“The Theme of Deliberate Contrasting Coincidence in Beckett's "All That Fall"”

Abstract

In most of Beckett’s plays , there are prominent elements of absurdity that are landmarks of his style and the way of his writing like : the physical and the spiritual decay of characters, the disintegration of language as it becomes no longer a means of human communication because there is an inability to establish any kind of mental contact among them. These elements are quite apparent in Beckett’s “All That Fall”. The play exhibits a list of  conflicts: one is between powerful forces as that between the force of life represented by Maddy and the forces of death represented by Dan .The second is  the conflict and contempt between the old generation and the new one in the case of Dan’s desire to kill the boy fetching him home or as Beckett names it the theme of the new gulfs open under the old gulfs .The third is posing opposite viewpoints of the protagonists as in those of the old couple ,to stress modern man’s alienation . The play presents us perverted kinds of human beings who each seek a shelter as a type of escape and withdrawal from the bitter life in the outside world, like Miss Fitt who seeks refuge in religion which is also a recurrent element in Beckett’s works. Modern man is made and forced to live in an artificial and self-made conditions transforming shadow-like kind of life as Beckett thinks, in the sense of limiting himself to collective or superficial identity like Dan on the one hand. Whereas Maddy , on the other hand ,tries hard  to get out of the cocoon of the cliché to a more active and vital role that in any way is made unsuitable for her due to her old age. This is because of that feeling of emptiness of the world around the characters who for their miserable lot , are fully aware of that and that surely there has been a fall but what is more certain is that there is no redemption.