Alienation and Loneliness
As Krapp’s Last Tape progresses, it becomes evident that Krapp has intentionally isolated himself from the companionship and affection of others throughout his life. At twenty-nine, Krapp lived with a woman named Bianca, whose love he later dismissed as a "hopeless business," despite her "warm eyes." By the time he turned thirty-nine, Krapp was spending his birthday alone in a pub, trying to separate what he believed to be his profound thoughts from the "husks" of trivial ones. That same year, his mother died, and he ended a relationship with a new love, calling it "hopeless and no good going on." Since then, Krapp has lived in complete solitude, with only occasional visits from Fanny, whom he refers to as a "bony old ghost of a whore."
Krapp's isolation is self-inflicted; this certainly portrays him as arrogant, believing that women and love would obstruct his future writing career. However, it also evokes some pity for the deluded old man. His only companion is his tape recorder; the impersonal and mechanical nature of a recorded voice, as opposed to a live one, highlights his profound disconnection from human interaction and emotion. Beckett emphasizes Krapp’s loneliness by having him listen intently to the tape in a special "listening pose," revealing his desperation for someone—anyone, even himself—to engage him in conversation. Although Krapp pretends to be indifferent to the rest of the world, his hunching over the tape recorder betrays his feigned arrogance. The play's poignant impact lies in Krapp's eventual realization of his deep loneliness and the grave error he made in abandoning human companionship.
Artists and Society
Some artists, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Arthur Miller, and Norman Mailer, have become cultural icons and spokespersons of their time. Meanwhile, others, such as J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon, shy away from the spotlight, preferring their work to speak for itself. Regardless of their views on fame, all writers share the goal of reaching a broad audience. In this way, writers serve as social figures, using their work to convey thoughts and ideas to the public.
Krapp, however, is a writer whose work has failed to connect with an audience, leading to an artistic "vision" considered a complete failure. His life's "magnum opus" has only managed to sell seventeen copies. Beckett gives no hint that Krapp is a misunderstood genius, akin to Melville, whose work is simply ahead of its time. Instead, Beckett highlights Krapp’s artistic failure through the setting of the play, which mirrors his impoverishment, his clownish attire, and his habit of opening corks when he disappears offstage. Krapp’s inspiration comes from a bottle, and the results of this "inspiration" are trivial. Even though Krapp mentions that eleven copies of his book are being sold to "circulating libraries beyond the seas," which he thinks will help him become "known," the audience understands that Beckett depicts Krapp as a man convinced of his own artistic brilliance but overlooked by the very readers he needs to share his ideas.
Memory and Reminiscence
Much like Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (1944) and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949), Krapp’s Last Tape delves into how memories resurface for a character who finds these past glimpses more significant and meaningful than their current experiences. At sixty-nine, Krapp's life is marked by simplicity and seclusion, which he temporarily escapes by listening to a tape he recorded three decades earlier. The tape recorder acts as a metaphor for a mechanical brain; as Krapp manipulates its controls, Beckett illustrates our attempts to navigate through the moments that compose our memories:
What I suddenly saw was this, that the...
(This entire section contains 361 words.)
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belief I had been going on all my life, namely (Krapp switches off impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on again) great granite rocks the foam flying up in the light of the lighthouse and the wind-gauge spinning like a propeller, clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most (Krapp curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again) unshatterable association until my dissolution of storm and night with the light of the understanding and the fire (Krapp curses louder, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again) my face in her breasts and my hand on her.
In the excerpt above, Krapp tries to suppress the memory of his "vision" and instead concentrates on recalling his last true relationship with another person. The action of "winds tape forwards" symbolically represents how individuals manipulate the "tape recorders" in their minds to select the "segments" they want to replay. When Krapp reaches the memory of himself and the unnamed woman in the boat, the audience grasps its importance, as Krapp "switches off, winds tape back" and listens to it two more times during the play. As the precious memories of a dying man become more valuable, so does the portion of Krapp's tape that narrates his last meaningful encounter with another person, making it the centerpiece of his reflections. Through this "mechanical memory" and by contrasting the Krapp on the thirty-year-old tape with his sixty-nine-year-old self, Krapp ultimately understands the profound error he made in saying "farewell to love."
Selfhood and Identity
Krapp’s Last Tape delves into the enigmatic realm of selfhood, exploring its inherent sadness and unexpected comedy. The play's protagonist, Krapp, grapples with the essential aspects of selfhood—communication, thought, and belief—yet these elements often manifest as habits and superficial acts rather than genuine expressions of identity. Krapp continues to engage in these rituals, driven by motives he scarcely comprehends himself. This struggle becomes particularly evident in his annual ritual of self-examination, during which he embarks on a quest to uncover his identity amidst the myriad encounters that have shaped his life.
As Krapp ages, the vitality that once defined his personhood has dwindled, overshadowed by the repetitive patterns of his senescence. This decline is starkly illustrated at the play’s outset, where Krapp's identity seems almost obscured by his compulsive behaviors—his fixation on bananas, lapses into mental vacuity, and a juvenile delight in the mere production of sounds. These acts, while seemingly trivial, underscore a poignant reality: Krapp’s journey through his past tapes reveals not only the erosion of his former self but also the enduring mystery of selfhood that he continues to confront, even as the clarity of that self slips further from his grasp.
Estrangement and Communication
In the dim seclusion of his study, Krapp, a disheveled writer lost in the shadows, grapples with the enigma of self-understanding. Surrounded by an archive of voices from his past, he embodies Samuel Beckett’s exploration of isolation and identity. At the heart of this solitude lies Krapp’s fixation on his own essence—the elusive "I" that he desperately clings to, recorded and stored in a series of tapes. This "I," Krapp's much-valued self, becomes a testament to his struggle with personal estrangement, a symbol of his efforts to preserve a sense of continuity in his life through what could be called verbal mummification.
Beckett portrays estrangement as an inevitable consequence of self-expression, even when the intended audience is one's future self. As Krapp revisits the voice of his past, he finds himself dismissive of its insights, derisively amused by the youthful aspirations of his thirty-nine-year-old incarnation. This cycle of self-critique perpetuates as the younger Krapp too had listened to an even earlier version of himself, mocking the pretensions of that bygone era. Through Krapp, Beckett illustrates the perpetual disconnect between our present selves and the echoes of who we once were, questioning whether true self-communication is ever possible or if we are forever estranged from our own identities, destined to wander the corridors of memory, laughing at the shadows of our former selves.
Isolation and Solipsism
Krapp's paradoxical existence is marked by an intense tug-of-war between a yearning for connection and an innate aversion to others. This duality defines his selfhood. One poignant episode illustrates this conflict vividly: a young woman with inviting eyes becomes a source of both allure and distress, as her potential companionship dissolves into an accusation that prompts her to threaten police involvement. This encounter occurs as Krapp sits in the shadow of his mother's impending death, a moment fraught with his unspoken wish for her swift passing. The subsequent silent descent of a window shade signifies her demise, intensifying Krapp's estrangement from human engagement.
Krapp's existence is further isolated by his obsessive compulsion to record and listen to tapes, creating an archive that paradoxically distances him from genuine personhood. These tapes, much like the emotional void at his mother's deathbed, underscore his detachment. As he engages in the solitary ritual of listening to his recorded voice, he forgoes present self-awareness, choosing instead to converse with a phantom of his future self. This act of preservation, while seemingly an attempt at self-reflection, only accentuates his solipsistic tendencies. Beckett thus depicts Krapp as a man ensnared in his inability to truly communicate, even with himself, illustrating a profound disconnect that defines his solitary existence.
Comedy and Tragedy
The interplay between comedy and tragedy finds a unique expression in the character of Krapp, whose grim realities are depicted with a comedic touch rather than the existential angst common among his contemporaries. While the fevered delirium of Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov evokes a sense of desperation, Beckett’s Krapp offers a contrasting portrayal—one marked by absentminded pauses and clumsy antics. Krapp, with his too-short pants and propensity to slip on banana peels, embodies a clownish figure navigating the absurdity of life.
Despite Krapp’s scholarly airs, his attempts at intellectual engagement are undercut by his forgetfulness and reliance on dictionaries to recall words he once knew. This parody of scholarly endeavor is further highlighted as he struggles to decipher his own annotations in a ledger index, turning a mundane task into a comedic spectacle. The humor lies not in the degradation of his personhood but in how the very act of living has eroded him, yet he persists, undeterred by the wastage of life.
The promise of Krapp’s final tape does not herald a dramatic confrontation with the void but rather acknowledges the inevitable erosion of all human rituals of survival. Beckett’s ability to convey such profound truths through comedy sets him apart, offering a distinct voice among modern writers who grapple with similar existential themes. Through Krapp, Beckett illustrates how life’s absurdities and the relentless march toward extinction can be rendered with a light touch, infusing tragedy with an unexpected humor.
