The Afterlife in Samuel Beckett, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, and Flann O’Brien

• Thesis title in Czech: Posmrtný život v dílech Samuela Becketta, Máirtína Ó Cadhaina a Flanna O'Briena
• Thesis title in English: The Afterlife in Samuel Beckett, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, and Flann O’Brien
• Key words: posmrtný život|Samuel Beckett|Máirtín Ó Cadhain|Flann O'Brien|román|drama|modernismus|irský modernismus|experimentální literatura|Cré na Cille|The Third Policeman|Gaeltacht|humor|satira|anti-román|The Play|Not I|Footfalls|A Piece of Monologue|minimalismus|narativ Jiného světa|danteskní|peklo
• English key words: afterlife|Samuel Beckett|Máirtín Ó Cadhain|Flann O'Brien|novel|play|modernism|Irish modernism|experimental literature|Cré na Cille|The Third Policeman|Gaeltacht|humour|satire|anti-novel|Play|Not I|Foorfalls|A Piece of Monologue|minimalism|Otherworld narrative|Dantesque|hell
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2021/2022
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Radvan Markus, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 08.03.2022
• Date of assignment: 08.03.2022
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 14.03.2022
• Date and time of defence: 07.09.2022 00:00
• Date of electronic submission: 10.08.2022
• Date of proceeded defence: 07.09.2022
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. David Vichnar, Ph.D.

Guidelines

Literary modernism marked an exciting era of written works that defied traditional and previously limiting modes of authorial expression. With new ways to approach time, perspective, and form there was a conscious effort to approximate the intricacies of human experience differently - Irish literature was not exempt from this movement. Written either in the Irish or English language, these works often went far beyond into the strange realms of afterlife. And where writers like James Joyce stayed only in the vicinity of the dead, Samuel Beckett (one of the last modernists), Máirtín Ó Cadhain, and Flann O’Brien all ventured into these ghastly realms. Needless to say, keeping up with the dreadful contemporary history of both Ireland and the world, one would be hard-pressed to find any inclination to optimism in these works. Using the concept of afterlife as a vehicle, these works examine themes of stasis, existential dread, disintegration of self and of communities. These conjured realms usually present absurd, cyclical horror where souls are arrested in constant repetition. Authors of these Dantesque afterlives often mediate through these visions the absurd notions of contemporary life (or arguably life in Ireland) rather than present specific or mythologically complex fantasies. This of course does not necessarily mean, especially for Ó Cadhain and O’Brien, that these Infernos are devoid of humour: in the vein of traditionally Irish dark irony, these works are vibrant with hilarious instances of verbal humour and absurd situations.
The thesis aims to examine the function and meaning of the use of afterlife in selected works of the three authors. In Beckett’s case any serious examination is at the risk of being thwarted by the ambiguity he infuses his work with. Nevertheless, despite these obstacles, the author’s later minimalist drama provides very strong bases of analysis: generally, most of Beckett’s work presents characters occupying Dantesque worlds of purgatorial madness, but short dramas such as Play (1963), Not I (1973), Footfalls (1976), and A Piece of Monologue (1979) deal with the theme of afterlife more directly. The characters of these plays often undergo a disintegration of their self as they are caught in a maddening cyclicity of afterlife. A direct opposite of sorts, Ó Cadhain’s Cré na Cille (Graveyard Clay, 1949) deals with the denizens of Connemara burial grounds and thus presents a vibrant yet static community of the dead. Finally, Flann O’Brien’s main character in The Third Policeman (1967) possesses the most agency of all the “undead” characters as he traverses the absurd and heavily symbolic rendition of Underworld but is unable to escape it. It will gradually become apparent that the themes of language and speech are also of crucial value, as they often present the sole expression of the characters in afterlife. Moreover, the treatment (or sometimes the lack thereof) of religion is rather peculiar in these works, given Irish culture and history, and thus will also be addressed adequately. The main three chapters will be preceded by an introductory one, which will serve to place these authors within the frame of Irish literature (even in Beckett’s case, liminal as his status within that framework may be) and also to trace the central topic across it. It is the hope of this thesis that its main analysis may serve as an introduction to this very intriguing theme in Irish modernist literature and that it may suggest further examination.

References

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