“A Step Towards Silence”
Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable and the Problem of Following the Stranger
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20156580 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mike Marais (0000-0001-6794-3976, Rhodes University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 89-106 |
| Publication date | 2016-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387 |
| Publisher | Unisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02564718.2016.1249617 |
| OpenAlex | W2549520515 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
In this article, I argue that Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable evinces the kind of aesthetic ambivalence that Theodor Adorno, in Aesthetic Theory, ascribes to the artwork’s location both in and outside of society. By tracing the metaphors used in the narrator’s depiction of the act of narration, I demonstrate that this novel self-reflexively articulates and meditates on its ambivalent position in society. Thereafter, I relate the work’s suspicion of its medium, and therefore its estrangement from itself, to its critique of community’s norms of recognition, which are embedded in language. Finally, I reflect on the potential effect of the text’s aesthetic ambivalence on the reader
Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Art · Depiction · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Psychoanalysis · Silence · Sociology · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology · Samuel Beckett and Modernism · Theatre and Performance Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |