One Day, Samuel Beckett Edited by Burçin Erol Department of English Language and Literature Hacettepe University and The Embassy of Ireland Irish Writers Series : 3 © Hacettepe University, Department of English Language and Literature, 2014 Ankara, Turkey Printed by Bizim Büro Table of Contents Acknowledgements Foreword Preface 1. Man’s Post-tragic Position in Beckettian Drama ...........................1 Aysegül Yüksel , 2. “Nothing is More Real than Nothing”: A Reading of Beckett’s “Ping” as a Postmodern Text ................................................................11 Oya Batum Mentese , 3. Not I: An Existentialist Statement on the Human Condition ........23 A. Deniz Bozer 4. Beckett’s Molloy : Some Things Still “Affirmative” .......................39 Aytül Özüm 5. The Influence of Music on Samuel Beckett’s Art .........................55 Neslihan Ekmekciog˘lu 6. Self-translated: Samuel Beckett .................................................71 Sinem Sancaktarog˘lu Bozkurt Note on Contributors .....................................................................83  Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the colleagues and staff members in the Department of English Language and Literature who have helped in the process of putting together the articles in this volume which were formerly presented in the “One Day, Samuel Beckett Conference” organised at Hacettepe University. I owe special thanks to Assistant Professor Dr. Sinan Akıllı for his ever present support and for designing the cover of the present volume. I would like to express my gratitude to Barrie Maguire for allowing us to use his painting, the portrait of Samuel Beckett for the cover. Special thanks are due to the Irish Embassy and to Simon Williams the Associate Director of Trinity Foundation who have most kindly collaborated for the conference and made the keynote speaker Dr. Nicholas Johnson’s presence at the conference possible. Unfortunately due to copyright restrictions it was not possible to include Dr. Nicholas Johnson’s chapter, however I am grateful to him for his contribution to the volume in the form of a preface. Last but not least I would like to express my gratitude to Hacettepe University for the financial support of the project.  Foreword This volume is comprised of the chapters focusing on different aspects and works of Samuel Beckett that arose out of the presentations of the “One Day, Samuel Beckett Conference” held at Hacettepe University in 2013 with the collaboration of the Embassy of Ireland and the Trinity Foundation. The aim of the volume is to bring together the work of the scholars in Turkey who specialise in and have publications on the specific writer to provide a compendium of research on one specific Irish writer. The third conference and the ensuing volume in the Irish Writers Series has been devoted to Samuel Beckett the second Nobel laureate of Ireland (1969). He is one of the most widely discussed and highly prised writers of the twentieth century. Although he is one of the key writers of the Theatre of the Absurd he is also a novelist, poet and director. Although he is acclaimed to be one of the last Modernists he is also considered to be one of the first postmodernists. He had a wide influence and his works have been translated over twenty languages. He came from a well to do middle class Protestant Irish family. All his education was in Ireland and during his childhood he took music lessons; his involvement with music continued all through out his life and the musical aspect of language became an important element in his works. He studied French, Italian and English at Trinity College, Dublin. After graduating from Trinity College he went to Paris where he met James Joyce which had a profound affect on him. He returned to Ireland and continued his academic training at Trinity College but after a short while he resigned so as to be able to devote all his time  to writing. He travelled in Europe and after a brief period in Ireland he settled permanently in Paris. His early early works were strongly influenced by Joyce. His plays were concerned with human suffering and survival in an incomprehensible world. Although he was a native English speaker the majority of his works after 1947 were written in French, however he translated all of them into English. The plays he produced during this period are considered to be instrumental in the Theatre of the Absurd. In the 1950s he produced outstanding prose works. He took interest in the staging of the plays and consequently became a theatre director and also began writing for radio, cinema and television. The works of his late period display a tendency towards compactness and display a minimalist approach. This volume is comprised of studies focusing on different aspects of Beckett’s works. The first chapter by Aysegül Yüksel deals with , Beckettian drama from the perspective of man’s place and function on earth and the issue of his mortality. She points out that Beckett was fully aware of his tragic inheritance but he believed that in the twentieth century in the face of traumatic experiences man needed to redefine himself and search for meaning. She discusses the post tragic position of the Beckettian hero as one that concentrates on the depiction of suffering in the aftermath of the catastrophe. The second chapter by Oya Batum Mentes,e deals with “Bing”, one of Beckett’s shortest works drawing attention to its enigmatic nature both contentwise and genericly. She also argues that it is a postmodern work which uses language itself to reflect meaninglessness and shapelessness of modern life. The third chapter by A. Deniz Bozer presents an indepth study of Not I , Beckett’s “dramaticule” which reflects his existentialist stance although he himself refused to be classified as an existentialist. The fourth chapter bu Aytül Özüm proposes that although some critics may argue that Beckett’s fiction is an “affirmation of the negative” Beckett’s Molloy does present an attempt towards achievement and hence still offers some affirmative stance rather than one presenting man’s total failure in self-fulfilment and physical and mental disintegration. She states that the two narrators of the novel both in a way try to carry out deeds which may be defined affirmative and to some extent  exercise their free will. Chapter five by Neslihan Ekmekciog˘lu deals with an aspect of Beckett’s works that has not received the attention it deserves; she discusses how music influenced and shaped his works. She presents an account of Beckett’s musical background and analyses the musical qualities of the writer’s work specifically focusing on Murphy. The final chapter by Sinem Sancaktarog˘lu Bozkurt deals with Beckett the translator, especially as an interlingual translator of his own works. Beckett wrote most of his works in French, as he stated it gave him more freedom “to write without a style” although he was a native speaker of English. The study presents an analysis of his self-translations where different from ordinary translation the writer introduces variations and alterations to the texts. I hope this volume will in its own way contribute to the studies on Samuel Beckett’s works and provide fruitful and enjoyable reading. Burçin Erol