As I was researching Beckett I came across a play that he wrote titled "Happy Days" which is about a woman who is buried in the ground up to her waist in the beginning and then as the play progresses she gets deeper and deeper until she is up to her head. She is all alone except for a man named Willie, who she is constantly talking to and he is no where to be seen until the very end of the play.
As I was researching the play itself I came across a YouTube video about a women's prison who used the play in a creative arts project to relate it to their own lives. One lady makes a reference to the gun and what it represents in her life and what it represents in Winnie's life. Another talks about the forgiveness in the play and how that is all that we really want out of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvJnl6KYaM8
This video really made me think about the way I relate to different texts and plays and the effect they can have on you. It is crazy how someone elses words can reflect your own life almost exactly without them having ever met you. It also makes you think twice about your own life after watching these women talk about their lives.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Truth vs Fiction
Throughout the three novels by Samuel Beckett he is constantly reminding his readers that this is just a story and not truth. Five instances of this are:
1) pg 35 "The house where Lousse lived. Must I describe it? I don't think so. I won't, that's all I know, for the moment. Perhaps later on, if I get to know it." Here he is pulling the reader out of the story by saying that he is not going to describe it right now, but maybe later.
2) pg 52 "But instead of trying to satisfy this wish I stayed where I was looking at it, if I may say so, looking at it as it shrivelled up and finally disappeared, like the famous fatal skin, only much quicker." Here he is letting the reader know that this is something that is being written by saying 'If I may say so'.
3) pg 61 "And backsliding has always depressed me, but life seems made up of backsliding, and death itself must be a kind of backsliding, i wouldn't be surprised. Did I say the wind had fallen? A fine rain falling, somehow that seems to exclude all idea of wind." Here is is pulling the reader out of the story by 'forgetting' what he had written and then asking the reader "Did I say...?"
4) pg 91 "I had forgotten them. I saw the sheep again. Or so I say now." In this section he is basically telling the reader that he is fibbing about what he is writing in this story.
5) pg 13 "he didn't seem to be in a hurry, he was loitering, I've already said so, but after three minutes of me he is in a hurry, he has to hurry." Beckett is bringing himself into the story again as the writer by saying 'I have already said this'. This pulls the reader out of the story and reminds them that this was written as a story.
1) pg 35 "The house where Lousse lived. Must I describe it? I don't think so. I won't, that's all I know, for the moment. Perhaps later on, if I get to know it." Here he is pulling the reader out of the story by saying that he is not going to describe it right now, but maybe later.
2) pg 52 "But instead of trying to satisfy this wish I stayed where I was looking at it, if I may say so, looking at it as it shrivelled up and finally disappeared, like the famous fatal skin, only much quicker." Here he is letting the reader know that this is something that is being written by saying 'If I may say so'.
3) pg 61 "And backsliding has always depressed me, but life seems made up of backsliding, and death itself must be a kind of backsliding, i wouldn't be surprised. Did I say the wind had fallen? A fine rain falling, somehow that seems to exclude all idea of wind." Here is is pulling the reader out of the story by 'forgetting' what he had written and then asking the reader "Did I say...?"
4) pg 91 "I had forgotten them. I saw the sheep again. Or so I say now." In this section he is basically telling the reader that he is fibbing about what he is writing in this story.
5) pg 13 "he didn't seem to be in a hurry, he was loitering, I've already said so, but after three minutes of me he is in a hurry, he has to hurry." Beckett is bringing himself into the story again as the writer by saying 'I have already said this'. This pulls the reader out of the story and reminds them that this was written as a story.
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