Beckett's Alarm

Thomas Mansell

Origin: Static Issue 06
Content: Text

Alarms occupy an ambiguous place between sound, sign, and symbol – an ambiguity which is instrumental to Beckett’s questioning of language, music, and more fundamental sense-impressions. An alarm-clock is central to Endgame (1957), prompting some of its most perplexing exchanges. The metaphor also permeates Adorno’s influential interpretation: his verdict that ‘understanding it can only mean understanding its unintelligibility’ can apply equally well to Endgame and to the alarm. In Happy Days (1961) there is no alarm-clock, but instead a bell that rings ‘piercingly’ for several seconds, regulating Winnie’s life. The paradoxes and ironies accumulate again, showing that language can be undermined not just by silence, but also by its constituent, sound.

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Contributor:

Thomas Mansell’s Ph.D. thesis at the London Consortium considers Samuel Beckett’s ambivalent relationship with music, particularly as experienced through the piano. He has published articles in Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, Performance Research, and in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (Rodopi, 2007). and has also reviewed for the Beckett Circle, the Yearbook of English Studies, and Textual Practice. Thomas has spoken at several conferences and also gave a talk for Birkbeck’s School of Continuing Education’s ‘Beckett Day’ (17 March 2007). He is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Birkbeck, and was one of the organisers of the conference ‘Beckett and Company’ (Tate Modern and Goldsmiths, London, October 2006), part of the Beckett centenary celebrations.