Act Without Words I is a short play by Samuel Beckett. This play is exactly what the title is; an act without words. seems a behaviorist experiment within a classical myth”, that of Tantalus, who stood in a pool of water which receded every time he bent to drink it, and stood under a fruit tree which raised its branches every time he reached for food. In the 1930s Beckett read Wolfgang Köhler’s book, The Mentality of Apes about the colony of apes in Tenerife, where experiments were conducted in which the apes also placed cubes on top of another in order to reach a banana” and is clearly referenced in this piece.
Tantalus was punished for a reason. It is not certain that the man is being punished for a crime other than that of existing in the first place. Like the narrator in The Expelled whose story begins with him being jettisoned from the place he was living (“The fall was … not serious. Even as I fell I heard the door slam, which brought me a little comfort … [for] that meant they were not pursuing me down the street with a stick, to beat me.”) “into an environment where he cannot exist but cannot escape … Whereas Godot’s existence remains uncertain, here an external force exists” “represented by a sharp, inhuman, disembodied whistle” which will not permit him to leave; “like Jacob, wrestles with it to illustrate its substance.” In simplistic terms the man’s actual fall could be seen to represent the fall of Man.
The fact that the man is literally, as far as the audience is concerned, thrown into existence brings to mind the Heideggerian concept of Geworfenheit[10] (‘Throwness’).”[11] Heidegger is clearly using the expression metaphorically as is Beckett; the man is expelled from a womb-like condition, from non-being into being. This is not the first time Beckett has used light to symbolise existence: “They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.”[12] The protagonist is nameless, he is Everyman. “As Beckett told...