Krapp's Last Tape

The style of this play is actually one that I have never encountered before. It was a realistic person with a somewhat realistic set, but in no reality that I have ever seen. It says in the introduction to the play that absurdists, such as Beckett, “felt that the ridiculous- or absurd - nature of existence should be reflected in the dramatic elements of their plays”. I suppose that by having Krapp, the main and only character sit in a desolate spot listening to himself on a tape from thirty years ago and muse over his past is supposed to reflect the absurdity that he thinks his life has been. The style that worked for me personally because the ridiculousness that Krapp regarded his life to have full of was not only apparent in the diction that Krapp spoke, but also in the

though by normal standards, his younger self was pretty much just as cynical as his sixty-nine year old self. I thought that it was interesting how he continued the same self- destructive behavior that he had when he was younger i.e., eating bananas and drinking and whether he thinks that if he had drank less his life would have been different. Maybe this is optimistic of me, but I didn’t believe Krapp when he said that he wouldn’t want the years back to do it over again and that he wouldn’t want a chance at happiness again. Thinking of the play ending on that note, I take from it that one should embrace one’s life in a way that thirty years from now we will not be looking back and regretting and cringing at the things we did.

The theme of the play was made more apparent by reading the introduction about Beckett and his style of writing though it is not all that difficult to understand while reading the play. Krapp is looking at his past life remarking on the things he regretted and the things that he perhaps should have done differently, but barely lets himself finish a thought about the past before he thinks or gestures that it is hopeless now to do anything about it, and that he should accept the effects that his actions have caused. The theme as I see would be that Krapp is illustrating that yo

Some topics in this essay:
Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Tape, krapp’s tape, samuel beckett, style play, thirty ago, stage directions,