Michael Stewart

The Unnamable Mirror: The Reflective Identity in Beckett's Prose

A key theme in Becketts work is that of identity crisis. This theme is perhaps most fully explored in The Unnamable. This essay explores the absence of a clear demarcation between self and other in the text, utilising Lacanian psychoanalysis.The narrator, through his aporia, implies that the pursuit of self awareness is possibly erroneous. However, ultimately Becketts text offers a new way to be, between the I that speaks and the I that seeks. This essay explores the paradox of this other identity, sketching its morphology in the process.