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Description
The works of Samuel Beckett often defy or resist description, and this presents a variety of difficulties for scholars engaged in the criticism of his work. Because of the emotional unutterability, dissociation, and loss central to many of his stories, I will be implementing a strategy of critique akin to depth psychology which analyzes the nonsensical, aporetic, and traumatic, as well as placing value on the feeling tones embedded within the elisions of Beckett’s characters which point to actual lived life experiences. On the surface, I will be employing an archetypal feminine theoretical orientation which loosely resembles methodologies gleaned from structural anthropology, but I will also reach deeper into the ontological and hermeneutic dimensions as well. I understand this analytical approach to be a type of Matriarchal theory: my aim is to find meaning through tracking the presence or absence of The Feminine Life-World in the stories. The goal of this paper is not just to bring these observations to light, but to tap into a vast unconscious world of feminine erasure which begs for elucidation. This work explores the feminine, masculine, and post human in a unique way so as to pry loose meaning, clarify artistic imagery, and uncover some of the ideational scaffolding that helps buttress Beckett’s oeuvre. I make the case in the ensuing pages that the feminine qualities, which we know to be almost universally suppressed, denigrated, or extirpated from the social and emotional fabric of life, are not just secondary or tertiary concerns, but are actually central to understanding Beckett’s work, and are the single most important factor when interpreting the rage and loss expressed by his characters. I’m using this newly-fashioned Matriarchal theoretical approach to evaluate a selection of his main works in the hope that an exploration of this kind will reveal more plausibly and concretely that there has been a hidden moral imperative for change operating underneath much of his writing that is waiting to be found which laments the loss of feminine wisdom in society and mourns the absence of womanly succor at the hands of a nearly ubiquitous masculine wrath.
