The End (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel Beckett
- First Published: 1955
- Type of Plot: Absurdist
- Time of Work: The twentieth century
- Setting: Possibly Ireland
- Principal Characters: The narrator
- Genres: Realism, Short fiction, Absurdist literature
- Subjects: Death or dying, Survivalism, Loneliness, Life, philosophy of, Old age or elderly people, Elderly abuse
- Locales: Ireland
The Story
If readers expect the contemporary short story to concentrate on a “slice of life,” it must be said that Samuel Beckett is inclined to take his cut at the far end of the loaf. “The End” is a good example of the subject on which he has concentrated in much of his work: the gritty, sometimes offensive experience of the last days of an old man, struggling to survive and, at the same time, willing to die.
There are no tricks, no sophisticated twists and turns in this story. It is simply the tale of an old, unnamed man, thrown out of some kind of public...
[The entire page is 1456 words long]
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