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SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989) - Coggle Diagram
SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989)
LIFE
born in a Dublin suburb into a Protestant middle-class family
educated at a boarding school and at Trinity College
he took his BA in French and Italian and then moved to Paris, where he worked as English lecturer and came under the influence of Existentialism
he became friend of James Joyce
he helped the almost blind Joyce to write down
Finnegans Wake
their working relationship came to an end when he refused Lucia Joyce's advances
he wrote most of his works in French and then translated them into English
developed, together with Eugène Ionesco and Arthur Adamov the
Theatre of the Absurd
the man's life is meaningless and purposeless
1969 was awarded the
Nobel Prize for literature
he died in France in 1989
WORKS
1952
Waiting for Godot
first play in the absurd style
immense success and some critics
1958
Endgame
the dissolution of the relationship between the physical and the intellectual sides of man experienced at the moment of his death
1958
Krapp's last tape
monologue: the impossibility for a man to find an identity
1960
Happy days
characters reduced to motionless individuals
1969
Breath
human life has become mere sounds and silence
Waiting for Godot
PLOT
it starts
in medias res
Act 1: 2 tramps,
Vladimir
and
Estragon
(they call each other Didi and Gogo), are waiting on a country road for a mysterious Godot, who sends a boy to inform them he is not coming but he will surely come the next day
They are continually aware of cold, hunger and pain. They quarrel and think about separation and suicide, but remain dependent on each other and never do anything.
Pozzo
and
lucky
, the other 2 characters (they are linked by a rope), make continuous purposeless journeys to fill their existence.
Act 2: it differs only apparently from the first. The play ends with the 2 tramps still waiting for Godot
SETTING
no development in time, no past, no future, but a
repetitive meaningless present
no setting but a country road and a tree
SYMMETRY
stage divided by the tree
human race divided into 2 (Didi and Gogo) and then into 4 (with Pozzo and Lucky)
symmetrical actions
the tramps need to take off their hat to think
Lucky and Pozzo need to do the opposite
CHARACTERS
VLADIMIR
practical
ESTRAGON
a dreamer
POZZO
the oppressor, the power of the body
LUCKY
the slavish, the power of the mind
THEMES
meaninglessness and dreariness of human life
uselessness of man's learning
STYLE
informal
only sketched dialogue
para-verbal language (pauses, silences, gaps)