Authority and Issues Thereof

The Theory Toolbox: Critical Concepts for the Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences. Jeffrey Nealon & Susan Searls-Giroux. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003.

“Once the author’s privilege has been debunked, meaning is then no longer found but rather produced. The question we ask of the text is no longer “what did the author really mean?” but rather “how does this text produced meanings?”… Meaning is always more slippery and multiple than any given author’s intention… It is precisely the “multiplicity of meanings” that, according to Foucault, institutions saw as dangerous and sought to reduce. Conflating “meaning” narrowly with the author was but one mechanism to challenge the proliferation of meanings. We should note further that with the death of the author came the death of the literary critic, who alone could unlock the mysteries of the authorial intention. The opening up of multiple meanings challenged both the sovereignty of the author as well as that of the professional “expert” – another mechanism for managing the proliferation of discourse, for authorizing who can speak to what issues.” (p. 18-19) [bold inserted by me]

About taking critical theory class… I do not totally regret attending it (nor do I regret my marks). But with it, came many struggles with the ideas discussed and proliferated within the class. The professor, Dr. Susan Searles-Giroux herself, taught from her book, as we explored issues of authority, gender, identity and other important themes within basic critical theory for English literature. Some things seemed rather logical to me – for example, deconstructing Disney can never be a bad thing. In fact, questioning ideas promoted in any popular cultural media and texts is the essence of engagement and critical thinking. However, while I admit that the writer and the reader are both human and are therefore fallible, when applying these kinds of theories to the Word of God… The result is disturbing…

I wonder what other effect this can have that can be called good. Before discussing the negativity of theological deconstructionist readings, however, I do wish to look at a couple positive aspects. Within the church (universal) and the church culture, there have been various cultural things promoted that are not necessarily biblical and therefore are questionable and may be put under the lens of deconstruction. For example, the fact that before the 90s, Jesus felt figures in Sunday Schools had light brown (if not blonde) hair, white skin and blue eyes. Things such as cultural myths which arise out of specific necessity or because of people’s desire to control/find stability. Grey areas such as these (if I may call them such) – to drink or not to drink, to smoke or not to smoke, to have white Jesus or not to have white Jesus… while not affecting salvation per se, still can affect church community and outreach strategies. Deconstruction of cultural media such as Max Lucado or Janette Oke, therefore, is arguably allowable. And even cultural constructions such as “WWJD”, “PUSH” and “FROG” are up for critique, parody and questioning.

However, what is disconcerting is the way Foucault and Derrida tend to show up in theological circles. And as much as I admire critical thinking, the effect of deconstruction on interpretation and one’s views about Scriptures is disturbing. Admittedly, men did physically write the Scriptures, and also the “robot” take on Scriptural inspiration seems illogical or odd. Still, if Scriptures becomes questionable because of men and their fallibility (deconstructed or not), one begins to wonder about the power of the message, the Messenger or the faith as a whole. Take away the infallibility of Scripture and the sovereignty of God – and what do we have that is so different from other faiths? Other than the fact that it “works”? Foucault and Derrida, therefore, should be approached carefully then, as a believer – especially in regards to the Word of God. The Bible, as we call it, or the Word of God, after all, is not merely another text to be analyzed and reduced to a set of cultural-specific implications or suggestions. I find that alot of deconstructionist literature concerning theology and the Bible are linked to progressive, radical thinking. For example, acceptance of homosexual relationships or Third-wave feminism. As G.K. Chesterton once said, the first thing a vacuum salesman does to get you to buy his product is to denigrate the old version. To justify one’s desires or impulses, for certain believers, it is much easier to ease the conscience with theories which undercut the authority of the Scriptures.

There is this sense in deconstructionism too – that neither the reader nor the writer has authority. Multiplicity of meaning becomes available then, with that kind of textual approach. However, as I consider this matter deeper, it seems to me like a man who is sawing off the very branch of the tree that he is standing on. Although many find issues with blind faith – does not this kind of thinking seem rather illogical? Perhaps it is just me… At any rate, as I sat in critical theory, growing more cynical by the minute listening to the professor, I began to wonder why I was there listening to her at all. If truly authority is called into question – why am I paying around 400 dollars to listen to someone who doesn’t have the authority to tell me what is right and wrong academically, theologically, socially or anything else? It is indeed a kind of suicide of the brain then – or perhaps just another new piece of propaganda – and somewhere out there, someone is benefiting from this?

Setting aside academia, the theological issues abound then. As deconstructionists, can we as Christians deconstruct deconstructionists? Should we propogate “multiple meanings” or allow the One who has created all meaning to authorize His final answers to life? At this point, I think that perhaps we should reread what I just called the Scriptures: the “WORD” of “GOD”. As such, Christians who are looking to the deconstructionist theories for freedom should be aware – for when they question the Word of God, they aren’t questioning Paul or any other writer of the Scriptures per se, but rather, God Himself.

Krapp’s Last Tape: The Role of Memory [essay]

In Beckett’s stage directions for Krapp’s Last Tape, it is imperative to realize the importance of Krapp’s eyesight. Krapp is described as ‘Very near-sighted (but unspectacled)’, which, considering the play as a quest for the unknowable, gives the man a symbolic handicap with implications similar to that of the Greek seer Tiresias (Beckett 2771). Krapp’s Last Tape recounts the intellectual journey of an old man who is consciously or subconsciously submerging the Vision of his life, thereby encouraging his present state of mental and emotional inability. His subconcious efforts to forget – focusing on women, leaving sentences unfinished, loss of knowledge and spending time thinking on, what would be considered inconsequential details – proivde a foundation for his more conscious efforts. These conscious efforts include the manipulation of his tapes, his repressive self-exhortations, as well as the impact of silence and mutism within the dialogue.

Considering then, his attempts to forget when at the same time he actively pursues rememberance, we can see how Krapp uses various techniques to repress the impact (and the memory) of the Vision. As Sue Wilson in her article, “Versions of the Vision in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape“, states, ‘We are provided with gestures toward metaphysical revelation but denied access to any positive or determinate content’ (79). After arguing that the relationship between Krapp’s vision and Beckett’s own personal revelation is superficial (76-77), Wilson suggests that time has a negative effect on memory (and thus, on the Vision), and that Krapp’s disillusionment can be seen in his angry response to his own life-changing experience (78). Although Wilson couples Beckett’s idea of absent revelation with Kant’s views on the impossibility of determination, she does not provide varied textual proof of Beckett’s conscious and subconscious denial (79). On the other hand, Arthur K. Oberg’s article “Krapp’s Last Tape and the Proustian Vision” considers the subconscious and conscious ways Krapp represses his memories, while drawing on similarities between Proust and Beckett in relation to ‘Memory, Habit and Time’ (151). Oberg, focusing on Krapp’s ability to manipulate his memories (the tapes), discusses the importance of ‘voluntary and involuntary’ memory, the changing and changeless self, desire adn teh freedom found only in ‘ossified’ rememberances (152-153). Finally, Oberg notes that Krapp’s enlightened moments were the time he possessed what he desired – but that desire is complicated by age, time, shifting meanings, ‘gaps’ and the inability to contextualize ideas (157). However, although Oberg places importance on the role of memory and desire, voluntary or otherwise, the significance of the Vision is not closely considered as a valuable part of the character development. Also, considering the present state of Krapp – a single old man with an addiction to bananas and alcohol – I feel that any freedom he experiences is illusionary only, created by memories of desire, which leave Krapp even more incapable of change.

Looking more closely at Krapp, we can see how he consciously tries to forget when at the same time he is remembering. Firstly, Krapp manipulates his memories physically by switching the tape on and off. Six times within the text, Krapp manipulates the spool and one time, he fast forwards through it. The first two times, Krapp turns it off after considering two women who seemed to have made an impact on his life (Beckett 2773-74); the third time, he fast forwards over the Vision.
          “[Krapp curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again]
           -unshatterable association until my dissolution of storm and night with
           the light of the understanding and the fire -[Krapp curses louder,
            switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again]…” (2775)
However, the most noteworthy operation is his fixation on the punting episode, in which we hear the most important recollection, ‘But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side’, three times (2775-76). Considering the ‘mechanization of memory’, Oberg suggests that ‘by making involuntary memory voluntary – commits Krapp to the destruction of moments that refuse reduction to human control’ (152). However, I feel that not only does Krapp decrease the power of his memories by repetitively listening to them; but he too reduces his ability to change the path of his life. Krapp also makes vocal exhortations to himself, in order to suppress himself. For example, he says, ‘Last fancies. [Vehemently.] Keep’em under!’ (2776). Entwined with the Vision seems to be the possibility of healing as engendered by singing; however, Krapp rejects that when he states, ‘Shall I sing when I am her age? No. Did I ever sing? No.’ (2776). Lastly, Krapp’s conscious efforts to subdue the Vision can be seen in the importance of mutism within the play. Pauses and silences seem to fill up a huge space within the play, giving it a longer running time (as a production) then the text at first glance shows. At the end, as Krapp listens for the third and last time to the punt episode, Beckett’s directions state, ‘[Pause. Krapp's lips move. No sound]‘ (2776), which places further ambiguity on meaning by obscuring what even the character has to say. In conclusion, Beckett’s entire play fails to give us any concrete Vision or even meaning, but rather, considering Wilson’s theory that ‘the metaphysical object’, the content of Krapp’s vision, must be located only in ‘thought’ and his ‘own concepts’, the reader is left with only memories to interpret Krapp and his experiences (79).

While Krapp is using mechanical and self-conscious ways to forget what he has remembered, he is also participating in a subcionscious act when he fails to focus on the right things and remembers only what had been deemed as insignificant. Firstly, Krapp dwells on various women within his monologues, some are mentioned in passing, like the ‘girl in a shabby green coat, on a railway-station platform’ or the ‘dark youn beauty’ with ethe chyrsolite eyes (Beckett 2773-74). Eyes play a large part within Krapp’s Last Tape, especially in reference towomen; it seems to be a case of knowing, not knowing and the inability to understand. To illustrate, the most important memory for him in his later years seems to be the lady in the punt:
         ‘I asked her to look at me and after a few moments – [Pause.] -
         After a few moments she did, but the eyes were just slits, because
         of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened.
         [Pause. Low.] Let me in.’ (2775)
While linking the eyes to a state of knowledge, it is important to note that at the end, any resolution found through the song ‘Now the Day is Over’, is subverted by the continuation of his memories of the punting episode which further induce a state of mental passivit (2776). Women, then, not only symbolize desire and fulfillment, but also create the stasis that krapp is caught in. Secondly, Krapp complicates the issue further through his inability to complete his train of thought. This can be seen when he first starts to sing and ends up in a fit of coughing (2773-74). Another example is toward the end when he finishes singing, Krapp remembers a time when he fell asleep in church, and then considers, ‘Sometimes wondered in the night if a last effort mightn’t -’ although one wonders what the ‘effort’ was and what it could have done (2776). These gaps in sentences create an ambiguity as to what is being actually remembered or said. As Ober suggested, ‘memorable moments slip’, while ‘words lose their meaning’ (156). Another example of Krapp’s more subconscious subversion is the loss of knowledge in the play. As he is reading his ledger, he has a hard time remembering anything in the book.
         ‘Memorable… what? [He peers closer.] Equinox, memorable equinox.
         [He raises his head, stares blankly front. Puzzled.] Memorable equinox?
         … [Pause. He shrugs his shoulder, peers again at ledger, reads.]‘ (Beckett 2772)
Later on, he forgets what viduity means and has to look it up in a dictionary (2774). The breakdown of language and memory, therefore, could, as Wilson suggests, symbolize the fact that ‘Krapp’s vision of the eternal… has decayed with time’ (77). As has been stated previously, memories therefore do not only play as reminders of goals lost, which could bring healing, but these recollections play a two-fold part by also distracting Krapp from making any positive changes in his life. Although the ‘memorable equinox’ is describeda s ‘when suddenly I saw the whole thing’ – a moment of enlightenment – the elder Krapp focuses instead on other moments, such as the dog, the black ball and the death of his mother (Beckett 2774). After listening to the punt episode for the second time, he shuts it off quickly and begins a new set of recollections, in which he talks about items like ‘Fanny’ the ‘bony old ghost of a whore’ and his opus magnum, the ’seventeen copies sold’ (2776). Even though it could be argued that his talking was therapeutic and led to the hope of revival with teh song ‘Now the Day is Over’, sadly, any hopes for revival, are dashed when he reverts to his old memories of lost loves (2776).

In conclusion, Krapp begins the play blind and bound. Blind, because he cannot see in – not only the physical sense – but also in the inability to understand the meaning of relationships and experiences. Bound, because not only is his world confined to the small physical space of his room, but also set in a mental stasis through the proliferation of memories which encourage his current state of passivity. The role of Memory then not only gives glimpses of previous (and potentially future) enlightenment but also aid Krapp to avoid the Vision on conscious and subconscious levels. When the curtain falls, Krapp is the same Krapp as when the curtain rose: motionless and silent (2776).

Bibliography:

Beckett, Samuel. ‘Krapp’s Last Tape.’ The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 2nd Ed. Vol. 2C. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 2003.

Oberg, Arthur K. ‘Krapp’s Last Tape and the Proustian Vision.’ Theatre Workbook 1: Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape. Ed. James Knowlson. London: Brutus Books, 1980.

Wilson, Su. ‘Versions of the Vision in Krapp’s Last Tape.’ English Language Notes. 40, (2003): (76-82).