Embers (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel Beckett
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Absurdist
- Time of Work: Unspecified
- Setting: At the edge of the sea
- Genres: Drama, Absurdist literature
- Subjects: Memory, Parents and children, Communication, Fathers, Imagination, Sea or seafaring life, Existentialism, Radio or radio broadcasting, Isolation
Characters Discussed
Henry, an aging man afflicted with hemorrhoids who lives by the “cursed” sea and who talks to himself in the hope of drowning out its sound. An isolated figure incapable of bringing anything he does to completion, he conjures up people from his past, including the father he longs both to escape and to resurrect. He imagines these others and tells himself stories no longer solely for company but more especially to have someone who knew him in the past and who can therefore understand what he is now, the “washout” his father judged him to be. Henry...
[The entire page is 669 words long]
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