Krapp's Last Tape

Samuel Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape is a depiction of the individual’s interaction with the world. Beckett constantly keeps the play either in the future (as seen in the first stage direction), or in the past (ie. The tape). The reason for this indeterminate present is to portray reality. One does not, cannot, live in “real” time, because all recognition is exactly that recognition. We must process our intake of data which we observe before we produce meaning. And we produce meaning from everything. Beckett uses the example of the black ball’s meaning to Krapp to demonstrate this. Anything and everything is used my the human mind to produce meaning and in order to do that we must process all incoming observations. Therefore, we live in a constant state of memory or of looking into the future, dreaming of what the observations in our live will mean in after the present. The major place where this is seen is in Beckett’s stage direction to have the light on the recording station and everything else be black. The only see-able, knowable area in the play is used for memory (recordings of the past, or recording memories of the past), everything else (the present) is dark unable to be seen, it is unknowable. Beckett seems to suggest that life works this way, that humans must, by definition of being existential beings, live in the past or the future, but also must be unable to live in the present.