English Literature

Tape

(strong voice, rather pompous, clearly Krapp's at a much earlier time.) Thirty-nine today, sound asa--(Settling

(…)These old P.(ost)M.(ortems) are gruesome, but I often find them--(Krapp switches off, broods,switches on)--a help before embarking on a new . . . (hesitates) . . . retrospect. Hard to believe I wasever that young whelp. The voice! Jesus! And the aspirations! (Brief laugh in which Krapp joins.) Andthe resolutions! (Brief laugh in which Krapp joins.)

Last illness of his father. Flagging pursuit of happiness. Unattainable laxation. Sneers at what he callsand thanks to God that it's over. (Pause.) (…) Shadows of thehis youth opus . . . magnum. Closingwith a --(brief laugh)--yelp to Providence. (Prolonged laugh in which Krapp joins.) What remainsof all that misery? A girl in a shabby green coat, on a railway-station platform? No?Pause. (…)

KRAPP (69 recording)Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to believe I was everas bad as that. Thank God that's all done with anyway.He is listening to Krapp 39, who was also

TAPE--Back on the year that is gone, with what I hope isweaver bird. . . Black plumage of male. . . (He looks up. With relish.) The vidua bird! Pause. He closes dictionary, switches on, resumes listening posture. He is listening to Krapp 39: it is his mother’s death, he is supposed to be emotionally involved, he is not. His father’s death was described as his last illness, it was not even recognised as but his father; here he is not fazed by his mother’s death. He does not feel anything, he is not involved. The only reaction he has is to the word “viduity”, he is disconnected from his own memories. He does not respond to the world because he is traumatised: the historical trauma was so overwhelming that his reaction to the trauma is that he no longer recognises it, it does not affect him. Amnesia is a form of defence or because the trauma can no longer be recalled and lived through. We now have a second book on the scene: it is a dictionary. It is important because it symbolises the history of language, the meaning of

Words are powerful. They hold knowledge and record information. However, their power is useless if we cannot understand their meanings. In a dictionary, words are organized alphabetically. This concept originated during the Enlightenment, with the belief that an alphabetical order eliminates hierarchy and allows us to grasp the meaning of things. The dictionary brings knowledge out of darkness, but it is meaningless if it cannot evoke emotions, such as the pain of losing a mother. This is the moment when his mother passed away.

TAPE--bench by the weir from where I could see her window. There I sat, in the biting wind, wishing she were gone. (Pause.) Hardly a soul, just a few regulars, nursemaids, infants, old men, dogs. I got to know them quite well--oh by appearance of course I mean! One dark young beauty I recall particularly, all white and starch, incomparable bosom, with a big black hooded perambulator, most funereal thing. Whenever I looked in her direction she had her

eyes on me. And yet when I was bold enough to speak to her--not having been introduced--she threatened to call a policeman. As if I had designs on her virtue! (Laugh. Pause.) The face she had! The eyes! Like . . . (hesitates) . . . chrysolite! (Pause.) Ah well . . . (Pause.) I was there when--(Krapp switches off, broods, switches on again)--the blind went down, one of those dirty brown roller affairs, throwing a ball for a little white dog, as chance would have it. I happened to look up and there it was. All over and done with, at last. I sat on for a few moments with the ball in my hand and the dog yelping and pawing at me. (Pause.) Moments. Her moments, my moments. (Pause.) The dog's moments. (Pause.) In the end I held it out to him and he took it in his mouth, gently, gently. A small, old, black, hard, solid rubber ball. (Pause.) I shall feel it, in my hand, until my dying day. (Pause.) I might have kept it. (Pause.) But I gave it to the dog. Pause. He was outside and the sign that his

mother died was the blind went down. The young beauty was a nurse (this description also recalls the movie La corazzata Potëmkin): we can notice the contrast between black and white. She is carrying lige, but the perambulator looks funereal. He was playing with the dog, throwing a ball (in the ledger there was a reference to a ball, but he could not remember it). He gave the ball to the dog and this represents the idea of letting go: the dog took something away from him, as the ball was his mother. It is the symbol of losing something. The ball will come back in the text as the symbol of life, of earth. The sensation of losing the ball won’t leave him for the rest of his life: the sensation of the ball in his hand is associated with the presence of his mother and the fact that she disappeared. It was not his memory, but a sensation: he forgets the works with sensations, not memories.

TAPE (K. 39)

Spiritually a year of

this is not being recorded, switches on.) Everything there, everything on this old muckball, all the light and dark and famine and feasting of . . . (hesitates) . . . the ages! (In a shout.) Yes! (Pause.) Let that go! Jesus! Take his mind off his homework! Jesus (Pause. Weary.) Ah well, maybe he was right. (Broods. Realizes. Switches off. Consults envelope.) Pah! (Crumples it and throws it away. Broods. Switches on.) Nothing to say, not a squeak. What's a year now? The sour cud and the iron stool. (Pause.) Revelled in the word spool. (With relish.) Spooool! Happiest moment of the past half million. (Pause.) Seventeen copies sold, of which eleven at trade price to free circulating libraries beyond the seas. Getting known. Krapp (69)(Gasping.) Went to sleep and fell off the pew. (Pause.) Sometimes wondered in the night if a last effort mightn't--(Pause.) Ah finish your booze now and get to your bed. Go on with this drivel in the morning. Or leave it at that. (Pause.) Leave it at that.

(Pause.) Lie propped up in the dark--and wander. Be againin th