Tragedy beyond death : the suffering of Beckett’s Sophoclean heroes -

Abstract

Scholarly work on Samuel Beckett has seldom examined the influences of classical Greek dramas on the author’s plays. In this thesis, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Endgame are studied as belonging to the genre of tragedy, particularly as defined by Aristotle in his well-known Poetics. Importantly, Sophocles’ Antigone, an exemplary model of classical Greek tragedy, is thematically compared to Beckett’s two texts in an effort to elucidate the tragic components or elements that are found within the modern playwright’s narratives. The first chapter looks at Sophocles’ Antigone. It highlights Creon and Antigone’s difference in motivation, and takes a neutral tone in describing the struggle of power between these protagonists. Polyneices’ burial surfaces as a critical concern in the play and thus the chapter, and so does the problem of communication between the protagonists. The chapter ends with a discussion of Aristotle’s theorization of tragedy, which forms a liaison between the ancient Greek text and Beckett’s modern plays. The second chapter examines Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and studies the play in terms of plot, character-analysis and dialogue, paralleling Aristotle’s discussions of the constituents of tragedy. The most significant connection between this play and Antigone appears to be the factor of miscommunication, which spreads all around Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky. The third chapter discusses Beckett’s Endgame, and tries to understand the setting and meaning of the odd narrative. Taking into consideration the widely accepted interpretations that the setting of the play is a bomb shelter and-or a Noah’s ark, the thesis proposes an alternative explanation of the environment in which Hamm and Clov spend the end of their lives: an actual grave that entombs them. This tomb, a novel interpretation, resembles the ultimate resting place of the protagonist in Sophocles’ Antigone, for Antigone too dies walled in