Thomas J. Taylor
When, in Samuel Beckett’s Ghost trio, a young boy appears in the corridor, only to shake his head and walk away into the darkness, a thought immediately strikes us: we have seen this child before. He brought a message from Godot; so did his brother. He led a white horse, a ‘Schimmel,’ in the far distance of From an abandoned work. He caught up with Mr Rooney in All that fall, to return an object that had fallen under the train seat. Clov sees him out of the window in Endgame. This youthful figure, so often contrasted with the ageing protagonist (the word is not too harsh), means something, or many things, to Beckett, and like an echo in the eyes he appears again and again.
On further viewing of Ghost trio, we begin to note other familiar elements: the almost empty room, its single window, its door, its closet, its pallet, furnished like Joe’s room in Eh Joe, ideally sparse, free of embellishments, as is the parlour in First love when the narrator gets done with it. The faint music, coming and going like a dimly remembered voice, we heard in Cascando. The boy’s head shaking reminds us of other enigmatic semiotic gestures—the deasil, Nackybal’s ‘characteristic gesture’ in Watt, the mother’s gesture in From an abandoned work, ‘still in the window waving, waving me back or on I don’t know, or just waving, in sad helpless love . . . ‘ The lighting directions for Ghost trio—‘Faint, omnipresent. No visible source.’—could be applied to The Lost Ones—‘Its dimness . . . its omnipresence’—or the view from Hamm’s window—‘light black.’ It seems that the voice’s description (‘The colour grey if you wish, shades of the colour grey’) fits virtually every Beckettian decor and landscape. Even the cassette in the hands of the aging character, strangely mechanical, strangely technological, strangely modern, evokes comparisons with Krapp’s tape recorder, Molloy’s bicycle, and the complicated arrangement by which Murphy warms himself and inadvertently kills himself. And finally, the ageing figure itself is so much like Joe, like Krapp, like Malone dying, like so many other Beckett characters in so many other rooms.
And we have seen that figure in motion as well, on a goalless journey. Often it is a journey remembered; often it is an expulsion from home; often the traveller turns back, then back again, then ‘back again again’; often his path is determined by an arbitrary avoidance of obstacles walls, poultry, ditches—or the journey is halted altogether by a sudden or gradual stiffening of joints, attrition of senses, stumbling, falling, lying prone or supine, looking at the sky or at the mud; he often sleeps, or thinks he sleeps, and the time passes mercifully unobserved. Always he goes on, despite his inability to do so, despite the pointlessness of doing so, despite his unutterable desire to hold still.
The frequent recurrence of recognizable elements through Beckett’s canon leads the reader to hypothesize that all the characters are the same character, living over and over the same anguishing experiences, in essentially the same room and the same barren landscape, impeded by the same obstructions to forward progress, hearing the same sounds and almost seeing (and almost making sense of) the same external phenomena. The narrator in All strange away, Beckett’s most recently published work (but written in 1963/64), recognizes his surroundings as we all do:
A place, that again. Never another question. A place, then some-
one in it, that again. Crawl out of the frowsy deathbed and drag it
to a place to die in. Out of the door and down the road in the old
hat and coat like after the war, no, not that again. Five foot square,
six high, no way in, none out, try for him there . . . Now he is here.
Sitting, standing, walking, kneeling, crawling, lying, creeping, in
the dark and in the light, try all.1
Recurring elements form a bridge between one desolation and the inevitable next. By approaching these recurring elements for comparison, development, and contrast, the Beckett scholar is examining a distillation process that has reduced Beckett’s expression to its present pure, powerful and undiluted form. Discarding, abandoning, retrieving, sorting out, ‘trying all,’ Beckett has found his essential metaphors.
It is a fairly simple matter to note all occurrences of young boys, of minimally furnished rooms, of sourceless light, of hardware. But what of Beckett’s more ephemeral, perplexing, and complicated habits, embedded not in one word but in phrases, in sentences, in whole passages, in subtle linguistic variations, in obscure references, in large patterns discernible only by an examination of the whole work? Setting aside its immediately recognizable elements, Ghost trio’s themes are recognizable as well: a man alone in a room remembering, listening to some faint sounds, perhaps his own, waiting for relief in some form, intensely watching for something out the window, out the door, in his own reflection, seeking (by inverting Berkeley’s principle) to cease being, all without solace, without relief, continuing (as life does) the debilitating struggle between an acknowledged hopelessness because abandoned, and an unexplainable hope because still alive. If we are ordering Beckett’s images and habits of mind into neat packages, we must find room for that room—an easy enough task—but we must also find room for that whole statement, repeated, revolved, revisited throughout the canon.
At the Chicago MLA Convention, December, 1977, a group of Beckett scholars formed an editorial board for an Index of Beckettian Motifs. (The first fruits of their labours, a compilation of recurring elements in From an abandoned work, appears in this same issue.) The word ‘motif’ has been the centre of much debate among the board members. We agree that there is such a thing as a ‘folk-motif’ and that Stith -Thompson’s indexing of recurring features in the world’s folk tales helps scholars and students understand more thoroughly the interlocking debts and borrowings among otherwise diverse cultures.2 And we agree that applying the term ‘motif’ to recurring elements in James Joyce’s Ulysses does not successfully describe Joyce’s method of echoing his proliferated images into exhaustion.3 But can we speak of Dickensian motifs? of Proustian motifs? of Melvillean motifs? And if we do, what are we saying about the works by listing those recurring elements? Surely Dickens is more intrigued than Beckett by the communicative possibilities of young male characters. Could we say something important by listing every occasion on which a young man appears in the Dickens canon, a ‘motif’ we discern in Beckett? And what then of hats, gloves, scarves, greatcoats, carriages, trains, grandmothers, forests, seasides, butter, toast, gallows, garrets, gravestones, and all the other trappings of realistic verisimilitude? Are we making an assumption about Beckett’s work that allows us to treat it as folklore is treated - expression of a finite number of ideas in a finite number of ways? We run the risk of reducing Beckett’s accomplishments, his anguished insights, by presuming to list all of what he has to say. And yet, who will deny that Beckett paints with a more limited palette than Dickens, Proust or Melville, when he describes his characters’ world? Beckett’s early work bristles with realistic detail; we would hardly say that More pricks than kicks, Murphy, and Watt depict landscapes in ‘shades of grey.’
There is, in fact, an assumption underlying our attempt at an index of motifs. The board maintains that Beckett, as he continues his monumental struggle to ‘eff - the ineffable,’ is distilling his images into essential ‘motifs,’ gradually eliminating the clutter of three-dimensional reality, finding more and more effective certain insistent images, images that refuse to be turned away: the near-empty room, the slight sound of ‘the body on its way,’ the voices ‘like leaves,’ the mouth in Not I (a work which many consider to be the most nearly perfect condensation of Beckett’s essential expression so far). And it is from this distillation process that the index gets its raison d’être.
The first step in following through the canon the process of gradual reduction, not of ideas but of ways to express those ideas, into a relatively small group of precise correlatives, is to list as comprehensively as possible every image Beckett tries and discards, or tries and retains, or tries and alters to refine. Godot’s messenger answers questions; Mr. Rooney’s boy talks noticeably less; the lad in the corridor in Ghost trio has reduced his expression to two semiotic gestures: a head movement and a smile. In First love the main character moves all the unnecessary furniture out of his room (a perhaps conscious metaphor for Beckett’s own reduction of real objects in his work); in Ghost trio the bed in Eh Joe has become a pallet on the floor. Unnecessary furniture is removed from the central character’s paysage psychique, taking away the hiding places, leaving him only his ‘foul old wrapper’ (compare All strange away: ‘take off his coat, no, naked, all right, leave it for the moment’) and his ability to squeeze out the faint voice (perhaps his own), as protection from the perceiving eye of the camera and the reader.
Once the editorial board has listed as comprehensively as possible the recurring motifs in the canon, the Index will allow the reader to look up a specific reference, identified by a short descriptive phrase (‘odd walk,’ ‘inability to go on,’ etc.) and a representative quotation (‘I’d set off. What a gait. Stiffness of the lower limbs . . . ,’ ‘With the result he must often, namely at every turn, strike against the walls that hem his path,’ etc.); he will find there page and line references (Grove Press edition) to every other occurrence of that motif in the Beckett canon. Thus, as he prepares his instruction or researches his scholarship, the teacher and scholar seeking several examples of Beckett’s careful use of hand gestures, or several occasions on which a Beckettian figure turns back from his journey, or several typically Beckettian punctuation omissions, may find ready at hand a thorough list of those specific habits of mind. Providing that its editors have solved all the problems of any taxonomical project—categorizing, classifying, citing entries—the Index will serve its users well whenever the nature of the inquiry requires citations of recurring phenomena. Perhaps most importantly, the reader can hear the echoes that refuse to be reduced, the ‘sound of the body on its way,’ which, like the author’s own creative voice, cannot be silent.
Beckettian motifs in ‘From an abandoned work’
The following list of Beckettian motifs, from the Grove Press edition of ‘From An Abandoned Work’ (in First love and other shorts, 1974), has been compiled by the editorial board of The index of Beckettian motifs, an ongoing project for the indexing of recurring elements in the Beckett canon. We have selected those motifs which we consider to be distinctly Beckettian, and several assumptions are made in doing so. The motifs are clustered around general headings, such as perception, language, motion, etc., but will not be indexed more formally until several other short works have been annotated. The list is designed to build on; as other works are examined and other entries added, the list will expand and eventually divide into headings, subheadings, etc., according to accepted taxonomical procedures. We are concerned with Beckettian habits of mind, recurring features that identify the thematic and stylistic directions the work takes, and that clarify or exemplify the world view of Beckett’s characters. No attempt has been made here to list every occurrence of every feature—that work belongs to a computerized concordance—nor do we concern ourselves with lists of proper names, medical references, anatomical references, or other such specialized compilations. We invite comment from readers, especially in the following categories.
a) additional entries to already named categories;
b) additional categories the reader considers distinctly
Beckettian;
c) comments on the validity of the term and the notion of
‘Beckettian motif’;
d) comments on the usefulness of the eventual projected
index, as described above, in the preceding article, and in
the Index notice published in the Summer, 1978 issue of
JOBS (132):
e) interest in joining the project as editor or contributor.
1. ESSE EST PERCIPI (‘TO BE IS TO BE PERCEIVED’)
49.26: ‘. . . fall and vanish from view, you could lie there for weeks
and no one hear you, I often thought of that up in the
mountains . . .’
2. UNRELIABILITY OF PERCEPTIONS
39.17: ‘at a distance often they seemed still, then a moment later
they were upon me.’
& 39.09, 40.5, 40.17, 41.1
3. DREAMING
45.25: ‘Where did I get it, from a dream, or a book . . .’
& 42.26, 46.24
4. FIGURES BLURRED BY DISTANCE OR PROXIMITY
41.8: ‘It crossed my path a long way off, then vanished, behind
greenery I suppose, all I noticed was the sudden ap-
pearance of the horse, then disappearance.’
& 40.11, 40.29
5. SCRUTINY OF PHYSICAL OBJECTS
39.8: ‘So back with bowed head on the look out for a snail, slug
or worm.’
& 39.18
6. PERCEPTION OF WHITENESS
41.14: ‘White I must say has always affected me strongly, all white
things, sheets, walls and so on, even flowers, and then just
white, the thought of white, without more.’
& 40.8, 40.13, 40.29, 41.2, 41.12, 42.28, 43.8, 46.1, 46.15
7. LOOKING AT SKY
47.17: ‘. . . my eyes wide open straying over the sky.’
& 39.18, 43.17
8. FAINT SOUNDS
40.6: ‘. . . I heard faintly her cries.’
9. ATTRITION AND LOSS OF SENSES
40.9: ‘. . . piercing sight I had then . . .’
& 49.12
10. GOING ON, GETTING ON
45.1: ‘. . . How shall I go on another day? and then, How did I
ever go on another day?’
& 39.8, 40.24, 41.17, 42.11, 43.8, 44.8, 45.13, 45.18, 46.3, 47.3,
47.20, 47.27, 48.12, 48.26, 49.28
11. GOALLESS JOURNEY
39.25: ‘. . . I have never in my life been on my way anywhere, but
simply on my way.’
& 43.18
12. EXPULSION FROM HOME
43.18: ‘. . . in the morning out from home . . .’
& 39.2
13. INABILITY TO STOP AND START: INERTIA
47.7: ‘. . . then stand in the middle of the room unable to move...’
& 39.23, 40.22, 43.9, 48.13
14. PREFERENCE FOR STILLNESS
39.10: ‘Great love in my heart too for all things still and rooted . . .’
15. BODIES IN CLOSED PLACES
49.20: ‘. . . I just sink down again and disappear in the ferns, up to
my waist they were . . .’
16. ODD WALKS
42.5: ‘Perhaps I should mention here I was a very slow walker, I
didn’t dally or loiter in any way, just walked very slowly, little
short steps and the feet very slow through the air.’
17. ARTIFICIAL LIMBS: CANES, CRUTCHES, ETC.
47.1: ‘My stick of course, by a merciful providence, I shall not say
this again, when not mentioned my stick is in my hand, as I
go along.’
& 49.18
18. FALLING, STUMBLING, TRIPPING
47.11: ‘. . . I just sank to my knees to the ground and then forward
on my face, a most extraordinary thing . . .
& 39.15, 39.23, 45.13, 47.19, 49.25
19. CHANGE OF DIRECTION
44.8: ‘. . . the slow turn, wheeling more and more to the one or
other hand, till facing home . . .’
& 39.8, 39.25, 39.29, 40.20, 43.17
20. POSTURES AND POSITIONS
39.2: ‘. . . mother hanging out of the window . . .’
& 39.8, 47.11, 49.26
21. POSITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD NEGATIVE EVENTS
42.17: ‘Fortunately my father died when I was a boy . . .’
& 44.11, 45.15
22. NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD NORMAL EVENTS
39.1: ‘. . . I was young then, feeling awful . . .’
23. SOLACE IN ATTRITION
48.5: ‘. . . All past and gone . . . so that I gather up my things and
go back into my hole, so bygone they can be told.’
& 49.4
24. PAIN AS PROOF OF EXISTENCE
42.3: ‘There was a time I tried to get relief by beating my head
against something . . .
25. BLEEDING, SIGNS OF INJURY, ETC.
39.17: ‘. . . I have gone through great thickets, bleeding, and deep
into bogs . . .’
& 46.15
26. LIVING A BOTHER
46.8: ‘So on to this second day and get it over and out of the way
. . .’
& 43.6, 46.12, 4729
27. AGEING, BEING OLD
43.12: ‘Now I am old and weak . . .’
& 44.22, 48.2
28. LONGING FOR REST
48.26: ‘But let us get on and leave these old scenes and come to
these, and my reward.’
& 39.9, 40.1, 40.3, 40.13, 42.21, 43.6, 45.10, 48.9, 49.15
29. DEATH
40.1: ‘And that is perhaps how I shall die at last if they don’t
catch me, I mean drowned, or in fire, yes, perhaps that is
how I shall do it at last, walking furious headlong into fire
and dying burnt to bits.’
& 43.10, 44.21, 45.2, 45.20, 46.15, 48.1, 49.1
30. SUDDEN MOOD CHANGES
41.19: ‘. . . suddenly I flew into a most savage rage . . .’
31. SANITY QUESTIONED
39.12: ‘. . . not for the world when in my right senses would I ever
touch one . . .’
& 44.18, 44.27
32. DUALITIES
44.29: ‘In twos often they came, one hard on the other . . .’
& 48.3
33. THINKING AN EFFORT
42.19: ‘A very fair scholar I was too, no thought, but a great
memory.’
& 41.29
34. CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIPS REDUCED OR FUTILE
41.29: ‘. . . there’s no accounting for it, there’s no accounting for
anything . . .’
& 41.7
35. POOR MEMORY
47.17: ‘Now was this my first experience of this kind . . .’
36. REFLECTIONS ON GUILTY PAST
44.21: ‘My father, did I kill him too as well as my mother . . .’
& 43.13
37. DISTASTE FOR PROLIFERATION
39.10: ‘. . . bushes, boulders and the like, too numerous to
mention . . .’
38. DITCHES, FURROWS, HOLES, BOGS, MUD
48.21: ‘. . . the ragged old brute bent double down in the ditch . . .’
& 39.28, 49.24
39. SLUGS, SNAILS, WORMS, ETC.
39.15: ‘. . . a slug now, getting under my feet, no, no mercy.’
& 39.8, 45.23
40. SEAS, BEACHES, STRANDS, ETC.
39.28: ‘. . . water too, even the sea in some moods . . .’
41. WEATHER
39.4: ‘The sky would soon darken and rain fall and go on falling
. . .’
42. ETERNAL, PRESENT TIME
47.25: ‘So in some way even olden things each time are first
things, no two breaths the same, all a going over and
over and all once and never more.’
43. IMPERFECT COMMUNICATION, INABILITY TO EXPRESS
43.27: ‘My mother was the same, never talked, never answered
. . .’
& 40.15, .41.22, 41.25, 42.27, 43.24, 43.26
44. SELF-CONSCIOUS NARRATOR
46.2: ‘. . . please read again my descriptions of these . . .’
& 40.24, 41.17, 42.2, 43.8, 44.22, 45.10, 46.18, 47.2, 47.27, 48.26,
49.25
45. DISEMBODIED VOICE
49.7: ‘. . . the voice that once was in your mouth.’
& 43.13, 43.20
46. FAILURE OF SEMIOTIC GESTURE
40.5: ‘. . . my mother still in the window waving, waving me back
or on I don’t know, or just waving, in sad helpless love. . .’
47. REVERSAL OF READER EXPECTATION
39.3: ‘Nice fresh morning, bright too early as go often. Feeling
really awful, very violent.’
& 39.2, 42.17, 44.10, 45.15
48. ARBITRARY SELECTION OF EVENTS
40.25: ‘. . . the day I have hit on to begin with, any other would
have done as well . . .’
& 46.25, 47.22
49. VAGUE ANTECEDENT
40.1: ‘And that is perhaps how I shall die at last if they don’t
catch me . . .’
& 39.13, 43.15
50. GRAMMATICAL ELISIONS
40.27: ‘Well then for a time all well, no trouble, no birds at me. . .’
& 39.6, 39.9, 41.17, 42.23, 43.15, 43.24, 44.7, 45.3, 46.23, 49.22
51. ODD NEGATIONS
49.27: ‘. . . I often thought of that up in the mountains, no, that is a
foolish thing to say . . .’
& 41.25, 44.25, 46.6, 49.17, 49.20
52. ODD VOCABULARY
42.15: ‘. . . vent the pent, that was one of those things I used to
say...’
& 43.4, 43.23, 46.11, 47.25
53. RHYMING, ALLITERATION, ASSONANCE
45.25: ‘. . . or a book read in a nook when a boy . . .’
& 42.15, 39.11
54. OTHER LANGUAGES
41.2: ‘. . . the only completely white horse I remember, what I
believe the Germans call a Schimmel . . .’
& 48.13
The following scholars contributed directly to this compilation:
Susan D. Brienza
James Cahalan
J.E. Dearlove
Martine de Clercq
Martha Fehsenfeld
Dougald McMillan
Philip H. Solomon
Thomas
J. Taylor
Notes
1 Samuel Beckett, ‘All Strange
Away,’ in Journal of Beckett Studies, no.3, Summer, 1978, 1.
2 Stith-Thompson, Motif-index
of folk literature, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1955-58.
3 See William M. Schutte, ‘An
index of recurrent elements in Ulysses,’ James Joyce quarterly, Fall,
1975 and subsequent issues.