Similar Themes, Opposing Styles

Similar themesStyles differCompare an early work and a later

work

1934Short storiesFollow life of one

character“ long sentences

furnished in an elegantly cluttered style” (King).

1954 Play 2 main characters One setting “A special virtue

attaches to plays which remind the drama of how much it can do without and still exist” (“Samuel Barclay Beckett”).

InevitableNot without

pain In various

forms: Physical Personal

Loss

Death of a lobster “it’s a quick death, God help us all.

It is not” (Beckett 22).Disease

Facing a surgery “he was properly up against it this time”

(Beckett 162).

A hanging Possibility bough will break “ Don’t let’s do anything.

It’s safer” (Beckett 13).Changes

“ one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day” (Beckett 58).

Depiction of womenCompanionship:

Necessary Avoided

Marriage “ her death came therefore as a

timely release” (Beckett 114). “they suddenly seemed to be

all dead… was the only sail in sight” (Beckett 175).

Point of View “ the beastly punctilio of women”

(Beckett 29).

Master and slave “I can’t bear it any longer…

he’s killing me” (Beckett 23).

Companions “ wonder if we wouldn’t have been

better off alone” (Beckett 35). “ Stay with me!... You let me go”

(Beckett 38).

"for his writing, which - in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation“

(Nobel)

Why do the similarities matter?

Beckett, Samuel. More Pricks than Kicks. First Evergreen Edition. Brattleboro, Vermont: The Book Press, 1972. Print.

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. First Printing. New York, NY: Grove Press, 1954. Print.

King, John. "Reading for the Plotless: the difficult characters of Samuel Beckett's A Dream of Fair to Middling Women." Journal of Modern Literature 29.1 (2005): 133+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Oct. 2010.<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA141998215&v=2.1&u=txshracd2598&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w>

"Samuel (Barclay) Beckett." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Oct. 2010.http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1000006745&v=2.1&u=txshracd2598&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w