Beckett's Masculinity

Abstract

This is the first book to focus on masculinity in Samuel Beckett's work as a way to understand his historical and national context, the difficulty of reading and interpreting his texts, and his ruthless disintegration of sexual and gendered norms throughout his oeuvre. Traumatized masculinity and Beckett's return -- The masculine protest : Murphy and Watt -- Return in the postwar fiction -- Embodying lost masculinity in Waiting for Godot and Endgame -- Rewinding Krapp's last tape : the return of Anglo-Irish masculinity -- The Not I of gender identity in the women-centered plays -- "The churn of stale words in the heart again" : Beckett's final return.