November 18, 1998
Desire and the
Absurd in An Act Without Words
By Sabadino Parker
Samuel Beckett’s An Act Without Words points out the
absurdity of human life presented as an endless series of attempts to satisfy
the Schopenhauerian will. The human ego
is forced into consciousness to act out desires that can never be satisfied and
find meaning in a meaningless world.
Even the moments of peace are fleeting as the ego’s duties to the will
always disturb the bliss of silence.
Schopenhauer’s idea that the ego can transcend the will proves false for
the mime. Physical reality constantly
prevents the ego from fully satisfying all its desires. An Act Without Words presents a Schopenhauerian situation, the
mental functions embodied as a variety of shapes and objects and comically
enacted events.
Arthur Schopenhauer defined the will as the pervading
dynamic force controlling human life.
The will, antecedent to Freud’s libido,
impels everything, including the human machine that can perceive and report its
representations and their acts. The
will is the inner nature of each experiencing being and assumes, in time and
space, the appearance of a body, which is an idea. The intellect, ego, is the agent of the will and capable of
conscious action in the external world of objects; the ego obtains food, drink,
sex, comfort, and experiences to fulfill the desires of the will. A fully satisfied desire would result in a
mental equilibrium without the need for physical action. For Schopenhauer, the tragedy of life arises
from the nature of the will, constantly urging the individual towards the
satisfaction of successive goals, none of which can provide permanent
satisfaction for the infinite activity of the life force, or will. The ego can bring the activity of the will
can to an end through an attitude of resignation. In An Act Without Words,
the protagonist is the embodied ego, trying to satisfy the will’s demands, yet
never achieving any satisfaction.
The protagonist in An
Act Without Words represents the ego. The ego exists in a body endowed with
consciousness. Similarly, Beckett’s
protagonist is a human being thrown into a desert containing “dazzling
light”(125), emblematic of his consciousness of himself and the world. The ego’s illumination gives external objects
form in the mind’s representations, knowledge of which the will desires. Beckett uses cubes and objects in simple
shapes to demonstrate the ego as perceiving the external world as units that
are graspable in mind’s eye. The will seeks knowledge of the external world
through the ego, via direct experience.
Beckett uses a mime as his protagonist to emphasize the ego as a
physical actor of the will’s desire. Words, created to categorize experience,
are not useful in allowing the will adequate knowledge of reality. The mime is the puppet of the will and
continually demonstrates the ego’s incapacity to fulfill its desires through
imposing order upon the chaos of the will and external world. The ego is, itself, the agent of disharmony
between one’s internal will and the will of the external world.
The will drives the ego to discover the hidden meanings of
the universe in order to achieve a harmonious state of complete self-awareness.
The ego experiences the mysteries of existence in a seemingly irrational
phenomenological world. The protagonist makes a valiant effort to deny
impotence (after every fall, the mime immediately stands back up) and tries
achieving the will’s desire for knowledge through action. Whistles from the left and right and a rope
descended from above attract his attention, tempting him with the mystery of
their source. Playing the role of the ego, the mime acts upon the will’s desire
for discovery, but he is “[i]mmediately flung back” towards his original state
of ignorance. Although the will seeks
discovery and knowledge, the ego is a limited being unable to experience,
fully, life’s phenomenon. The hidden
meanings of the world easily elude the searching ego.
Since direct conscious awareness of the external world is
impossible, the ego uses reason and logic to make the universe knowable. The ego imposes order upon the minimal
awareness it maintains of the external world to create a predictable world so
that it can quickly meet any demands from the will. Beckett’s protagonist tries ordering the various cubes and the
rope provided to him by the external world so that he can obtain the object of
desire, the water. He uses reason in
trying to determine the proper construction for his makeshift ladder
(demonstrating humanity’s need to create the empirical sciences, based upon
easily comprehendible units, such as cubes) and deciding to fashion a lasso
from rope to capture the desirable object.
However, all attempts at order prove futile as the carafe is pulled out
of reach and the cubes disappear. The irrational will of the external world
does not cooperate with the ego’s attempt at structure. As time moves on, the ego’s constructs decay
and disappear, as the external world changes from the forms the ego once
knew. The harmony of an ordered and
predictable universe is a dream, time is irrational, and the external world too
chaotic for the mere ego to grasp.
What does not elude the ego is an array of objects in the world which offer immediate, but transient, gratification for the will. By eating, drinking, resting, scratching, and so on the ego gratifies its bodily will and can explore other, more internal mysteries. The protagonist is given the possibility of immediate physical comfort, represented by the tree casting a comfortable shade and a “tiny carafe, to which is attached a huge label inscribed WATER”(126). The protagonist rests beneath the tree, thus satisfying his will’s desire for physical comfort. During this repose, the ego looks “at his hands.” He is reflecting upon himself. Only through introspection can one discover his prime motivating factor as the will, which is the same will as that of the external world. Yet, the external physical world does not allow extended periods for the ego to reflect because time passes, the objects offering comfort fade (“the palms close like a parasol”), and new desirable objects (the water) appear. The ego’s inability to silence the will undercuts any chance for harmony. The physical world, existing in time, offers objects that can only shortly quiet the will, but is hostile to the ego, preventing any knowledge of both the external and internal worlds
The ego, unable to
satisfy its will through external exploration, the creation of order, and
internal discovery turns to death as the only option left that seems capable of
quieting the will’s demands and allowing a static existence. The protagonist, after failing at all
attempts for knowledge and satisfaction, contemplates suicide. He tries tying the rope onto the bough of
the tree, but, again, the physical world undercuts his wishes as the “bough
folds down against trunk”(130). He
“opens his collar, frees his neck”(132) in order to commit suicide with the
scissors, but they, like the cubes and carafe, are taken away. The will does not allow the ego to escape
its duties in life. The internal will
desires experience and the external will desires to be experience. The ego cannot choose to established its own
time of death; only the irrational will guides the world’s and people’s actions.
The ego, held by the will that created it, cannot escape its
constant craving for knowledge of the external and internal worlds. It is also
incapable of ever discovering the harmony and unity of the internal and
external wills. Schopenhauer points out that the only way to peace is through a
will-less contemplation of the nothingness behind the veil of
representations. In a sense, the
personal ego dies as its own internal will identifies with and finds reflection
in the external dynamics of spontaneous phenomenon. Through transcending one’s ego, one realizes that the irrational
personal will and irrational external will are one. Attempting an ego-death, the protagonist “remains lying on his
side”(132) and does not respond to the objects and whistles which had
previously sparked his desire:
…with
the free denial, the surrender, of the will, all those phenomena also are now
abolished…No will: no representation, no world.[1]
The
protagonist acts out the desire to transcend his ego, the will, and the world,
preferring the peace of knowing and being nothing. The protagonist is still
visible onstage as the act ends with him looking at his hands. Staring at his hands, he demonstrates that
he is still self-aware, but not bothered by the will’s demands. The image of him staring at his own hands is
circular, emblematic of the unity of the universal will. The image also is a zero, nothing, which is
the ultimate reality behind phenomena.
The ego has transcended his tragic situation.
In Samuel Beckett’s An Act Without Words, a man thrust onto
a brightly lit and barren stage is tantalized by a number of whistles and
objects, and fails in his attempts to fulfill his desires for meaning, order,
and bodily satisfaction, and death. He
eventually realizes the futility of trying to satisfy desire and tries
resigning himself to an inactive and peaceful acceptance of nothingness. His
life is comically absurd because he can neither satisfy his will nor escape
it. The external world, chaotically
transforming through time, counters the capacity for the ego to fulfill its
desires, even the desire to cease desiring, dissolving the chance for a
conclusive harmony unless the ego dismiss its own will. The protagonist in Beckett’s play cannot
achieve any harmony between internal and external phenomena, until entering the
phase of Schopenhauerian resignation, where the intellect/ego detaches itself
from willing, recognizes the universal will, and sees behind the veil of ideas
into Nothing. In not moving at the end
of the play, the mime demonstrates he has achieved a point of harmonious peace
by surrendering the will and wanting to know nothing.
[1] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.F.J. Payne (New York: Dover, 1966), Book IV, SS71