> The point here, I think, is that the desire for disappearance does not
> coincidde with disappearance per se but from a language that promises to
> enthrall and to wrap the subject but never quite gets there. In language,a nd
> in thought as proto-linguistic, there is a veiling-unveiling of the subject
> in, by and through whom language is made to speak, to answer to the
> impossibillity of disappearance, of absenting oneself from relations of
> power.
But what is this "absenting"? Is it merely absolvement from
personal responsibility? So that being transformed even as I speak
would become proof, even to myself, that I am merely a conduit, rather
than a willing accomplice of that which speaks through me?
In Beckett, it seems to me, subjugation is an intrinsic condition of
humanity: each character is always already self-subjugated, and
discourse, in a way, is a discharge which, like a urine sample, discloses
the particulars of each personal self-subjugation. Equally intrinsic
is the desire to get rid of the dual burden of enslavement and
responsibility. The Beckettian condition is one of saturation, of
standstill: there exists, in human relations, no possibility of movement.
The characters are self-subjugating immobile discharge-points of a
longing for self-extrication. Everything else is just a consequence.
But this, it seems to me, does not quite account for the way
self-transformation (through writing) is talked about in RoM -- although
I guess one _could_ fit it into this mold. Penelope, are you arguing
that this is indeed the right mold?
- malgosia
------------------
> coincidde with disappearance per se but from a language that promises to
> enthrall and to wrap the subject but never quite gets there. In language,a nd
> in thought as proto-linguistic, there is a veiling-unveiling of the subject
> in, by and through whom language is made to speak, to answer to the
> impossibillity of disappearance, of absenting oneself from relations of
> power.
But what is this "absenting"? Is it merely absolvement from
personal responsibility? So that being transformed even as I speak
would become proof, even to myself, that I am merely a conduit, rather
than a willing accomplice of that which speaks through me?
In Beckett, it seems to me, subjugation is an intrinsic condition of
humanity: each character is always already self-subjugated, and
discourse, in a way, is a discharge which, like a urine sample, discloses
the particulars of each personal self-subjugation. Equally intrinsic
is the desire to get rid of the dual burden of enslavement and
responsibility. The Beckettian condition is one of saturation, of
standstill: there exists, in human relations, no possibility of movement.
The characters are self-subjugating immobile discharge-points of a
longing for self-extrication. Everything else is just a consequence.
But this, it seems to me, does not quite account for the way
self-transformation (through writing) is talked about in RoM -- although
I guess one _could_ fit it into this mold. Penelope, are you arguing
that this is indeed the right mold?
- malgosia
------------------