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Samuel Beckett‘s, Act Without Words ( henceforth, AWWI), is one of the few slighted works in the Beckett canon. Often ignored, the play generally did not fare well even with those critics who do treat it. Ruby Cohn(1962:247 ) dismisses the work as ‗almost too explicit,‘ and Ihab Hassan(1967:192 ) notes that the play seems ‗a little too obvious and pat.‘ John Fletcher and John Spurling (1972:118 ) concur: compared to Godot, ‗Act Without Words I is . . . over-explicit, over-emphasized and even, unless redeemed by its performer, so unparticularized as to verge on the banal. Then, AWWI s directness (signs , e.g. cubes, rope, scissors , carafe, man, hands, sun , desert, dazzling light, whistle etc. ) is almost a source of embarrassment for critics and has prompted some forced interpretation. Martin Esslin( 1964:38 ) argues that the protagonist is ‗drawn to the pursuit of illusory objectives . . .. Ruby Cohn ( 1962:247) echoes the view, suggesting that the ‗sustenance and tools are man’s own invention, and his frustration the result of the impossibility of ever being able to reach what may be a mirage. But the objects certainly seem substantial. The protagonist stands on the cubes and engages in a tug-of-war with a force outside himself, presumably the same force which threw him on stage . The scissors and rope may be man‘s own inventions, but they are nonetheless real; if they were not, the exterior force would have little reason to confiscate them. Journal.

Hearing , Seeing and Acting , Semiotic Perspective , Samuel Becketts Acts

2012

آداب البصره

آداب البصره