Change of Perspectives - Krapp's Last Tape

             Change is an inevitable part of human life. It is something that humans have experienced many times and will continue to experience throughout their lives. As with anything else, there are different types, or levels, of change. Perhaps the most obvious ones to categorize change by are internal and external. Internal being is a change that will affect you personally as opposed to external which is change to make an impact on more than one person. Some extreme cases also are encountered on a worldwide scale.
             One such example of internal changes (or changes in perspective) is shown in the play "Krapp's Last Tape" written by Samuel Beckett. This stage play evolves a shattering drama out of a monologue of a man who, at age sixty-nine, plays back the autobiographical tape he recorded on his thirty-ninth birthday. All of Samuel Beckett's plays are focused around the same themes (as is all absurd drama). These themes include the futility of human life and the pointlessness of bare existence. "Krapp's Last Tape" is no exception to these themes.
             Living solely in a solitary room sits an old man at a desk. This is Krapp, and this is Krapp's life. All thirteen words of that sentence were the existence that was, and is, Krapp. The one exception that this play does have to Beckett's other works is that Krapp does draw conclusions, thus the play appears to move forward, and whilst moving forward, Krapp's perspective changes. This play is set in one of the first chances Krapp has to look back and assess his life, his existence, and in doing so, realizes what it was all for. There is no reference made to an afterlife or a greater power. All was life, life was everything, no contemplation about death was ever made because Krapp was considered to be beyond death, in the realm of absurdity.
             Krapp is listening to old recordings of himself in his earlier years, his younger self is almost portrayed as a different person altogether. "Just been listen...

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Change of Perspectives - Krapp's Last Tape. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 15:30, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/51569.html