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And
I see again the other gloomy and sad gag in Endgame:
«HAMM: Is my dog ready?
CLOV: He lacks a leg.
HAMM:
Is he silky?
CLOV:
He’s a kind of Pomeranian.
HAMM:
Go and get him.
CLOV:
He lacks a leg.
HAMM: Go and get him! […].
(Enter
CLOV holding by one of its three legs a black toy dog.) » 19.
Finally, the
farcical to-and-fro and the runaway
Og-Keaton’s
useless attempts to move off the room the timid dog in
Beckett’s only chilling movie, Film 20.
10.
TAPE: « Spiritually a year of profound gloom and indigence
until that memorable night in March [...] » (K., p. 15).
10.
1
Night
in March: third month of the year.
11.
TAPE:
« Past midnight. Never knew such silence » (K., p. 16).
11.
1
Past
midnight: 24 hours have passed (24 multiple of 3).
12.
Third Pantomime
«
KRAPP [...] fumbles in his pockets, encounters the banana, takes it out,
peers at it, puts it back, fumbles, brings out envelope, fumbles, puts back
envelope, looks at his watch, gets up and goes backstage into darkness. Ten
seconds. Sound of bottle against glass, then brief siphon. Ten seconds. Bottle
against glass alone. Ten seconds. He comes back a little unsteadily into light »
(K., p. 17).
12. 1
Krapp
searches his pocket 3 times and pulls out 3 objects: 1 banana, 1 envelope, 1
watch. In the pantomime there are 3 breaks of 10 seconds.
13.
KRAPP:
« Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years
ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that » (K., p. 17).
13. 1
Krapp
saying: « I took myself for thirty years ago » he specifies he is 69 years old
(69 a multiple of 3). As a matter of fact, listening to the previous tape he
informed us he was to be 39 years old (see notes 4. and 4. 1).
14.
KRAPP:
« Seventeen copies sold, of which eleven at trade price [...] One pound six and
something, eight I have little doubt » (K., p. 18).
14.
1
Let’s
see: one pound, six shillings, eight pence. Now let’s try to write them in
figures (1. 6. 8.) and add one to another, we get 15 which is a multiple of 3.
15.
KRAPP:
« Crawled out once or
twice, before
the summer was cold » (K.,
p. 18).
15.
1
« Before the summer was cold » : the summer finishes on September 21st
(ninth month) and both are multiples of 3.
16.
KRAPP:
« Sat shivering in the park, drowned in dreams and burning to be gone » (K.,
p. 18).
16.
1
Krapp
feels 3 sensations at the same time.
17.
KRAPP:
« Scaled the eyes out of me reading Effie again,
a page a day, with
tears again. Effie […]
» (K., p. 18).
17. 1
Effi,
assimilated to the consonant F, corresponds to the sixth letter of the alphabet.
17.
2
It
is to be observed that Effi is the
same novel read by the Rooneys in
All That Fall:
«Let us hasten home and sit before the fire. We shall draw the
blinds.
You will read to me. I think Effie is going to commit
adultery
with the Major [ …] » 21.
18.
KRAPP:
« Went to Vespers once [...]. (Pause. Sings.)
Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh-igh,
Shadows - (coughing, then almost
inaudible) -of the
evening teal
across the sky » (K., pp. 18-19).
18. 1
The
Vesper, the eventide time, Dictionary defines:
«
1) Time of the day when the sun goes declining, late
afternoon.
2) In Catholic liturgy, canonical hour, the penultimate
one between
the
ninth and the compline, corresponding to six p. m. » .
We can easily check that the ninth and the six p. m. hours,
are multiples of 3.
19.
KRAPP:
« Be again in the dingle on a Christmas Eve [...] » (K., p. 19).
19.1
«
A Christmas Eve »: 24 (day) and 12 (month), both multiples of 3.
20
KRAPP:
« Be again in the dingle on Christmas Eve, gathering holly, the red-berried.(Pause.)
Be again on Croghan on a Sunday morning, in the haze, with the bitch, stop and
listen to the bells. (Pause.) And so on.
(Pause.) Be again, be again [...] » (K. p. 19).
20.
1
Krapp
aims the willing of being 4 times.
20.
2
Once
more we observe the presence of a dog. Rather a bitch. On 3 circumstances Krapp
meets dogs (K., pp. 14-15, 19).
21.
TAPE:
« [...] I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on and she
agreed, without opening her eyes.[...].
Here
I end this reel. Box - (pause) - three, spool - (pause) – five.
(Pause.) Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness.
But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire
in me now. No, I wouldn’t want back » (K., pp. 19-20).
21.
1
1)
« It was hopeless »;
2)
« No good going on »;
3)
« Without opening the eyes ».
3
negations.
21.
2
The
monologue ends with the listening of the tape n. 5. More precisely much care is
given to the love scene with the girl on the lake. Than we can count, by chance,
3 times the recorder is activated by Krapp since that moment.
Numbers
3 and 5 ... comment themselves and combine each other ...
21.
3
The word « Fire » is
repeated with definitely positive value 4 times (K., pp. 11, 16, 20). 3
others main, primordial, cathartic elements of life positive valued as well, can
be checked: Earth « I suppose I mean those things worth having when all the
dust has-when all my dust has settled » (K., p. 12): the body, « the
dust », belong and come back to Mother-Earth; Air « […] great granite rocks
the foam flying up in the light of the lighthouse and the wind-gauge spinning
like a propeller […] » (K., p.16): the wind-gauge is propelled by Air;
Water « Sun blazing down, bit of breeze, water nice and lively » (K.,
p. 16).
In
addition with the numerical subject it
is to be said that Knowlson (in his above mentioned work Notes on the Text,
pp. 24-25) according to the numbers 9 (box 9) and 39 (years), states:
«
nine. There are, then, logically 45 recordings, since there are five spools for
box. As each spool represents a birthday, he began recording at the age of
twenty-four (69 - 45);
Thirty-nine
today. This is not an arbitrary figure, since it is a multiple of 13 (a
favourite number with Beckett). Krapp remembers the year of the girl in the punt
thanks to this fact » 22.
Also
Ruby Cohn draws attention on the playwright’s fondness for number 13. Such
preference, pointed out by the same authoress, is due to the attention paid by
our « Greatest Poet » to that number 23.
Also the numbers discovered by Knowlson 24
and 45 are multiples of 3.This encourages my opinion. It is true that all the
suppositions to Numerical References and neither, might be purely casual.
But let’s listen to what Avigdor Arikha, an Israeli painter, an old friend of
the writer who had been living in the same district as Beckett since 1954 says:
«
[...] Musical attention is to be found in the choice of the names of the
characters as well as in the number of the syllables that make them up. As if he
has tried to make truthful his writing through mathematics, in order to give
everything a sense » 24.
The same is stated by Al Alvarez:
«
His work was utterly pure and concentrated, there is not a comma out of a place
anywhere » 25.
Gianni Manzella confirms it:
«
In fact Beckett’s personal and rigorous universe is dominated by mathematical
precision […] » 26.
Pierre
Marcabru wittily follows him up in « Le Figaro »:
«
Everything is detailed, valued, weighed, as a result of mathe- matical
asceticism, at any rate in the middle of this blankness, of this mineral,
abstract universe, wherein all obeys the rules of choreography, almost a rite
with pre-arranged steps [...] » 27.
Besides,
Beckett was a distinguished chess-player: almost surely the title Endgame
sprang from this interest or perhaps from the marvellous Bruegel-like images of Det
sjundeinseglet (The Seventh Seal), a 1956 film directed by Bergman, regarded as « Beckett’s Northern brother » 28.
Due to the fact that, he drew order out of chaos. Giuliano Gramigna observes
that « one of the most meaningful
features of Beckett’s work is its apparent - and shown off - coincidence.
Richard Ellman - Gramigna continues - touches this aspect very closely when he
observes that Beckett ‘ran into the results of his own being’. In a matter
of speaking, literature to him was no longer the hunting of a prey, though
excellent. Although in Beckett’s work nothing is left to chance ( be it enough
to think of the symmetries of structures, situations, figures going across his
stories, novels and pièces), the main point, what really matters and gives
importance to the work, is brought by the case » 29.
« Case or not », it is my intention to open up a road not yet trodden by the
so many authoritative essayists of the Beckettian work, and particularly to try
a new unprecedented meanings of Krapp’s Last Tape 30.
Getting
back to the numerical analysis, it is good to remember what the young Beckett
wrote on Joyce’s Finnegans Wake:
«
Another point of comparison is the preoccupation with the
significance of numbers. The death of Beatrice inspired nothing less than
a highly complicated poem dealing with the importance
of the number 3 in her life.
Dante never ceased to be obsessed by this number. Thus the poem is divided into
three Cantiche, each composed by 33 Canti, and
written in terza rima. Why, Mr Joyce seems to say, should there be four
legs to a table, and four to a horse, and four seasons and four Gospels and four
Provinces in Ireland? Why twelve Tables of
the Law, and twelve Apostles and twelve months and twelve Napoleonic
marshals and twelve men in Florence called Ottolenghi? Why should the Armistice
be celebrated at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh
month? He cannot tell you because he is not God Almighty, but in a thousand
years he will tell you, and in the meantime must be content
to know why horses have not five legs, nor three. He is conscious that
things with a common numerical characteristic tend towards a very significant
interrelationship » 31.
Considering
that all his work is full of numerical combinations, perhaps what Beckett
detected out of Dante and Joyce ( his beloved masters ) 32, namely «
that all the things with a common numerical characteristic tend to a highly
significant connection », is valid for him too. Aldo Tagliaferri suggests that
the interests for the numbers in Beckett are
originated from
the « Joyce’s numerical
passion ». Then, he advises:
« [...] In the interpretation of the esoteric value of numbers in Beckett it
would be opportune to bear in mind not only the Pythagorean Tetractis, the
numerical theories of Bruno, those of Hermes Trimegistus and the Kabbalah
(theories well handled and stirred by Madame Blavatsky in her syncretic The
Secret Doctrine) but also what comes from Jung, who in his work Transfert
often hints at the doctrines of the ancient cultures and interprets them in a
psychological key. The Louis, for example, in the story told by Malone, are four
(MM, 222), and the explicitly incestuous relations between the four of them take
over the Jungian structure, above all at p. 229. In Myths and Mysteries
(Torino, 1950), Kerényi explains that ‘ancient people regarded quaternity as
one of the most concrete basic elements of Hermes’, but between three and four,
as the quoted axiom specifies, a kind of magic relationship does exist [...] » 33.
Let’s
hear two big actors, Vittorio Gassman and Leo De Bernardinis.
Gassman
writes:
« [...] The importance of the ‘number’ in Beckett’s
world: the symbolic irreducibility of the decimal, the mystery of the zero and
of the series. The number and the ‘names’. Beckett’s nomenclature is
symbolical as well as clownish; there is in it an outspoken and troublesome code
that covers the cold atrociousness of words with an eternal disguise of mask and
cabaret » 34.
De Bernardinis says:
«
Krapp’s Last Tape is a relationship between technology, mathematics,
arithmetic [...] » 35.
Finally let’s read some lines from … Exactness by Tom McGurk:
«
In the days I spent in the auditorium watching him in rehearsal, one learned the extraordinary exactness and
precision with he approached his work. He spent hours with the actors getting
the tone of the voices exact, the length of the pauses, the movements, the
gestures. In watching one became aware of his obsessions with precision and it
seemed to him that his plays were artefacts of exactitude […] » 36.
In
order to come to a conclusion of the … « amusing investigation », we can
confirm that numbers or arithmetical references
and combinations, « simple sums you find a help in times of trouble » 37,
appearing in the text, can be divided into 3 groups: Recurrent Numbers (as well
as their multiples) A – B, Occasional Numbers (Prime numbers and their
multiples) C:
A)
2 and its multiples: 4; 10; 12; 20; 24; 30; 40; 48; 1.700; 3.600; 8.000;
B)
3 and its multiples: 6; 9; 12; 24; 27; 30; 39; 45; 48; 69; 3.600;
C)
5 and its multiples: 20; 40; 1.700; 3.600; 8.000; 7; 11; 17
and it multiple: 1.700.
«
Even still in the timeless dark you find figures a comfort » 38.
Notes
1. Krapp’s Last Tape, written in
February 1958, published in the « Evergreen Review », vol. II, no. 5, Summer
1958, pp. 13-24. More ahead I indicate the pièce belonging to the typical Faber
and Faber Edition, with the sign K.. About the work genesis see:
GONTARSKI STAN E., Crapp’s First Tapes: Beckett’s Manuscript Revision of
« Krapp’s Last Tape », « Journal of
Modern Literature», vol. VI, no. 1 February 1977, pp. 61-68; KNOWLSON
JAMES (edited by), The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett, « Krapp’s
Last Tape », London, Faber and Faber, 1992; About the equipment see:
CHABERT PIERRE, Samuel Beckett metteur en scène ou répeter « La dernière
bande » avec l’auteur, «
Revue d’Esthétique », fascicle 2-3, October 1976, pp.224-248;
KNOWLSON JAMES (edited by), Samuel Beckett: « Krapp’s Last Tape »,
London, Brutus Books Limited, 1980; McMILLAN DOUGALD and
FEHSENFELD MARTHA, Krapp’s Last Tape, in Beckett in the
Theatre, London, John Calder, 1988, pp. 241-311; For a complete Beckett’s
bibliography and specially the pièce, see: BORRIELLO ANTONIO, Samuel Beckett,
« Krapp’s Last Tape »: dalla Pagina alla Messinscena, Napoli, Edizioni
Scientifiche Italiane, 1992, the essay is enriched by scene pictures,
scenographyc scale models, costumes , interviews e curiosities.
2.
RUTELLI ROMANA, Strutture temporali e rapporto enunciato/enunciazione nella
logica drammatica, in Dialoghi con il testo, Napoli, Liguori, 1985,
pp. 112-113 (translated from Italian).
3. GIORGIONE
(Giorgio Zorzi, Castelfranco Veneto, 1477?; Venezia 1510); The Three
Ages or The Three Philosophers (cm
121 x 141) at the Kunsthistorisches
Vienna Museum.
4.
Strutture temporali e rapporto enunciato/enunciazione nella logica
drammatica, in Dialoghi con il testo, p. 113.
5. Ibid., pp. 113-114.
6. BECKETT SAMUEL, The Expelled, in The Complete Short Prose,
1929-1989, Edited and with an
Introduction and Notes by S. E. Gontarski, New York, Grove Press, 1995,
p. 46.
7. SHAKESPEARE WILLIAM, Macbeth, in The
Complete Works of Shakespeare (edited by George Lyman Kittredge), London,
Ginn and Company, 1936, pp. 1116-1117.
8. BECKETT SAMUEL, Endgame, in The
Complete Dramatic Works, London, Faber and Faber, 1986, p. 93.
9. BECKETT SAMUEL, How It Is, London,
John Calder, 1964, p. 123. A text
shared into 3 parts and full of numbers: units, tens, hundreds, thousands,
millions figures! The title itself repeats the last 3 words of the story!
10. KINK JOHN, The
Modern Numerology – A Practical Guide to the Meaning and Influence of Numbers,
London, Blandford, 1996, p. 67. King, the gives the granted value to number 3,
after studies on the language of
numbers starting from the Kabbalah to the Pythagorean Tetraktys to
the ancient Chinese mathematicians, to the different alphabetic traditions, from
the ancient religions to the Mythology, from numerology and the magic of numbers
to modern mathematics.
11. CHABERT PIERRE, La dernière bande, «
Primer Acto », no. 206, November-December 1984, p. 43 (translated from Spanish).
12. Notes on the text, in Samuel
Beckett: « Krapp’s Last Tape », p. 27.
13. Othello, in The Complete Works of
Shakespeare, p. 1281.
14. ASSOULINE PIERRE, Enquête sur un écrivain secret,
«Lire », April 1986,
p. 28 (translated from French).
15. The Image, in The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989,
p. 166.
16. BECKETT SAMUEL, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable,
London, Calder, 1958, p. 14.
17. How It Is,
p. 33-34.
18. BECKETT SAMUEL, Waiting for
Godot, in The Complete Dramatic Works, pp. 52-53.
19. Endgame,
in The Complete Dramatic
Works, p. 111.
20. BECKETT SAMUEL, Film, New York, Grove
Press, 1967. Film is divided into 3 parts: The street, the stains, the
room. For the fantastic short (featuring
the great Buster Keaton), see: SCHNEIDER ALAN, On Directing « Film », New
York, Grover Press, 1969. Witt regard to Film,
in 1984 Beckett himself suggested that Vittorio Gassman should direct a remake
(GASSMAN VITTORIO, Il mio
Beckett, « L’Espresso », no. 14, 13 April 1986, p. 116, translated from
Italian).
21. All That Fall, in The Complete
Dramatic Works, p. 189. Effi, as Knowlson remind, is « the heroine of
Theodor Fontane’s late nineteenth-century novel, Effi Briest,
a favourite
novel of
Beckett » (Notes
on the Text,
in Samuel
Beckett:
« Krapp’s
Last Tape », p. 28).
22. Notes on the Text, in Samuel
Beckett: « Krapp’s Last Tape », p.
24.
23. COHN RUBY, Samuel Beckett, the Comic
Gamut, New Brunswich, Rutgers University Press, 1962, pp. 45, 322. Cohn
precise that « Murphy, like Echo’s Bones, is divided into 13
parts and M, the thirteenth letter of the English Alphabet, has a prominent role
in the novel ». Tagliaferri, adds « Also the Textes pour rien are 13 »
(TAGLIAFERRI ALDO, Beckett e l’iperdeterminazione letteraria, Milano,
Feltrinelli, 1967, p. 38, translated from
Italian).
24. Enquete sur un écrivain secret,
p. 26.
25.
ALVAREZ AL., Tributes to
Samuel Beckett,
« The Daily
Telegraph »,
27
December 1989.
26. MANZELLA GIANNI, Samuel Beckett una felice solitudine, « Il
Manifesto », 27 december 1989 (translated from Italian).
27. MARCABRU
PIERRE, Play it
again, Sam …, « Le
Figaro », 27
December 1989 (translated from French).
28.
USCATESCU GEORGE, il teatro e le sue ombre ( intorno al teatro occidentale
contemporaneo ), Bari, Editoriale Universitaria,
1968, pp. 22-23. The Preface to the by Ettore Paratore
places without possibility of
comparison on the top of all the contemporary playwrights, Samuel Beckett », p.
7 (translated from Italian).
29.
GRAMIGNA GIULIANO, Beckett all’ombra dell’inesistente, « Corriere
della Sera », 27 December 1989 (translated from Italian).
30. Obviously, this work is not to be considered
exhaustive. More over, it is opened to new analysis and reflections. For example
, might be interesting the numerations from the Beckett’s notebook
as director,
see: Samuel
Beckett’s Production
notebook for
« Das letze
Band» (« Krapp’s Last Tape »)
at the Shiller-Theater Werkstatt, Berlin
in The Theatrical Notebook of
Samuel Beckett « Krapp’s Last
Tape », pp. 38-248.
31. BECKETT SAMUEL, Dante … Bruno. Vico ..
Joyce, in Disjecta. Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment, Edited by Ruby Cohn, London, Calder, 1983, p. 32.
32. With regard to the «
Complicities between Dante and Beckett, Biagio Scognamiglio points explorative
itineraries in the at western culture, all orientated toward the reflection on
man’s problems (for example the relationship Dante – Beckett, seen in the
light of masterly work such as The Mitografy of character, by Salvatore
Battaglia; or of specialistic texts on theatre such as Theorie
des modernen Dramas by Peter
Zondi » (from the report on the
staging of Krapp’s Last
Tape, Assembly hall « Antonio Bava », Grammar School «G. De Bottis »,
Torre Del Greco, 2 June 1982). On Dante – Beckett we examine: STRAUS WALTER A., Dante’s Belacqua and Beckett’s
Tramps, « Comparative Literature », vol. XI, no. 3, June – September,
1959, pp. 250-261; COHN RUBY, A Note on Beckett, Dante, Geulincx,
« Comparative Literature », vol. XII, no. 4, Winter 1960, pp. 93-94;
HAIMAN DAVID, Quest for Meaninglessness: Six Contemporary Novels: Six
Introductory Essay in Modern Fiction, Austin, University of Texas, 1962, pp.
90-112; included essay also in FRIEDMAN MELVIN J. (edited by), Samuel Beckett
Now, Chicago, The University of Chicago, 1970, pp. 129-156; FLETCHER JOHN, Beckett’s
Debt to Dante, « Not- tingham French Studies », vol. IV, no. 1, May 1965, pp. 41-52 (reprinted in FLETCHER
JOHN, Samuel Beckett’s Art, London, Chatto and Windus, 1967, p.
106-121); HARVEY LAWRENCE, Samuel Beckett Poet and Critic, Princeton
University Press, 1970, GILLIGAN P. Beckett and Dante, Dublin, University
College, 1983, pp. 18-20; FRASCA GABRIELE, Dante in Beckett, in Cascando,
Napoli, Liguori, 1988, pp. 11-39; BRUZZO FRANÇOIS, ...
Et
Dante et le verbe et toutes les sphères et tous les mystères, in Samuel Beckett, Paris, Henri Veyrier, 1991, pp. 75-77.
33.
Beckett e l’iperdeterminazione letteraria,
pp. 46-47 (translated from
Italian).
34.
Il mio Beckett, p. 116. I
would like to remember that Gassman, Peter O’ Toole, Joseph Chaikin and
Jean Louis Barrault are the only movie stars that have interpreted Beckett. I
underline strongly this point because none of the various, Peter Stein, Orson
Welles, Alec Guinnes, Carmelo Bene or Lawrence Oliver have ever tested
themselves out with his works. The dramatist himself preferred, for his staging,
actors less famous: the example of Cluchey is valid for all. Even if in
Hollywood ... «There was the time when Steve McQueen contacted Rosset, saying
he would pay Beckett anything he wanted for the movie rights to Waiting for
Godot. After consultation, Rosset decided to ask for half a million dollars,
if Beckett agreed. When Rosset brought up the matter, Beckett asked: ‘Who’s
Steve McQueen? What does he look like? Rosset described him. Before Beckett made
up his mind, word came that Marlon Brando was interested as well. Think of it:
McQueen and Brando playing Beckett’s tramps. There may have been odder casting
choices in recent memory, but not many. Again Beckett asked: ‘What does Marlon
Brando look like?’ And once again, Rosset tried to describe the actor. After a
while, Beckett decided that these Hollywood stars cold not portray his
characters, no matter how much they paid him. By way of explanation, he remarked:
‘My characters are only shadows’. » (BERGREEN LAURENCE, Beckett’s Last
Act,, « Esquire », vol. 113, no. 5, May 1990, pp. 87-98).
35. From my interview with
Leo De
Berardinis on
Samuel Beckett, Napoli,
March 1988.
36. McGURG TOM, Exactness, « The Irish
Independent », 25-27 December 1989. The above quoted article deserves reproach
because it mistook the scene of Endgame with Krapp’s Last Tape:
« The stepladder in Krapp’s Last Tape had to have eight rungs, the
actor had to stand on the fourth rung to gaze out of the window and he even
counted out their steps around the stage like some demonic surveyor » [sic].
37. BECKETT SAMUEL, Company, London, John
Calder, 1996, p. 54. The text is full of geometric and arithmetical operations.
38. Ibid., p. 55.
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