Shuffling in the Mortal Coil

Abstract

For all his readiness to allow ghosts into his narratives, Beckett was no super-naturalist. Yet in his later plays, the voice of consciousness ranges across the human life span, from pre-natal to post-mortem states. This latitude in the way he dramatizes anxieties of incarnation harks back to his analysis with Wilfred Bion, with whom Beckett explored his own intrauterine memories. Bion’s view of ‘birth’ and ‘death’ as indeterminate boundaries may have enduring resonances in Beckett’s work.