SOURCE: Elam, Keir. “Dead Heads: Damnation-Narration in the ‘Dramaticules.’” In The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, edited by John Pilling, pp. 145-66. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
In the following essay, Elam illustrates Beckett's repetitive use of aged, disembodied heads and faces in his later short plays to represent death, darkness, the afterlife, and Hell on Earth. Elam makes many comparisons between these short plays and Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio.
This is a free excerpt of 69 words. There are 8,543 words (approx.
28 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Samuel Beckett: Critical Essay by Keir Elam Access Pass.