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    A Study Guide for Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape"
    A Study Guide for Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape"
    A Study Guide for Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape"
    Ebook34 pages22 minutes

    A Study Guide for Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535826976
    A Study Guide for Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" - Gale

      4

      Krapp’s Last Tape

      Samuel Beckett

      1958

      Introduction

      In Bob Dylan’s When I Paint My Masterpiece (1971), the speaker expresses his weariness from ages of artistic trials as well as his excitement at the prospect of creating what will be his greatest work of art:

      Oh, the hours I’ve spent inside the Coliseum/Dodging lions and wastin’ time /Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle, I could hardly stand to see em. /Yes it sure has been a long, hard climb . . . /Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody /When I paint my masterpiece. /Someday, everything is gonna be different /When I paint my masterpiece.

      Like the speaker of Dylan’s song, the protagonist of Krapp’s Last Tape is also certain that he possesses the talent to change the world with his art but the focus of Beckett’s play is how Krapp’s certainty is worn down to a terrible moment of doubt and despair. Krapp ultimately realizes that nothing will ever be different and that his masterpiece has had no effect whatsoever in the world. The fact that Krapp wasted his life in pursuit of such a grandiose vision (as he calls it) marks the play as one of Beckett’s most ironic and chilling

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