The question of multiple identities in Samuel Beckett's works

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 16 / 20, University of Rennes 2, language: English, abstract: Ce mémoire traite des identités plurielles et de l'entre-deux culturel dans les oeuvres de Samuel Beckett.

The void has been a great source of inspiration for Samuel Barclay Beckett and his

critics who tend to take into account the characteristics of his mind rather than his

writings. Such a deconstructionist discourse on negative identity is redundant but also

contradictory. This study aims at exploring the fundamental question of multiple

identities in Samuel Beckett's fictions and dramas, particularly The Unnamable from

the trilogy, Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape and other relevant works.

As a novelist, playwright and translator, Beckett can be said to be part of a revolutionary

literature. His rejection and exploitation of the literary tradition make him an ambivalent

writer. The problem of singularity regarding his works is crucial in the stabilization of

identity. Moreover, the lack of a major theme becomes an obstacle to the definition of

such works. The representation of these multiple identities will be analyzed in order to

elucidate the following inquiry: To what extent does Beckett's texts shed light on the

seminal notions of rootlessness and cultural in-betweenness as well as on the rejection

of identification through self-exploration and radical experimentation? A certain number

of critical readings will be used to discuss Beckett's place in literature through his

characters' apparent lack of attachment to any tradition. Does literature have a function

in the formation of identity? What sort of renovation does the Beckettian texts offer? It

will be first noted that his borrowings from the French and Irish traditions coupled with

his aloofness to them are indicators of the complexity of his mode of communication

which is itself predicated on individual and conventional systems of discourse. By

means of exploring the essential antagonisms that departure and return represent, this

study will attempt to identify the literary forms of identity and apprehend the constant

redefinition of the self whose ambiguous nature have to be examined in the light of the

paradox between multiplicity and reduction.

How are marginalization and alterity experienced in the author's post-colonial writings?

Beckett's bilingual experience via the relationship between the man and his work will

complement this research. [...]