Work, Alienation, and Humor : A Marxist Reading of Samuel Beckett's "Murphy" and "Waiting for Godot"
Date of Award
5-2008
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
College/School
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department/Program
English
Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair
Jonathan Greenberg
Committee Member
Arthur Simon
Committee Member
Gregory Waters
Abstract
In this thesis, I look at Beckett’s Murphy and Waiting for Godot through a Marxist lens and argue that these texts can be read as a critique of modern alienation under capitalism. Through his narrator and characters, Beckett critiques and satirizes alienation and searches for alternatives to it in comedy and creative playfulness. Also, I argue that in these works writing itself emerges as non-alienated labor through which the creator, the central characters, and the readers/spectators can resist modem alienation. The first chapter examines Murphy in the light of Marx’s theory of the alienation of labor, the writings of Erich Fromm and others who have expanded on Marx’s theory, and some relevant theories about humor and play, including the ideas of George Santayana. The second chapter uses Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque and Gadamer’s theory of spectator participation in the play of drama to complicate the seemingly universal “existential” concerns of the text and highlight the liberatory potential embedded within the text and in the space between it and its spectators/ readers. The conclusion explores how Beckett’s concern with alienation under modem capitalism ties in with his conflicted relationship with the craft of writing.
File Format
Recommended Citation
Keeran, Catherine, "Work, Alienation, and Humor : A Marxist Reading of Samuel Beckett's "Murphy" and "Waiting for Godot"" (2008). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 1177.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/1177