Abstract

<em>Krapp Last Tape</em><em> is one-act play written in 1958, translated by Samuel Beckett and his friend Pierre Leyris as La Dernier bande. The first production took place in London at the Royal Court Theatre in 1958.It was directed by Donald McWhinnie and Patrick Magee played the role of Krapp. Like other Beckettians, Krapp in a physical sense, is an outsider, cut from the world of social activity. He is alone in his den fumbling through the tapes made thirty years before for his human relations. Krapp’s Last tape recounts the inescapable reality of human suffering and the persistent efforts made by Man to circumvent his pain through living in his past. The main topic addressed in this paper is Krapp and his human relationships.</em>

Highlights

  • Krapp’s Last Tape was originally called “Magee Monologue” which was written for the Irish actor Patrick Magee, one of Beckett’s favorite actors

  • Krapp’s last tape is not his swan song or his farewell message as is often suggested. It is to be the last tape for the future Krapp, just as Krapp’s tape at thirty-nine was the last tape for the present Krapp and the earliest one at twenty-nine, the last for Krapp at thirty-nine

  • His systematic numbering of the spools and his noting in his ledger subject-wise bear testimony to his continuing desire to sustain himself” against the day when my work will be done and perhaps no place left in my memory, warm or cold for miracle that ...(hesitates)... for the fire that set it alight.” (Samuel Beckett, 1986, p. 220) That fire or vision which comes to him never reaches consummation for he fears to face it

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Summary

Introduction

Krapp’s Last Tape was originally called “Magee Monologue” which was written for the Irish actor Patrick Magee, one of Beckett’s favorite actors. “Beckett had heard Magee read extracts from Beckett’s From an Abandoned Work (written about 1945-5) on the BBC’s Third Programme in December 1957”(McDonald, 2006, p. Eats bananas, drinks backstage, but above all listens and comments on his tapes of thirty years ago. Krapp is in the line of succession to Beckett’s old, decaying men, fashioned after Pozzo, Hamm and Dan Rooney. In his den he reminds us of Hamm in his claustrophobic interior, reveling in his suffering and misery. Krapp is a clownish old shell, whose visual and auditory faculties are on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/sll

Studies in Linguistics and Literature
Findings
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