To understand the process of ageing as a mass phenomenon and the attempt to break away from the existing structures of the normative and stereotypes, one needs to understand the constant tension between the personal narrative and the cultural narrative, what Hannah Zeiling calls as the meta -narrative. A life course in today’s typical gen industrial world is preeminently structured. It includes the age based transitions recorded and legitimized by the state which further authenticate certain social processes. The use of law, appearance, behavior, profession, work, living habits to include a few is some of the few institutions that validate age and thereby old age when a person advances in the number of living years. For e.g., in today’s world
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Memory acts as an important constituent of the play which “reinforces the horror of the present” ( White 22). The tape recorder becomes a medium through which the old man is able to relive his memories. These memories and the past moments associated with them cannot be altered and therefore the happy pleasant moments continue to be so even when one looks back at them after years. A happy past or a fanciful memory would just be the same even if one’s present is not the same. However, Vincent White in his work Beckett and Decay also highlight the contrastive nature of these memories and souvenirs. Through a binary opposition that highlights a pleasant past, one’s horrifying past is also brought into focus. Memories as metaphors continue to strive to create an illusion that time and life in general is irreversible and a medium to relive those moments that can technically be never relived and the tape reader becomes a very fine example of it. However, how fruitful are these escapades is the question that becomes important. What is the desirability to shun the present and the individual selves for the past memories when all it does it to provide brief patches of escapes and can never be an alternative to reality. Why this escapism and this attitude becomes so fundamental in the old age. The need to look back and ponder with nostalgia at the lost past is very fundamental to a particular age. Age may limit a man physically but should not mentally and Krapp stands as a brilliant exemplar of it. The memories are locked in the mind and will contrive to be there while the body ages and
Memory acts as an important constituent of the play which “reinforces the horror of the present” ( White 22). The tape recorder becomes a medium through which the old man is able to relive his memories. These memories and the past moments associated with them cannot be altered and therefore the happy pleasant moments continue to be so even when one looks back at them after years. A happy past or a fanciful memory would just be the same even if one’s present is not the same. However, Vincent White in his work Beckett and Decay also highlight the contrastive nature of these memories and souvenirs. Through a binary opposition that highlights a pleasant past, one’s horrifying past is also brought into focus. Memories as metaphors continue to strive to create an illusion that time and life in general is irreversible and a medium to relive those moments that can technically be never relived and the tape reader becomes a very fine example of it. However, how fruitful are these escapades is the question that becomes important. What is the desirability to shun the present and the individual selves for the past memories when all it does it to provide brief patches of escapes and can never be an alternative to reality. Why this escapism and this attitude becomes so fundamental in the old age. The need to look back and ponder with nostalgia at the lost past is very fundamental to a particular age. Age may limit a man physically but should not mentally and Krapp stands as a brilliant exemplar of it. The memories are locked in the mind and will contrive to be there while the body ages and