an analysis of notes made about the crucifixion and aesthetics in Beckett's Watt notebooks, noting this razor's edge in Christological thinking – one which was particularly alive to Christians of the middle ages.