Hearing, seeing and acting : a peircean-semiotic perspective, on samuel beckett's acts without words i

الملخص EN

Samuel Beckett‘s, Act Without Words ( henceforth, AWWI), is one of the few slighted works in the Beckett canon.

Often ignored, the play generally did not fare well even with those critics who do treat it.

Ruby Cohn(1962 : 247 ) dismisses the work as ,almost too explicit,, and Ihab Hassan(1967 : 192 ) notes that the play seems ‘a little too obvious and pat.‘ John Fletcher and John Spurling (1972 : 118 ) concur: ''compared to Godot, ‘ Act Without Words I is .

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over-explicit, over-emphasized and even, unless redeemed by its performer, so unparticularized as to verge on the banal.'' Then, AWWI's directness (signs , e.

g.

cubes, rope, scissors , carafe, man, hands, sun , desert, dazzling light, whistle etc.

) is almost a source of embarrassment for critics and has prompted some forced interpretation.

Martin Esslin ( 1964 : 38 ) argues that the protagonist is ‘drawn to the pursuit of illusory objectives .

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.." Ruby Cohn ( 1962 : 247) echoes the view, suggesting that the ‘sustenance and tools are man’s own invention, and his frustration the result of the impossibility of ever being able to reach what may be a mirage." But the objects certainly seem substantial.

The protagonist stands on the cubes and engages in a tug-of-war with a force outside himself, presumably the same force which threw him on stage .

The scissors and rope may be man‘s own inventions, but they are nonetheless real; if they were not, the exterior force would have little reason to confiscate them.