Asserting and Accompanying the Excluded Self: The Function of the Recorded Voice in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape and Rockaby

Abstract

In Samuel Beckett’s plays Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) and Rockaby (1980), there is one character on stage, alone, accompanied only by the presence of his/her own recorded voice, played back to himself/herself. The recorded voice of each of the characters becomes a way of proving to themselves that they have existed before the present moment, and, at the same time, it becomes a companion, disrupting silence and aloneness. Finally, it is the recorded voice that allows the characters to fully exist while excluded from the company and comfort of others, as they fulfill their own needs through  their own voice.