Krapp's Last Tape

Samuel Beckett definitely did not make it easy for his audience to understand his work. I was very lost and bored while reading his play Krapp’s Last Tape. Because it was so short I read it a few times through to see if I was missing a bigger message or theme, but did not seem to get much more out of it other than Krapp dwelling on his failures. I can’t imagine going to see a play where the majority of the time nothing is taking place. It was sad that he had to move backwards and forwards on the tape to find memories that he connected with. Even when his memories did help him to travel back to his 39^th year he focused on his failures and referred to his younger self as stupid. I can’t imagine looking back on my life and only seeing failure.

I found the comparison between sporting events and Beckett’s plays that Kristen discussed in lecture to be quite intriguing. I would have never thought to compare the two from reading Krapp’s Last Tape. Sporting events are fun and exciting, I never know what’s going to happen, where as the play came across as slow and dull to me. However, when looking at the structure of sporting events and Beckett’s plays I understood the comparison Kristen was making. There is a lot of down time in football due to time outs and commercial breaks, which is similar to the lack of action in the play and then short segments of action. I grew up watching football so I always understood the game and knew what to expect when showing up at the stadium, but to someone unfamiliar to the rules it would be hard to understand. If I knew the type of work Beckett produced before reading the play I may have had a different perspective on it.

The Cherry Orchard

After reading the play The Cherry Orchard its subtitle A Comedy in Four Acts did not seem fitting to me. At no point during the play did I find myself laughing or finding any of the situations comical. However, I recalled how I didn’t seem to think that The Importance of Being Earnest was funny until I analyzed it more closely and ultimately saw a clip of it in lecture. Therefore, I looked back at some of the features of comedy we had discussed last week in class to see if they applied to this play. I found that quick development and inversions were both present in the script.

One example of quick development happened in Act I. While Anya and Liubov are just being reacquainted with their home, friends and family after a long time away the plot quickly turns when Lopakhin reveals they are going to lose their house. This information quickly turns the conversation from updates on who has passed away to how they should handle the situation. This sets up the underlying conflict of what they are going to do about the orchard throughout the first two acts. The comedic feature of inversion was present at the conclusion of the play. Lopakhin whose grandparents were owned by the Ranevesky family before freedom was given to the serfs and was a peasant growing up on the Ranevsky’s estate ended up buying the Cherry Orchard. And the rich Ranevesky family loses their home and goes off into the world with uncertainty at the end of the play. After looking at the presence of these features and rereading parts of the script I can see how this play can be considered a comedy.

The Importance of Being Earnest

It was refreshing to read a play that was lighthearted in contrast to the last few plays we have read in class. However, I found the superficiality of The Importance of Being Earnest quite off putting. It was unsettling to me that after all of Jack and Algernon’s lies and deception they still ended with what they desired. It was interesting the amount of important that was put on ones name and how fixated both Gwendolen and Cecily were on the name Earnest. In Act One Gwendolen says, “…and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.” Later in Act Two Cecily expresses her obsession with the name when she says, “you must not laugh at me, darling but it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest. There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence. I pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest.” Their infatuation with the name shows how shallow they are, which many of the other characters throughout the play can be described as.

I continued to think about the importance of a name after reading the play. It gives use our identity and characteristics are usually attached to certain names. Although, judgments are commonly made when hearing a person’s name for the first time, I believe it is also the people around you and your experiences that give life to your name or perhaps give life to nicknames that more appropriately suited for you.