Human? Machine? Beckett’s symbolic warning of technological dominance in Krapp’s Last Tape
Read Time: 2 mins
Without headphones we can’t hear, without microphones we can’t speak. Our world is heading towards technological domination. Technology is evolving alongside our human race; a concept Beckett symbolises through Krapp’s tape recorder. This Tragicomedy is a mirror for humanity to look upon to see the dangers we’re heading towards. How far will we go until we become the machine, or even scarier, the machine becomes us.
This is not absurdist; it’s real and is happening right now.
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My first impression of Krapp was a self-obsessed, middle-aged man. However, with Beckett’s symbolism, my eyes opened wider beyond my artificial screen light. Knowlson says we experience Krapp’s 'faded aspirations and frustrated ideals’. Krapp breaks the fourth wall inviting us into his reality, a motif used where one ‘implicitly acknowledges the artificiality of the environment’. A space where everything evolves ‘quietly’, particularly the tape recorder, his ‘memory-bank’. This device is something Krapp can’t function without as it controls him, it gains an identity of its own. This leads us to analyze technological power, questioning, when has our digital world gone too far?
‘Krapp finally becomes a fully technological subject as his fallible body is erased by the mediation of the machine.’ Goody, pp.156-57.
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Krapp’s identity dissolves, he’s a slave to the machine with his ritualistic obsession brainwashing any sense of humanity left within. His vocal presence decreases as the play progresses, symbolizing the machine as subconsciously stealing it from it, eventually leaving him static.
His repetitive…
‘[Pause]’
Sorry, just had to reboot there…
His repetitive pauses symbolize his body restarting, mirroring that of a technological device, needing to refresh in order to function properly.
This sounds like Post-humanism, as Hayles claimed ‘we can see a harbinger of the post-human body’. Here, the distinction between robots and humans falls away. This personification of the recorder is furthered through its resemblance to Krapp’s lover. He quotes, ‘my face in her breasts and my hand on her’, her, as in the tape recorder! Therefore, not only displaying his lost concept of humanity, Beckett symbolises the tapes identity as human with its technological features mirroring human anatomy. The ‘[Brief laugh in which Krapp joins]’ gives the recorder a voice of its own. It holds Krapp’s memories and desires, therefore holds an automatic dominance over his submissive persona.
All you have to do is look at Sophia the Robot... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5t6K9iwcdw
Beckett himself told French actor Pierre Chabert to become one with the machine, in order to face the reality upon technology. Whilst we might see the tape recorder as a comfort to Krapp, his intimacy with it also results in a number of problematic issues. Alongside, his reliance, he too starts to imitate it, symbolizing the role swap between human and machines. Krapp’s description of ‘[switches on and assumes listening posture, i.e., leaning forward, elbows on table, hand cupping ear towards machine, face front.]’, symbolises his gradually physical, mechanised transformation. The ‘eyes’ of the human represent the ‘eyes’ of the machine, always watching and learning, symbolising humanities identity as compromised by robotic spies.
Gontarski argues the ‘light and dark’ imagery as symbols of Krapp’s doubled ‘sides of his nature.’ The table and adjacent area under strong white light juxtaposes with the rest of stage dowsed in darkness. Such binaries symbolize the technological corruption taking over Krapp’s authentic identity. His obsession is eating all senses of normality, visually manipulating his realist vision.
Photo by Ronaldo de Oliveira on Unsplash
This is important in our technological society!
As Weiss claims, ‘Krapp edits out certain memories and emphasised others’, allowing him to ‘rewrite the past and present’, therefore allowing him to distort identity. Who is Krapp? Are we presented with the real Krapp or has the tape recorder presented us with another identity? This exposes the dangers of technology.
Do we really know what or in this case who is behind the screen, monitoring our every move, responding to our every command? We must question how long it will take until these devices start to control us like Krapp.
Or are they already doing so? I mean, you’re relying on a tablet to read my discourse right now. Are you a slave to your screen?
