Links and Blocks: The Role of Language in Samuel Beckett’s Selected Plays

This article explores the language in the four plays of Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Footfalls. It considers the way in which Beckett uses language, especially through fragmentation utterances, repetitions, monologues, contradictions, and silence. It discusses the function of language in modern society, in the Theater of the Absurd, and in the plays. Paradoxically enough, his plays attempts to communicate the incommunicability of language.


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References:
[1] M. Esslin, The Theater of the Absurd, New York: Anchor, 1961
[2] L. E. Harvey, "Art and the existential in Waiting for Godot,” Casebook on Waiting for Godot, New York: Grove, 1967.
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[4] S. Beckett, "Endgame,” The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces V2 sixth edition, New York: Norton, 1956.
[5] S. Beckett, "Krapp’s last tape,” The Complete Dramatic Works, London: Faber and Faber, 1986.
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[9] B. S. Fletcher and J. Fletcher, A Student’s Guide to the Plays of Samuel Beckett, London: Faber, 1985.
[10] J. Eliopulous, Samuel Beckett’s Dramatic Language, Paris: Mouton, 1975.
[11] J. T. Shipley, Dictionary of World Literary Terms, Forms, Technique, Criticism, Boston: Writer, 1970.
[12] J. W. Blake, and E. E. Moore, Speech, New York: McGraw, 1995.
[13] S. Beckett, Waiting for Godot, New York: Grove, 1954.
[14] A. K Kennedy, "Krapp’s dialogue of selves,” Beckett at 80/ Beckett in Context, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
[15] S. Beckett, "Footfalls,” The Complete Dramatic Works, London: Faber and Faber, 1986.