Dis-Ability: A Trialectics of Material, Imagined and Lived Spatialities in Beckettian Theatre

Abstract

Grounded in the broader existential limitation-and-dependency paradigm, dis-ability emerges as both an embodied reality and an extended metaphor in Beckett’s plays, manifested through categorically dis-abled characters. In this study, I employ Edward Soja’s theorisation of space, referred to as the “Trialectics of Spatiality” (Suja 57), as a framework for examining the dialectics of dis-ability and space in Beckettian theatre. By applying Soja’s concepts of first, second, and third space as analytical lenses, this study investigates how Beckett’s characters exist in dis/harmony with the conventional portrayals of dis-ability found in canonical literature. Furthermore, using this heuristic approach as a foundation, the research aims to define the poetics of the Beckettian model of dis-ability intricately woven into the narratives of his plays. The study is limited to a textual analysis of Waiting for Godot (1953), Endgame (1957), and Happy Days (1961) to ensure the analytical soundness of the arguments. From the first-space perspective, I concentrate on the embodied materiality of Beckett’s characters and the physical spaces they inhabit in the selected texts. Through the second space lens, I explore the implications of the characters’ imaginative situatedness as dis-abled beings, focusing on their desires, hopes, and actions as they relate to the plot of the chosen texts. Adopting the third space as a framework, I analyse the Beckettian universe as a liminal and hybrid space where the material and imaginative aspects collaborate to deconstruct the socially constructed binary of normalcy and disability. In doing so, I interpret Beckett’s selected texts as illustrations of the third space, wherein real-life perceptions and their literary representations of normalcy and dis-ability hybridise into an interdependent mode of human existence.