#Fundamental in the way I analyse these texts is the separation of devices of plot and devices of allegory

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

The concept of Jesus in the Silmarillion

Tolkien did not intentionally lace his work with any allegory, but as a catholic mind relevant themes undeniably underpin his work.

It can be argued that the feanorians stand the place of a conceptual Jesus (being god incarnate, sent to die for our sins).

Míriel’s prolonged gestation may be viewed as the working of Eru, thus Fëanáro’s birth likened to the birth of Jesus.

Of more relevance is Jesus’ self-sacrifice and the antagonisation of the feanorians. Fëanáro is responsible for the return of the Noldor to middle earth (the fullfilling of Eru’s plan). The crucial progression of the first and second ages, and many of the greatest acts therein, are direct or indirect reactions to Fëanáro’s choices.

The entirety of the tragedy of the first age can be likewise blamed on Fëanáro, and it is this that echoes Jesus’ dying for our sins. The Noldor* are given a clean slate because of the feanorians’ actions.

Attention may also be drawn to the isolation of Fëanáro’s house. He is fundamentally cloven from the house of Finwë with Míriel’s death— as close to permanence as the Eldar may come— and Finwë’s second marriage. His people are all killed during the first age (given Maitimo released his people from service after Sirion**, some may have later pledged allegiance to other lords. But thence they would not be counted Feanorian). Thus the physical effect of Fëanáro’s line all but disappears, as with Jesus.

*‘the dispossessed shall ye be’: after the time of Maitimo’s abdication, the feanorians can be viewed as apart from the Noldor. In later years to say ‘Noldor’ and even ‘house of Finwë’ is to refer only to those of Finwë’s second marriage.

**This is purely speculation. It is mentioned many of their people turned against the sons of Fëanáro at this time, thus it seems unlikely that they had any trust for obligation and released their people. Those who remained would be loyalists.

P.S. of Tyelperinquar: he is the sole noted descendant of Fëanáro’s house. His existence can be argued rather as a plot device than a true allegorical existence, necessary as a smith of sufficient skill to craft elven rings without Annatar’s help, allowing the action of the third age. He can thus be counted as belonging more to the latter histories than the former.

[93000kmiles]

Absurdity and Humanity in the Narrative of Mansfield’s Miss Brill and Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape

Why does one often bite their nails? Habits? Why does one should go to college and graduate with flying colours? Obligation? Why does one clean up to just get it messed up later? Why should one print their schedule while they can access it from their smartphones and stay paperless? Tradition? Some things that we do in life are just done because it’s been done, some of them just can’t be explained why it was done. In this paper, I would like to analyse the absurdity in the short story titled Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield and a play titled Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett. However, before I point out the absurd characteristics in each works, I would like to elaborate the definition of absurd or absurdity itself.

As explained from the Survey of Contemporary Literature in English in-class discussion on The Absurdity of Humanity, absurdity was first brought up by French philosophers named Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre in the 1940s as a result to their inability to rationally explain of human life in general. The term described what they understood as the “fundamentally meaningless situation of humans in a confusing hostile and indifferent world.”

I see absurdity as something that can hardly be understood by rational minds. I think it doesn’t follow either human’s logic or reasonable thinking. Martin Esslin related the word ‘absurd’ in a musical context which he said was originally meant ‘out of harmony’. He also concluded that its dictionary definition is ‘out of harmony with reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical’.(23). Esslin also mentioned that the Theatre of the Absurd aimed to convey its “sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought.” (24) This could mean that the absurdity in a literary text does not necessarily understandable for absurdity itself is there to project “a sense of senselessness”. This “sense of senselessness” could probably eventually turn into a habit or something we usually do. Other than that, Esslin also adds that  “The Theatre of the Absurd, however, can be seen as the reflection of what seems to be the attitude most genuinely representative of our own time.” (22-23)

Before I analyse the existence of absurdity in both literary texts, I would like to point out the general differences of how absurdity was felt in the narration. In my opinion, Mansfield’s Miss Brill brought up the absurd context through a kind of “normalcy”. Even though it can also be seen through her Sunday routines, the absurd happenings mostly occurs in Miss Brill’s mind and was mostly mirrored through her viewpoint on her Sunday activity. Meanwhile in Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, the presence of absurdity was very apparent.

In Miss Brill, absurdity appeared through her not-so-peculiar routine. In the story, Miss Brill goes to the park every Sunday, wearing the same set of attire (which style’s strange and kind of outdated during that time) and sitting on the very same spot.

“Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. “What has been happening to me?” said the sad little eyes.”

The fact that there was a certain kind of “excitement” in just wearing the very same clothes for the very same day and the very same place could not be explained logically or could probably simply meant to emerge the sense of “senselessness”. Esslin in his book titled “The Theatre of Absurd” also mentioned that

“The hallmark of this attitude is its sense that the certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been tested and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions.” (23)

A “childish illusions” might be going in the same way with how Miss Brill thought her attire was good and how she was pleasant when she wears it. The fact that she has been saying solely to herself that she’s proud of the mantle she has been wearing could be, as Esslin said, one of Miss Brill’s “childish illusions”, which she only realized that what she has been wearing all Sundays she sat and enjoyed herself on that bench in the park, was hideous and out of date for she overheard the teenage girl who was beside her said so. Other than her pleasure towards the strange clothing she’s really proud of, the absurdity was also perceived through Miss Brill’s non-mainstream perception on the way she sees the people in the park and the fact that the trivial details matter to her.

Meanwhile, Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, as said by SueEllen Campbell on her essay titled “Krapp’s Last Tape and Critical Theory”, can also be seen as “the basic formal ambiguity.” (187) She mentioned that

“it is at once a text to be read and reread and a guide for live performance. While to a theater-goer this duality might not seem important, a reader of this text constantly realizes the contrasts between performance and text and their interdependence.” (Campbell 187)

In my opinion, Krapp’s Last Tape portrays almost all sorts of oddity. From the first Krapp’s action in Krapp’s Last Tape are repetitive. From the beginning of the story it projects the physical appearance of Krapp’s. It vividly describes how he dress and his characteristics

“Rusty black narrow trousers too short for him. Rust black sleevless waistcoat, four capaciou pockets. Heavy silver watch and chain. Grimy white shirt open at neck, no collar. Surprising pair of dirty white boots, size ten at least, very narrow and pointed.

White face. Purple nose. Disordered grey hair. Unshaven.

very near-sighted (but unspectacled). Hard of hearing.

Cracked voice. Distinctive intonation.

Laborious walk.

On the table a tape-recorder with microphone and a number of cardboard boxes containing reels of recorded tapes.

table and immediately adjacent area in strong white light. Rest of stage in darkness.” (Retrieved from https://msu.edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp.html)

From the quotation above, it can pretty much be projected that Krapp was first described as a man with a very strange way of clothing. He wore some old trousers that’s too short for him, heavy silver and chain, grimmy white colarless shirt armed with a pair of narrow and pointed dirty boots. His white countenance rounded with his purple nose and his unruly grey hair. I think that the attempt of ‘displaying’ a strange appearance of the main character could be a way to set up the “senselessness” of the play. After the projection of the peculiar clothing, we are still blurred by Krapp’s nonsense repetitive movements. He kept bending over the ledger then turn the pages and raises his head and stare at the front and then smiling happily and then he bent over table and started peering and poking boxes, laid it on the table, peered at spools inside, peered at the ledger, peered at the spool, and peered it again. And repeat everything all over again. In between the repetitive acts, there were quite a few jumble of words.

“Ah! Box . . . thrree . . . spool . . . five. Spool! Spooool! Box . . . thrree . . . three . . . four . . . two . . . nine! good God! . . . seven . . . ah! the little rascal! Box thrree. Spool . . . . . . five . . .  . . . five . . . five . . . ah! the little scoundrel! Spool five. Box three, spool five. Spooool! Ah! Mother at rest at last . . . Hm . . . The black ball . . . Black ball? . . . The dark nurse . . . Slight improvement in bowel condition . . . Hm . . . Memorable . . . what? Equinox, memorable equinox. Memorable equinox? . . . Farewell to--(he turns the page)--love.” (Retrieved from https://msu.edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp.html)

The long, detailed telltale of repetitive absurd acts above still remain there blurring on what was going on the story. The ramblings, short, exclamation words didn’t help clearing on the whole thing going on in the beginning. Esslin also mentioned that The Theatre of the Absurd “tends toward a radical devaluation of language” such as poetry which was there to emerge from the non-abstract and “objectified images of the stage itself” and the component of language still “plays as an important part in this conception.”(26). He also emphasized tha the stage “transcends, and this conception, the words spoken by the characters. (Esslin 26). From both Krapp’s words and Esslin’s take on language as an element of The Theatre of the Absurd, I presume that even though the “jumble of words” above may seem nonsense and somehow “meaningless”, they could be shown or purposed as a certain emphasis on how or to which direction the core of the plot in the play will develop, regardless of the fact that readers might still be clueless to whatever was going on in the story. On the other hand, SueEllen Campbell mentioned that this jumble of words was there for “aesthetic effect.” She said that the main character Krapp has “manipulated his language for aesthetic effect” for she finds that Krapp “apparently has a habit of playing with words which is indistinguishable from the playing on the tapes.” (Campbell 191)

After a series of vivid depiction of Krapp’s ludicrous appearance yet blurry situation, Beckett enlighten the whole situation through Krapp’s tapes. The first tape started to elaborate things quite clearly. The tape said,

“Thirty-nine today, sound as a bell, apart from my old weakness, and intellectually I have niw every reason to suspect at the . . . (hesitates) . . . crest of the wave--or thereabouts. Celebrated the awful occasion, as in recent years, quietly at the winehouse. Not a soul. Sat before the fire with closed eyes, separation the grain from the husks. jotted down a few notes, on the back on an envelope. Good to be back in my den in my old rags.” (Retrieved from https://msu.edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp.html)

The quotation above provides full sentences which generates a quite clear and imaginable imagery to have an idea or two on what was going on. However, despite the fact that the existence of the tape have quite enlighten the play, SueEllen Campbell in her essay titled “Krapp’s Last Tape and Critical Theory” mentioned that in order to fully understand or “make any sense of the play” we are required an “active visual imaginations” for he said that the awareness of the readers “constitutes the text’s meaning.” (187). Therefore, it can be said that the tape in Krapp’s Last Tape plays an important role for it literally provides clear verbal and visual imagery. Campbell also said that the tape can be considered as autobiographical. He said that “the autobiographical nature of the tapes does more than reveal the qualities of the play’s language; it also determines its structure.” (Campbell 191)

From a series of explanation above, it can be concluded that both Mansfield’s Miss Brill and Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape provides absurd contexts. However both displays absurdity in their respective way. Mansfield’s short story applies absurdity through “the senselessness” of Miss Brill’s Sunday routines in the park, sitting still at the same spot every week, randomly observing people around her with her precious yet strange fur. Meanwhile the absurd play by Samuel Beckett the absurdist was started off from a minute graphic depiction of Krapp’s strange appearance, which in my opinion sets up the absurd contexts even more. The strange mumblings and a jumble of unfinished sentences after the elaboration on his looks confuses things even more. Although Campbell would say that such jumble of words were considered as an effort of “aesthetic effect.”

References

Beckett, Samuel. Krapp’s Last Tape. Retrieved from https://msu.edu/~sullivan/BeckettKrapp.html in June 1st 2017.

Campbell, SueEllen. “‘Krapp's Last Tape’ and Critical Theory.” Comparative Drama, vol. 12, no. 3, 1978, pp. 187–199. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41152785. Retrieved in June 8th 2017.

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Middlesex: Penguin, 1968. Retrieved from https://ia801603.us.archive.org/10/items/TheTheatreOfTheAbsurd/The_Theatre_of_the_Absurd.pdf  in June 1st 2017.

In-class discussion of Survey of Contemporary Literature of English on Absurdity of Humanity.

Mansfield, Katherine. Miss Brill. Retrieved from http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/assets/KM-Stories/MISS-BRILL1920.pdf  in June 1st 2017.