Krapp's Last Tape

“He treads on skin, slips, nearly falls, recovers himself, stoops and peers at skin and finally pushes it, still stooping, with his foot over the edge of the stage into pit.”

Krapp’s slipping on the banana peel, in its absurdity, introduces the concept of meaninglessness early in the play, before any words are spoken. Although comedic, it ultimately serves to highlight Krapp’s despair and indicates that it is, to some degree, of his own making. Beckett favored the effect of such clownish slapstick in his work, such as in his renowned existentialist drama Waiting for Godot. That Krapp pushes the peel off the stage with his foot, rather than picking it up and throwing it away, symbolizes his denial. The action implies that Krapp does not confront his problems in an honest manner. He confirms this by eating a second banana even though it exacerbates his constipation, and, later, with his dubious assertions that he does not regret the loss of love or youth.

“Spool!”

Krapp’s childish delight in the sound of the word contrasts with the serious image he had of himself and his work as a younger man. His fixation on the sound of the word also reflects a larger transition in his values from a focus on thought to emotion and sensation, or from intellect to love. Later, he recalls his amusement at the word as a happy and high point of the past year.

“Slight improvement in bowel condition…Hm…Memorable…what? [He peers closer.] Equinox, memorable equinox. [He raises his head, stares blankly front. Puzzled.]Memorable equinox?... [Pause. He shrugs his shoulders, peers again at ledger, reads.] Farewell to—[he turns the page]—love.”

Ironically, Krapp does not remember the “memorable equinox” that, as a younger man, he deemed important to remember for the rest of his life. Though he has no recollection of the epiphany, he does recognize the note about the state of his constipation. Krapp’s reaction to the ledger’s notes highlights the contrast between his intellectual achievements, which have turned out to be fleeting, and his humbling body, which has been a constant source of difficulty for him. He has also noted in the ledger that at thirty-nine years old, he forswore love for the sake of his work, which he now regards as a pompous and stupid mistake.

“Thirty-nine today, sound as a bell, apart from my old weakness, and intellectually I have now every reason to suspect at the… [hesitates] …crest of the wave—or thereabouts.”

At thirty-nine, Krapp believes himself to be at his intellectual peak. His over-confidence seems ridiculous to future Krapp, who is dismissive of this so-called crest, later calling the Krapp on the tape a “stupid bastard” (10). In the reference to his longtime constipation (“my old weakness”), we also see the juxtaposition between Krapp’s lofty ambitions and the lowly but inescapable reality of the body.

“The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness round me I feel less alone. [Pause.]In a way. [Pause.] I love to get up and move about in it, the back here to [hesitates]…me. [Pause.] Krapp.”

Here, Krapp shows ambivalence about his quest to reject everything he deems a distraction, including romantic love. Krapp qualifies that he feels less alone “in a way,” because he is actually isolating himself. The light above the table represents his emphasis on the intellect at this point in his life, at the exclusion of everything else, an attitude he regrets in the future. By saying his own name, he heightens the sense of isolation.

“Sat before the fire with closed eyes, separating the grain from the husks.”

On his thirty-ninth birthday, Krapp believes himself to be distinguishing between what will sustain him in life and what is a distraction that he will leave behind. He decides that the grain is his work, while love is a husk that he will discard (he writes “farewell to love” in the ledger to mark that year) (5). In his old age, Krapp will no longer agree with his younger self about these designations. Krapp’s misguided prioritizing calls into question the ability of humans to direct their own lives in a fulfilling manner.

“Have just eaten I regret to say three bananas and only with difficulty refrained from a fourth. Fatal things for a man with my condition.”

The tape reveals that Krapp has had the compulsive habit of eating bananas, which worsen his chronic constipation, for at least thirty years. Krapp’s inability to stop eating bananas represents the tyranny of bodily urges and offers a pessimistic rebuttal to the hope he had as a younger man. It suggests that free will is illusory. His self-destructive, “fatal” banana addiction also points to his death drive.

“I suppose I mean those things worth having when all the dust has—when all my dust has settled.”

The tape produces an ironic effect at this point. As Krapp listens to it in the future, at roughly the age his younger self envisioned when he said this, he finds that he was mistaken about which things were “worth having.” The emphasis on “my” indicates the selfishness and willful isolation that the older Krapp regrets. “Dust” references the Christian burial service: “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and, therefore, death.

“At that time I was still living on and off with Bianca in Kedar Street. Well out of that, Jesus yes! Hopeless business. [Pause.] Not much about her, apart a tribute to her eyes. Very warm. I suddenly saw them again. [Pause.] Incomparable! [Pause.] Ah well...”

Krapp tends to say “ah well” as a way to stifle his feelings of regret. He says he is glad to be done with his chaotic relationship with Bianca, but his fond memory of her eyes indicates ambivalence. Eyes are a motif throughout Krapp’s Last Stand that represent lost love. For Krapp, women’s eyes are a great source of regret.

“Hard to believe I was ever that young whelp. The voice! Jesus! And the aspirations! [Brief laugh in which Krapp joins.]And there solutions! [Brief laugh in which Krapp joins.] To drink less, in particular. [Brief laugh of Krapp alone.]”

Krapp’s laugh alone reveals that, while his thirty-nine-year-old self had become disillusioned to a degree, he would become even more disillusioned as he grew older. The younger Krapp on the tape may have harbored some hope that he would drink less, while the older Krapp has given up entirely and finds the idea laughable. The splintered laughter here points to a fracturing in his identity: part of him wants to drink less, while a competing drive blocks this resolve. There is also sustained irony here: the Krapp on the tape laughs at the voice and ideas of his twenty-something-year-old self, the future Krapp laughs at the voice and ideas on the tape.

“Sneers at what he calls his youth and thanks to God that it's over.

[Pause.] False ring there. [Pause.]”

On the tape, Krapp detects self-delusion in the assertions of his younger self that he is glad to be done with his youth. When later, on the same tape, he says of his younger years that he “wouldn’t want them back” and, as an old man, proclaims, “Thank God that’s all over with anyway,” Krapp is similarly unbelievable (12, 10). He can detect his own denial from the past, but not the present.

“What remains of all that misery? A girl in a shabby green coat, on a railway-station platform? No?”

Here, Krapp questions what he still has, for all the tribulations and tortured self-searching of his twenties. He is alone. The mysterious figure of the girl in the green coat represents lost, true love. The specificity of the image indicates that it is one Krapp dwells on. After hearing this on the tape, the future Krapp goes backstage to drink, an attempt to dull feelings of remorse with alcohol.

“[reading from dictionary] State—or condition—of being—or remaining—a widow—or widower. [Looks up. Puzzled.] Being—or remaining? […][Pause. He peers again at dictionary. Reading.]"Deep weeds of viduity" […] Also of an animal, especially a bird […] the vidua or weaver bird […] Black plumage of male […][He looks up. With relish.] The vidua-bird!”

Krapp becomes distracted by his younger self’s pretentious use of the old-fashioned word “viduity.” Much like his delight in the word “spool,” he is childishly excited by its connection to the “vidua-bird.” Krapp’s reaction shows that he takes himself less seriously in his advanced age. Additionally, he used to know the word, but has now forgotten its meaning, which implies a deterioration of his mind, that part of Krapp’s self that he used to prize above all else. His intellect has turned out to be impermanent. Here, Krapp is also struck by the term “being or remaining,” which reflects the play’s preoccupation with the mutability of identity. Significantly, the word “viduity” is what affects Krapp the most about his account of his mother’s death, an example of the emotional repression that has led him to his lonely, miserable state.

“A small, old, black, hard, solid rubber ball. [Pause.] I shall feel it, in my hand, until my dying day. [Pause.] I might have kept it. [Pause.] But I gave it to the dog. [Pause.] Ah well…”

Here, Krapp recalls finding out about his mother’s death. He has been throwing a ball to a dog, and the ball comes to represent for him the moment of her death. He lets the dog keep the ball but regrets it; as mentioned above, Krapp has a pattern of saying “ah well,” when he wishes not to dwell on his remorse. The ball was significant to him for its connection with his mother’s death. By relinquishing it, he severs another thread of human connection. The black ball represents another element of the “dark,” the realm of emotion, that Krapp has forsaken in his search for efficiency.

“The vision at last. This I fancy is what I have chiefly to record this evening, against the day when my work will be done and perhaps no place left in my memory, warm or cold, for the miracle that…[hesitates]…for the fire that set it alight.”

On the tape, Krapp describes a “vision,” or realization, he has at thirty-nine. This is the most important event that happened to him that year, he believes, and it will sustain him into his old age. That day has come but Krapp does not care about the epiphany. As the younger Krapp predicted, he has forgotten about it. He does not recognize it when he reads about it in the ledger. Though he correctly anticipates that there might be no place in his memory for the epiphany, the younger Krapp is wrong to think that it will comfort him as an old man. His intellectual ambitions and achievements mean nothing to him now. Krapp’s use of the word “fire” here indicates that he may already be forgetting or misunderstanding the import of his epiphany, even as he records it. His vision found a connection between light and dark, but here he again fixates on the light.

“What I suddenly saw then was this, that the belief I had been going on all my life, namely—[Krapp switches off impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on again]—great granite rocks the foam flying up in the light of the lighthouse and the wind-gauge spinning like a propeller, clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most—[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 loader, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again]—my face in her breasts and my hand on her.”

Here, the tape describes the vision that Krapp had on the jetty. Though the older Krapp plays only parts of it, the epiphany on the tape seems to be that the understanding, as represented by light, toward which Krapp has striven is inextricably linked with the chaos—represented by the dark, storm, and night—that he has sought to avoid, or “keep under.”This insight now angers Krapp, perhaps because he has ignored it; despite the “unshatterable association” he tried to form between light and dark at thirty-nine, he has spent his life separating them, distancing himself from the dark chaos of human relationships. Ironically, he writes “farewell to love” in the ledger in the same entry that mentions his vision (5). His tragic repression of his own epiphany, part of a pattern of self-deluded and self-destructive behavior, suggests a divided self. It also implies that his search for understanding is pointless.

Krapp forwards the tape until he comes to a romantic scene with a woman. Sex and love, which he regarded as mere fleeting distractions in his youth, now appear more substantial to him than his abstract, intellectual thoughts. Krapp now values emotion and sensation more than intellect. The ultimate failure of the words on the tape to reconcile these two poles represents the futility in trying to capture ineffable concepts with words.

“I asked her to look at me and after a few moments—[pause]—after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. [Pause. Low.]Let me in. [Pause.] We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! [Pause.] I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.”

In the punt boat, thirty-nine-year old Krapp cannot at first see into the woman’s eyes because she keeps them closed against the sun’s glare. In his shadow, she is able to open them at his request. His intent gaze into them represents a search for a deep connection with her. The haunting memories of various women’s eyes, associated with Krapp’s regret and yearning for lost love, are a strong motif throughout the play. This scene echoes the theme from Krapp’s forgotten epiphany—the truths he seeks can be found in the murky chaos of love, represented by the motif of darkness throughout the play and, in this case, his shadow. According to the ledger, however, Krapp says “farewell to love” when he is thirty-nine (5). This scene is therefore one of the last times Krapp seeks such intimate human connection. Krapp and the unnamed woman lie still amid the movement of the lake, symbolizing a peace they have found with each other. He will, to his regret, give up this peace. As an older man, he finds more meaning, comfort, and longevity in love than in his past intellectual breakthroughs. Future Krapp demonstrates this by winding the tape forward to this scene in the boat, skipping over the account of his vision, and playing it again at the end of the play.

As a side note, the potential sexual connotation of “let me in” concerned government censors when Beckett sought a license to perform the play in England. The license was not granted until three weeks before the play’s opening night.

“Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. Thank god that’s all done with anyway.”

Future Krapp starts his tape with this ironic statement. It echoes the thirty-nine-year-old Krapp’s criticisms of his younger self and, as on that tape, has a “false ring” (6). As an opening to his recording, it casts uncertainty on what follows. “Took myself for” suggests that Krapp now believes he had a mistaken view of himself in the past, but his assertion here indicates that his current self-assessment is no more accurate. His insults also reveal a lack of compassion for himself and a deep self-loathing.

“Crawled out once or twice, before the summer was cold. Sat shivering in the park, drowned in dreams and burning to be gone. Not a soul.”

Krapp makes an outing to a park at the end of summer. He is too late; he misses the warm weather, much as he missed the chance for love as a younger man. He is alone in the park, as he is in life. “Not a soul” ostensibly refers to the deserted state of the park, but can also be read to say that Krapp, having given up love, is himself without a soul in his old age. The quote recalls Krapp sitting on a bench in view of his mother’s window, “wishing she were gone,” suggesting that his former hard-hearted attitude has led him to this miserable state (7). Fire represents intellectual stimulation and ambition for him as a young man, but now the “burning” propels him towards his end. Consumed by regrets and memories, he yearns for death.

“Thee yes she had! [Broods, realizes he is recording silence, switches off, broods. Finally.] Everything there, everything, all the—[Realizing this is not being recorded, switches on.]Everything there, everything on this old muckball, all the light and dark and famine and feasting of…[hesitates]…the ages! [In a shout.] Yes! [Pause.] Let that go! Jesus! Take his mind off his homework! Jesus! [Pause.] Maybe he was right.”

Krapp broods on the eyes of the woman in the punt boat, a symbol of lost love, beauty, and truth. He realizes that in a relationship with her, he could have found all the profound truths he tried to reach with sheer intellect, in isolation. Significantly, he combines “light and dark” here as a metaphor for those truths, whereas for most of his life he has striven single-mindedly for light. This reveals that he appreciates the role of the dark in his old age more than he did when he was younger, when he thought it was a distraction from his work, which he now mockingly refers to as “homework.” He regrets the decision to break up with the woman from the boat, but he does not entirely disagree with it now; “maybe he was right,” he says of his younger self, though this statement may be yet another instance of denial and an attempt to dull his emotional pain.

“Now the day is over

Night is drawing nigh-igh,

Shadows—[coughing, then almost inaudible]—of the evening

Steal across the sky.”

This is the second time Krapp sings this song. Earlier in the play, he began these lyrics in a “quavering” voice after hearing the tape mention the girl in the “shabby green coat” and going backstage to have several drinks, indicating that regret prompts him to sing it (7). The lyrics symbolize his situation as his life approaches an end. Their imagery features the motif of light and dark, with the night here representing death. His coughing fit and quieter singing also reflect the dwindling of his vitality. In addition, Krapp’s bursting into song in the middle of recording his tape indicates a lack of focus in his increasingly drunken state.

“Could have been happy with her, up there on the Baltic, and the pines, and the dunes. [Pause.] Could I? [Pause.] And she? [Pause] Pah! [Pause.] Fanny came in a couple of times. Bony old ghost of a whore.”

Recalling the woman from the punt boat, Krapp begins to question whether he made the right choice by breaking off their relationship, but he stops himself. He is reluctant to be fully honest with himself. The truth is too painful for him too bear. He switches his attention to an encounter he had that year with a prostitute, a transactional sexual encounter that contrasts with the genuine relationship he might have had with the woman from his youth. It might have made him happy, but he worried that it would distract him from his work. The transition here from the painful memory of lost love to that of the prostitute reflects Krapp’s lifelong pattern of rejecting complicated, potentially messy, but rewarding relationships in favor of efficiency.

“Went to sleep and fell off a pew. [Pause.] Sometimes wondered in the night if a last effort mightn’t—[Pause.] Ah finish your booze and go to bed. Go on with your drivel in the morning. Or leave it at that. [Pause.] Leave it at that.”

Krapp visits evening services at a church, which he has not done since childhood. He fails to derive any spiritual comfort from it. Now Krapp begins to wonder if he should make a last effort, though it is unclear whether he means at his work, love, spirituality, or something else, such as quitting alcohol. He interrupts the thought, telling himself to finish his drink. The interjection reflects how his alcoholism has served as an escape from honest but unpleasant self-reflection for most of his life. Though he wanted to give up alcohol when he was younger, he has long since stopped trying, abandoning himself to his self-destructive impulse. The second, repeated “leave it at that” implies an intention beyond the tape; with it, Krapp wishes for his final destruction: death.