Identity in Beckett’s Rockaby

Identity in Beckett’s Rockaby

In his play “Rockaby” as well as in many other works, Samuel Beckett calls into question our identities as human beings and how we interact with the world around us. The structure of the play itself and the powerful minimalist images on stage immediately force the audience to enter Beckett’s world. The only character, an older woman identified only as “w,” hardly speaks throughout the performance; most of the speaking is just a recording of the woman’s voice that plays while she rocks back and forth in a rocking chair. The recorded voice, which is referred to as “v,” tells the story of her search for bonds with other human beings, her retreat into isolation, and her death. The voice could represent her consciousness and internal thoughts or possibly her memory. The separation between the woman and her internal voice create the framework for the issues addressed in “Rockaby” – self-identity and self-control in communication with outsiders, consciousness, and death.

Throughout the first half of the play, the voice recounts the woman’s search for “another creature like herself.” The main image at first is her eyes, which are constantly looking frantically “to and fro” on “all sides” for someone like herself, for another living person to be with. The woman feels the uncontrollable desire to connect with other human beings in the mental and emotional sense, but the only way to interact with others is through physical activities, primarily through spoken language. However, language is only an imperfect approximation of thought and emotion, which is a problem that Beckett finds particularly troubling. After the second long pause (the first occurring in the very beginning), “v” begins speaking ...

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... into herself and eventually dies alone. However, Beckett’s clever structural choices and verbal nuances create a complex world where trying questions often cannot be answered. These choices expand the vision of the play beyond the actual space, a stage bare of all but a woman in an old rocker, to raise abstract issues about humanity that have staggering implications for all people. With only one character and about fifteen minutes, Beckett succeeds in moving the play from the small world of the nameless, identity-less “w” to the living rooms of every individual.

Works Cited

“Light, Sound, Movement, and Action in Beckett’s Rockaby.” Brater, Enoch. Modern Drama, 1982 September; 25 (3): 342-348.

“Perceiving Rockaby – As a Text, as a Text by Samuel Beckett, as a Text forPerformance.” Lyons, Charles R. Comparative Drama, 1982-1983 Winter; 16 (4): 297-311.