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Samuel Beckett and the Impasses of Sexuation in How It Is

In: Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui
Author:
Llewellyn Brown Lycée international de Saint-Germain-en-Laye France Saint-Germain-en-Laye

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Abstract

The confusion of sexual identities in How It Is testifies to the collapsing of the imaginary register that situates male and female as distinct and complementary in society. The body as a specular whole thus gives way to a relationship to language, where the universal ‘phallic’ register inscribes irreducible feminine alterity. The tormentor/tormented couplings, as well as the serial expansion of crawlers compose fictional attempts revealing a fundamental failure to institute sexual complementarity. The sexual is thus shown to reside within speech itself, pointing to the text’s very engendering. The impossible “sexual rapport” is thus the source of creation.

Résumé

La confusion des identités sexuelles dans Comment c’ est témoigne de la faillite du registre de l’ imaginaire qui situe hommes et femmes comme distincts et complémentaires sur le plan social. L’ unité spéculaire du corps cède ainsi la place à une relation au langage, où le registre phallique, point de départ de l’ universel, inscrit l’ irréductible altérité du féminin. Les couples de bourreau et victime ainsi que la multiplication sérielle des personnages rampant dans la boue pointe l’ échec fondamental à instituer la complémentarité sexuelle. Le sexuel se révèle ainsi logé au cœur de la parole elle-même, désignant l’ engendrement même du texte. L’ impossible « rapport sexuel » est donc source de la création.

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