DENARRATION AND NARRATIVE PERSISTENCE IN SAMUEL BECKETT’S PROSE AND DRAMA

Abstract

This article examines Samuel Beckett’s prose and drama through the concept of denarration, understood as a narrational practice that undermines the world it appears to construct. Drawing on Brian Richardson’s theorization of denarration and situating Beckett’s work within a broader modernist and postmodernist context, the article argues that Beckett’s dismantling of narrative does not signal the end of storytelling but rather exposes the minimal and performative conditions under which narrative can persist. This study shows how voice, silence, repetition, and interruption become the basic materials out of which narrative continues to emerge through a close reading of Beckett’s fiction and drama together, ranging from the early novels and poetry, such as The Trilogy, Waiting for Godot, and Krapp’s Last Tape, to the late prose works. The article reconceptualizes denarration not as narrative negation, but as a sustained poetic strategy that enables narrative persistence beyond plot, character, and verisimilitude.