Beckett's Not I is a powerful, yet short play. Its only character is a disembodied mouth, which recounts to viewers the tragic story of its life. The voice describes four important events from its life:

• Lying face down in the grass
• Standing in a supermarket
• Sitting on a mound in Croker's Acre
• And "that time at court"

The mouth describes these events through jumbled sentences, which are uttered at a ferocious pace. Although Not I's dialog is important, much of the play's power comes from the way in which it is delivered. The frantic nature of the voice helps audiences to unearth the play's meaning.

Beckett himself has said that he hoped this play would "work on the nerves of the audience, not its intellect." In other words, his dream for the play is to stir feelings within those who watch it rather than making them think about it on a logical level. Try re-watching the play and focusing on the feelings Not I arouses in you for more clarity on the specific emotions Beckett hoped to inspire.

Not I is a short play that takes place in a pitch black space. Only a single beam of light illuminates the area and fixes on an actress's mouth. The mouth spews jumbled sentences at a quick pace, telling the disjointed story of an elderly woman who was abandoned by her parents after birth and has lived a miserable existence. It also seems that she has suffered some sort of traumatic experience in a field.

The mouth refers to herself in the third person throughout the play. This alludes to the title, as the narrator is in complete denial that the events described happened to her. She describes her life as being muted with only occasional outbursts, the ceaseless and almost stream-of-consciousness narrative spoken by the mouth being a symbolic contrast to this. The narrator seems to think that if she goes over the events enough, the meaning of them will be revealed to her. This serves as a bleak statement on the absurdity of existence.

Not I is a short, intense play in which a disembodied mouth is suspended on a completely dark stage. In this potent piece of imagery, the mouth floats on stage and spews a torrent of words at a ferocious pace. The melodramatic monologue recited by the solo character is disjointed, fragmented, and almost spontaneous.

The mouth narrates the story of a lonely outcast, unable to express herself through speech, except on a few occasions in her life. The actor recalls a childhood devoid of love and care. She recollects a past filled with fear and loneliness and describes a shift from a stage of near mutism to one of pressured speech. In the form of compulsive confessions, she gives clues to her background. She questions the significance of life, the absurdity of existence, and the meaning of death. Throughout the play, the character refers to herself in the third person. The emancipated voice from within is symbolic of the protagonist's plight.

Beckett's play is a sensitive representation of mental distress and speech disorder.

The play is a rather extraordinary work of drama, played by an actress whose mouth alone is illuminated and the rest of the stage is completely dark.  This mouth relates a tale of woe in somewhat fragmented and disjointed sentences talking about past traumas and a very empty and painful life.

Beckett said that the character was based at least in part on women that he knew in Ireland, old "crones" who appeared to be without particular purpose and who had lived very difficult and painful lives.

The play is meant to evoke a more emotional response than any kind of intellectual one, particularly as the stories told by the mouth are so difficult to follow in a straight-forward narrative sense.