Krapp’s last Tape by Samuel Beckett

By: M. S. Zarei

Krapp’s Last Tape stages in part the incessant plays of human foibles and regret. Upon sketching an intimate portrait of the individual alone, Beckett seems to offer a worldview of an empty, cyclic nature of human life overshadowed by almost infinite regressions into a painful past. The 69-year old Krapp is almost at a trial to assess his younger self (the 39-year old Krapp) through his taped memories on the “awful occasion” of his birthday, yet he realizes that how strange his former self appears to battle with his current self, hence “brief laugh in which Krapp joins” that emerges as a result of a realization of his own futile and ambitious desires in his younger self.

The blankness of Krapp’s cyclic life, as representative of human life in general, is marked by his empty and futile documented past whose paling fire is still burning deep down inside him, yet inadequate to prod him yearning back for them.
'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 them back.'– Krapp's Last Tape
Krapp’s reflection on his past self, fraught with his double sense of mockery and regret, appears to draw on significance as merely “separating [of] the grain from the husk.” The aging Krapp is assessing his accomplishment, if any, as any human being might do in that very age, however it seems to be to no avail for Beckett’s worldview affirms the undeniable futility of human life.
The techniques and methods Beckett uses to achieve and create this worldview are notable. The language of the play with its precise functionality hardly seems to convey any meaning. Thus the plot seemingly emerges as being devoid of meaning and meaning if there is such a thing may reside in stage directions. Moreover, the brevity of Beckett language is aptly highlighted here which in large scale marks the division of the whole play into a one-act play as to stage the shortness and emptiness of Krapp’s life whose pathetic ending is paralleled with recoding his last tape. Repetition also plays an important role as another method to achieve that worldview. Krapp’s life is plagued with jaded repetition as is the dead language of the play in its limited functionality. After all, Beckett seems to aim at representing Krapp’s blank life as a support for his absurd view about human life in general, and in so doing he uses different techniques and method to achieve that goal.