Oldal 32 [32]
IN SEARCH OF LOST IMAGE
walking and holding hands with a young girl. These naïve but comical features
that present the younger character share some aspects already developed in
Krapp. The idyllic but also humorous image of a deep moment recovered from
the past, and one that he truly seems to be experiencing, ironically shows the
disappointing future of the character in the present scene in a way similar to
the one in the punt in Krapp's Last Tape.
Unlike Proustian privileged moments, in Beckett’s oeuvre, particularly in
Krapp’s Last Tape and L’image, reminiscences, which are extremely fragile
and aroused with a painful effort, are associated to the memory of someone
lost. This fact emphasizes the complete solitude of the characters that can
evoke privileged moments which could have diverted them from failure,
while the narrator in Proust achieves sublimation as a lone, self-sufficient
omnipotent artist.
According to Godeau,™ if the crisis of the modern subject and of language
in Proust are displayed through snobbish chatting, procrastination or creative
impotence, in the end these elements are overcome. In Beckett, however, the
result is a condemnation to repetition, like Tantalus, the Greek mythological
figure famous for his eternal punishment: “So that we are rather in the position
of Tantalus, with this difference, that we allow ourselves to be tantalized.””
The images created through reminiscences by Krapp or the character in
L’image are sensitive and illusory traces that are definitely lost.
The collection of conventional black and white postcards that Krapp
rescues from the spools are opposed to Proust’s idea of life as a text to be
deciphered. If the task of the artist is to recover form out of uniformity, the
appearance of those “privileged” moments display the only certainty that
Beckett’s characters can have: they make life real for the first time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKERLEY, Chris: The Past in Monochrome: (In)voluntary Memory in Samuel
Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, in D. Guardamagna - R. M. Sebellin (eds.):
The Tragic Comedy of Samuel Beckett. “Beckett in Rome” 17-19 April 2008,
Universita degli Studi di Roma «Tor Vergata» Gius. Laterza & Figgie, 2009,
277-291.
ALBERES, René M.: Métamorphoses du roman, Paris, Editions Albin Michel,
1972.
BECKETT, Samuel: Proust, London, Chatto and Windus, 1931.
54 Godeau: Image premiere, image dernière, 160.
55 Beckett: Proust, 13.
+ 31°