Oh the Sorrow
Oh the Sorrow...
During the 20th century, there was an evident disillusion and disintegration
in religious views and human nature due to the horrific and appalling events and
improvements in technology of this time, such as the Holocaust and the creation of
the atom bomb. This has left people with little, if any, faith in powers above or in
their own kind, leaving them to linger in feelings of despair and that life is an
absurd joke. From these times grew the Theater of Absurd. Here they attempted
to depict the very illogical and ridiculous life they were living. In comparison to
traditional characteristics of earlier plays, the plots are seemingly deficient, if not
sparse with little resolution. Yet despite this, these plays make very bold and
philosophical statements about life in the 20th century. The playwrights
indiscreetly utilize metaphoric and symbolic details to support their message. In
'Krapp's Last Tape,' Samuel Beckett exploits such techniques in expressing his
own bleak and pessimistic view of the world.
In his middle years of his life, Krapp retained this rigid and anal retentive
nature. He kept these tapes in which he would constantly reevaluate his own life
and try to always improve it, using these tapes as 'help before embarking on a new
retrospect' (1629). He had also stored these various tapes organized in boxes with
their location written in a ledger. Yet in his latter years, there is an apparent decay
of this regimental attitude. His very appearance is an indication of this decline.
He is described as wearing 'Rusty black narrow trousers to short for him. Rusty
black sleeveless waistcoat. Surprising pair of dirty white boots. Disordered gray
hair. Unshaven. Very near-sighted (but unspectacled),' which is not the
description of an anal retentive person (1627). Also despite the ledger and...
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