The Use of Literary Devices, Imagery, and Tone in Krapp’s Last Tape

Make sure that im not confusing metaphor with imagery; refrence draft corrections by professor. Also cite for paraphrases.

Ken Kesey’s figurative language in his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, suggests that broken individuals can connect and make each other whole again. The traumatic events that occur when the patients are younger still affect them in their current state. For example, throughout his life, Bromden has always been assumed to be deaf and dumb. When he spoke to people their “machinery dispose[d] of the words like they weren’t even spoken” (181). Kesey’s metaphor represents how Bromden feels that the Combine influences him. When Bromden speaks, the words do not “fit” in the listener’s brain and they ignore him (181). Being a large Native American man, Bromden does not fit into the mold that is set by the Combine (societal expectations), so

In the play “Tape” we are introduced with an unspecified person and unknown attendant. From the start of it all, there seems to be a bit of tension, but we don’t know exactly why. This is all fine but if the play had gone on longer, the readers would’ve had a chance to become more absorbed in the meaning, thus being able to relate. We find out somewhere

Imagery is a rhetorical strategy that is prevalently used in O’brien’s novel to create a close bond between reader and O’brien. The imagery

and subtle messages within the literary piece. His usage of this literary device conveys the

Ken Kesey’s figurative language in his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, suggests that broken individuals can connect and make each other whole again. The traumatic events that occur when the patients are younger still affect them in their current state. Throughout his life, Bromden has always been assumed to be deaf and dumb. When he spoke to people their “machinery dispose[d] of the words like they weren’t even spoken” (181). Kesey’s metaphor represents how Bromden feels that the Combine influences him.

“Function, which I have made central to the evaluation of imagery from a rhetorical perspective, is not, then, the function its creator intended but rather the action the image communicates, as named by the critic.” (Foss, 1994; 216)

When Walter Kirn, a young novelist struggling with impending fatherhood and a disintegrating marriage, decides to personally escort a crippled hunting dog from his home in Montana to the New York apartment of Clark Rockefeller, he sparks a peculiar 15-year relationship that plunges him deep within the world of a serial imposter, kidnapper and murderer. As Kirn unearths the truth about this psychopath impersonating an aristocrat, he is forced to confront and come to terms with his own demons.

The new desire for an uncomplicated life also stops him from developing a relationship with the opposite sex. Instead of pursuing females, he admires the “pattern” of their clothing from their “round Dutch collars” to their “silk stocking”. Krebs’ view of females is that they live “in such a complicated world” full of relationship issues. These issues keep him away because he does not want “any consequences” from the complications of a female. Krebs sees the girls as a “nice pattern. He liked the pattern”, but he cannot break into their pattern because it would deal with emotions. He believes that breaking the emotional pattern would not be worth the results.

Krapp, a cantankerous old man attempting to relive his “best years” by listening to a tape he recorded on his thirty-ninth birthday in Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape”, constantly pauses and allows silence to overwhelm him and his thoughts. By allowing the invasion of silence into the play, the spotlight is taken off of Krapp in a one man play supposedly about Krapp, as he cannot maintain control at the most basic level. The play begins and concludes with silence, and therefore silence is the first character the audience meets in the play, demonstrating its importance in controlling Krapp and his actions through the story. Throughout the play, silence constantly appears, whether in namesake or in the form of relentless pauses in Krapp’s speech, and dominates Krapp and his language. Krapp, in constantly submitting to the ever-present enemy of silence, demonstrates that he has no control over the story that is supposed to center around himself, and that silence is the character to overwhelm Krapp because it represents his fundamental flaw, his loneliness.

Kip’s nonchalant and self-sufficient personality is placed into plain comparison to that of the English patient, crippled and vibrant. Kip delivers a sense of safeness to Hana in the desolate villa which was missing since the hospital was bombed and the people left. Hana realizes how the villa seems somewhat uncomfortable with three men living with her at the villa yet she would not want to be anywhere else than in the company with them. She realizes Kip is the opposite of the English patient. Kip is alive, reticent, and in in a key place in life. When Kip and Hana become lovers, she becomes slightly irritated with Kip’s behavior when she expresses “his ability to turn so easily away from the world” (Ondaatje 31). Kip has built an emotional defenses while traveling throughout the world. Those defenses to him are not easily taken down, something which Hana does not understand. Journalist Sarah Caroll explains that “constructive communication is a resource or a capability that a couple can use to cope with demands of managing work” (Caroll et al., 3). Kip is not accustomed to communication with people. He likes Hana’s company yet will not admit himself to love her or get close to her for fear of loss. Hana later on will realize “he never allowed himself to be beholden to her, or her to him” (Ondaatje 31). Kip does not want to feel obligated to Hana for

When Kipps takes the journey to Eel Marsh House he is a young man who’s main ambition in life is to rise higher in his accountancy firm and to live a comfortable life. He has a dull personality, who doesn’t get worried easily nor let’s himself get distracted. “But I was, in those days of my

Like in Endgame, the main character has an accurate recollection of his past, but there is nothing left of it. Unlike 39 years old Krapp, 69 years old Krapp has no more expectation for his opus magnum and his “fire” is lost: “Nothing to say, not a squeak […] Seventeen copies sold, of which eleven at trade price to free circulating libraries beyond the seas”. Another similarity between Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape is the terminal hopelessness of the characters. In Krapp’s Last Tape, the only significant event Krapp may hope for is his own personal death, in Endgame it is perhaps the end of the world; in both cases, memory does not restitute or create meaning. This notion is further emphasized in Krapp’s Last Tape, as the tape recorder does not even have the advantage of being vague. The audience is made fully aware of how real Krapp’s past has once been, and, implicitly, we are told that he had discovered some transcending meaning, a reason to give up everything, even his chance at happiness. Nonetheless, the machine leaves Krapp wilted, a mere husk, to whom even the benefit of waiting is denied because there is nothing to wait for. Krapp merely exists to exist; he is at one of the last stages of Death as a process. In the world of the existentialists were choice is deified, Krapp is godless and forsaken. In this sense, the machine becomes more of an instrument of torture, a constant reminder of the old Krapp’s helplessness as he contemplates how

In one example, Krapp manipulates his remembrance in a physical manner by turning the tape on and off. The reader learns that Krapp does this about six time in the play and at one point he even fast forwards the tape. He “[curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again]- unshatterable association until my dissolution of storm and night with the light of the understanding and the fire- [Krapp curses louder, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again]- my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side” (Beckett, 80). From this quotes, the first two times Krapp turns off the tape, he stops to think about the two women who appear to have had a great influence in his life. Based off of this quote is is also important to acknowledge that when Krapp fast forwards the tape, he is skipping the part about his creative vision, clearly not wanting to remember that point in his life. He listens to, “spiritually a year of profound gloom and indigence until that memorable night in March, at the end of the jetty, in the howling wind, never to be forgotten, when suddenly I saw the whole thing. The vision at last…[Krapp switches off impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on again]” (Beckett,

For example, he swayed his hand to and fro while one lantern was centered on him, creating a shadow on the wall. When the narrator was executing his “ingenious” plan for murder, he slowly entered the room, crouching down for what seemed like an eternity, and opened the lantern to shine light on his victim, showing his vulture-eye, therefore giving the narrator the motivation to kill him and giving the audience an uneasy feeling. The narrator's body language showed tension as he was anticipating the right moment to kill the old man and as he was lightly conversing with the police officer. During the majority of the play, the narrator would laggardly ascend and descend the stairs which captured his increasing uneasiness. The actor's true skill in portraying his character was most perceptible as he carried out the murder of the old man. He kills and dismembers him happily, clearly showing the audience that the character is in an unhealthy mental state. Additionally, the narrator continually explains to the audience that he is not insane and attempts to prove it by explaining his master plan of murdering and hiding the old man. However, the more the narrator explains to us how sane he believes himself to be, the more we believe he is not. To represent a change in setting, the narrator opens an imaginary door and paces up and down the stairs. To show time progressing, the narrator