SOURCE: Metman, Eva. “Reflections on Samuel Beckett's Plays.” Journal of Analytical Psychology 5, no. 1 (January 1960): 41-63.

In the following essay, Metman explores the different embodiments of God, treatment of women, and the depiction of the human condition in Beckett's earlier dramatic works.

Introduction

Jung (1951, Coll. Wks. [Collected Works], p. 121) speaks of a class of schizophrenic and neurotic patients whose illness “seems to lie in their having something above the average, an overplus for which there is no adequate outlet.” And he continues: “We may then expect the patient to be consciously or—in most cases—unconsciously critical of the generally accepted views and ideas.”

The impression one gains in such cases is that there is somehow more wisdom in their madness than in the kind of sanity in which the majority feels safe. These patients do not find their feet in the world unless they succeed in integrating those...