Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable: The Logic of Gift and the Ethics of Narration

Abstract

The main character in Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable is the narrator, "I." He is heavily burdened with a sense of indebtedness that his sole possession, his voice, is accorded to him by the other. From the outset, he resists to use his voice which is a certain form of debt. But once narration has begun, he is compelled to use words in order to put a stop to narration. This ironic situation creates a self-reflected parody on the narrative structure within fiction. Simultaneously, it forces one to become aware of the exchange system that form the basic components in social economy. In particular, the narrator who denies and relinquishes his narrative and thus turns himself anonymous reminds oneself of the ethical subject who accepts the other as the irredeemable gift. However, in this work, the portrayal of the other is not drawn as a being who accords benefits but one who is divided and ambiguous. At one end, the other remains a being who gives life to the narrator, on the other hand, he appears as a despot who poisons the narrator and controls him with an antidote to such poison. Although the narrator struggles through narration haunted by the ambiguous other till the end of work, at the last moment, he somehow visions the possibility of transforming the heavy debt that had burdened him into a gift. He discovers that the indefinite deferral or repetition of time resists economic reason that compels the given to be returned and reciprocated at all rates.