Trips of Death and Alienation in Beckett's All That Fall

Mustafa Ahmad Mohammed

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.7p.286

Mustafa Ahmad Mohammed

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.7p.286

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Abstract

Samuel Beckett, besides writing for the stage, has during his long career written for both radio and TV. He has also written one script entitled Film which was filmed for the New York Film Festival in 1956. All That Fall was written in 1956 and it is the longest Radio play of Beckett. Suffering, a fundamental attribute of existence, constitutes the centre of Beckett's plays and the plays demonstrate, in turn, different kind or human responses to suffering. Maddy's deep sorrow and anguish at the loss of her daughter Minnie arouses her desire for an end, what she calls to be" in atoms''. Dan, Like Hamm, overcomes the Absurd by exiling himself to suffering and refusing to be intimidated or beguiled. Unlike Hamm's insistent attempts to exterminate all life, Dan understands the futility of such effort and restrains himself from giving in to that kind of impulse. But the irony is that death is all around him underscoring the fact that death and alienation are no solution to the problems of life.

Highlights

All That Fall evokes a grotesque vision compounded of metaphysical fear of an annihilating force, the horror of loneliness and the sense of alienation from the inexorable working of the universe
Beckett incorporates the theme of a hostile mechanism reducing human existence to nothing and presents a frightening perception of the ceaseless manner in which life continues through the cycle of birth and death
All That Fall is concerned with barrenness of life as evidenced in all the women –in Maddy, in Tyler’s daughter with the removal of her reproductive organs, in Miss Fitt, the dried, shriveled spinster and in the deaths of the three little girls-Minnie, the little girl in Maddy’s story, whose illness was diagnosed as” due to never having been born”,(Beckett,1986p.169) and the little child who fell off the train

Summary

Article history

Samuel Beckett, besides writing for the stage, has during his long career written for both radio. He has written one script entitled Film which was filmed for the New York Film. All That Fall was written in 1956 and it is the longest Radio play of Beckett. Volume: 6 Issue: 7 and anguish at the loss of her daughter Minnie arouses her desire for an end, what she calls to be”. Special Issue on Language & Literature in atoms’’. Like Hamm, overcomes the Absurd by exiling himself to suffering and refusing. Unlike Hamm’s insistent attempts to exterminate all life, Dan understands the futility of such effort and restrains himself from giving in to that kind of impulse.

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