School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, 48 Nanyang Avenue, SHHK-03-69, Singapore, 639818, Singapore.
J Med Humanit. 2024 Mar;45(1):79-93. doi: 10.1007/s10912-023-09805-1. Epub 2023 Jun 21.
Research on the unrepresentability of death in Samuel Beckett's oeuvre abound in Beckett scholarship, but little attention has been given to the artist's representation of caregiving to the dying in his plays. With reference to Martin Heidegger's concept of care and Albert Camus's idea of the absurd, this article analyzes Endgame (1957) and Footfalls (1976) by attending to Beckett's dramatic representation of caregiving as undergirded by a sense of its absurdity. The almost 20-year gap between the writing of both plays highlights the development of an understanding that this sense of absurdity is never about the caregiver's questioning of one's obligation to the dependent but about how one chooses to respond to caregiving as an absurd predicament. The pertinence of such a representation of caregiving by Beckett lies in its poignant articulation of a complex experience that is often left unexpressed by caregivers who prioritize their dependent loved ones over themselves.
塞缪尔·贝克特作品中死亡的不可表现性在贝克特研究中比比皆是，但很少有人关注艺术家在他的戏剧中对临终关怀的表现。本文通过参考马丁·海德格尔的关怀概念和阿尔贝·加缪的荒诞观念，分析了《终局》（1957 年）和《脚迹》（1976 年），关注贝克特对关怀的戏剧表现，这种关怀是基于荒诞感的。这两部戏剧的创作时间相隔近 20 年，这突显了一种理解的发展，即这种荒诞感不是关于护理人员对受抚养者的义务的质疑，而是关于一个人如何选择应对作为荒诞困境的护理。这种对关怀的表现与贝克特有关，在于它对一种复杂体验的深刻表达，这种体验往往是那些将自己的依赖亲人置于自己之前的护理人员所无法表达的。
