Alexander Hauser

Towards a psychoanalytical interpretation of Footfalls (Samuel Beckett) Alexander Hauser

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 2,0, University of Augsburg (Lehrstuhl für Englische Literaturwissenschaft), course: Samuel Beckett, language: English, abstract: As this term paper is mainly about the psychoanalysis, it is necessary to ask, how much Beckett knew about this explicit field of psychology. The concept of psychoanalysis, first established in the early 20th century, may for sure had particular influence on Beckett's thoughts and plays as not only Footfalls contains ideas in it. Beckett himself attended a psychotherapist, after his father's death in 1933. "He remained in therapy for two years with Wilfred R. Bion [...] whose later writing on psychoanalytical theory are considered among the most eminent and original in the field." The reason for his collapse may be found in his relationship to his mother whose "savage loving made him what he was". Connor adds, that Beckett's may have experienced the lost of his father "as a confirmation of the loss of his second father, Joyce, who had broken angrily with him after Beckett's abortive affair with Lucia" , James Joyce's daughter. The notes he made about psychoanalytical theories, when he was in therapy, had been discovered after his death, so it is very likely that he used some of them for his later plays.