"Ill Seen Ill Said"

The old woman is slowly giving away to age, becoming blind, and scatterbrained. She begins to question every intangible truth in life she once knew such as time, direction, truth, good and evil. Memories lull in and out of her mind. She no longer knows the day, but only the night and twilight, but even these she has suspicions for. She no longer knows what to say for she cannot trust her mind or eyes "Ill seen Ill said."

"Such-such fiasco that folly takes a hand. Such bits and scraps. Seen no matter how and said as seen. Dread of black. Of white. Of void. Let her vanish. And the rest. For good. And the sun. Last rays. And the moon. And Venus. Nothing left but black sky. White earth. Or inversely. No more sky or earth. Finished high and low. Nothing but black and white. Everywhere no matter where. But black. Void. Nothing else. Contemplate that. Not another word. Home at last. Gently gently" (460). 

This old woman is stuck on the unknowings of her mind, and slowly becoming one with her home, the shack. She will not leave, cannot leave for good. It is the last sure thing she has and must grasp hold of it. The two of them, slowly dying, sit and stare out at the world, but cannot stray far into it. All her ramblings and suspicions are pointless. She won't remember her starting thought when she reaches a conclusion, and will be left confused, better to sit and stare in her chair, in her shack.

 "Incontinent the void. The zenith. Evening again. When not night it will be evening. Death again of deathless day. On the one hand embers. On the other ashes. Day without end won and lost. Unseen" (463). 

The unnamed woman tortures herself in knowing that she does not know. She is not afforded blissful blindness to the maze between her eye and mind. She knows that she knows not certainties any longer.

Company

Beckett runs circles around his mind and the readers. I feel his self reflectiveness is personal yet at the same time universal in this piece. "Company" reflects the edge of insanity, and is the result of what would happen if one could not escape the thoughts that can so easily become personified. The voices we all create for ourselves can consume the mind even in the simplest of contemplations, questioning everything we think. With each challenge to a thought comes a new voice. This process then continues, slowly slipping into paranoia, but we have the power to snap out of it, to come back to awareness of the self both physically and  mentally. "Company" never stops this process until the end line of "Alone."

The world of internal repetitious thought is pushed to the edge of sanity until the tangible self is gone, lost, estranged. The truth in the acknowledgement made of being alone in "Company" is what makes it beautiful. The fact that everyone comes into the world alone and ultimately dies alone is a most truthful and complete recognition of the self.

 The way Beckett writes "Alone" at the end is profound in its finality, its acceptance of self and only self. "Alone" is neither entirely positive or negative, but one of relief in the fact that truth is found. Still, it may be regrettable to have found it. There is a sense of death in this finality. Possibly not a physical death, but a death that results when an acknowledgment is made. At the time of admission, acceptance, a part of yourself dies, changes form. Any truth can be fought, but once it is unearthed perspectives changes. 

2nd post. Poem

I came across this and it reminded me in some way about Beckett. It could be the tone, but either way I like it and wanted to share. I've pasted it in below. It is a bit of an odd one though, fair warning.

Please sir,
Do you have a Mother?
Perchance I may purchase her.
Do you ever yearn for tit to tongue?
Of Course,
I know you do
I can smell the stench of that Betty on lips,
under your tongue and upon the pulsing of the blood under the skin of your neck 

I see her marks running up your arms
She's ruined you
The least one such as yourself could do
In your obvious position
Would be to share the load,
To push her into a fellow such as myself

Do it the same as yours
But cleaner
I can see it festering black upon you
The gruesome stench of her disease erupts from your untreated appendages
The spoil of it mushrooms forth
Pitiful
You have no use any longer

Give Mother to me
Share the load
Load the sweet disease for me
Watching is at least a quarter of the fun

I, unlike you
Have not succumbed to necrotic uselessness
Your member has practically eroded away
You and I both know
 Give me Mother

There's a good rube
A good son
That's it, you can watch if you like
See my head begin to lull in tune with the Bitches drums
Coursing through every fiber of my being?
Of course you do
Its only the beginning
You know Mother
That Bitch

You've already succumbed to her
You are her
And I must warn you
If your pasty, scared
Sweet chemically potent bag of diminishing flesh you still call your own
Were to fall out before my eyes I would not hesitate
To pump the last drop of you into me
Straight to the forearm
Or maybe the tongue, makes the taste more alive
 A chemical tang
Like a sour patch chew

Don't worry old friend
For the same shall befall me at a later date
Or sooner perchance
We'll never know for certain,
But you must know this
And have known

Mother
That Black Beauty
She's in the likes of us
She never releases her soothing grip
That Whore 

day 1. Imagination Dead Imagine

The following passage is an interpretation based on only one perspective possibly taken by Beckett in "Imagination Dead Imagine."

 After reading, I felt the piece could be interpreted in a variety of themes ranging from strictly philosophical, self reflective, or to target society. Either way irony lay at its base.

The opening line, "No trace anywhere of life, you say, pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagination dead imagine," is a challenge. The line above, "You say," is faintly mocking. I felt the passage was either imagining death or literally dead imagination. Ironically this dead imagination seems to be alluding to life, the permanence of life's chaos, and how briefly moments of extremes  last. 

 Beckett continually enters and exits the rotunda of the imagination. Change between theses two extremes is constant. A stable state lasts no longer than twenty seconds and then everything either rises or falls. Life mirrors this. People are always rising or falling in one way or another. This imagination, life, is torture. The mind is chaotic and controlling. The bodies are merely puppets standing at attention waiting for the torment of the mind, the unbeatable maze. Herein lies the irony. The individual, the group, the ones crying out are masters of their own demise. People give control of the their decisions to everyone and thing but themselves,  to society.

 Society won't change. It would rather continue going about the same circle every day, as in the labyrinth leading to the gates of Tartarus, constantly moving and pausing only for a second as all the pieces match up in a moment of perfection, gone in a blink of the eye.