The circle of unmeaning: Beckett's "Come and Go".

Bennett, Michael Y.

By creating a circular pattern of unmeaning, Samuel Beckett writes "Come and Go" with a lack of signification so great that the language of the play takes on a hyper static (or hypermetrical) nature. Beckett does so with an examination of particularly problematic words, tonal meaning, and the function of questions. It is in the last question that everything falls apart and comes together. This is like Saussure, in that infinite possibility is raised only to be contained. In this extremely short play that contains mostly everyday dialogue among three women, Beckett deconstructs the symbol of the circle in order to make the audience feel uncomfortable with Language, itself.

A struggle for possession of the sign is found in Beckett's stage directions, which state that there are "no rings apparent" (Samuel Beckett, "Come and Go," Collected Shorter Plays [NY: Grove Press, 1984]: 196). At the end of the play Beckett directs that the Vi, Ru, and Flo join hands. They form a Celtic Knot, an interwoven circle meaning infinity. After this knot is made, Flo states, in her omnipresent monotone voice, "I can feel the rings" (195). How is the reader/audience supposed to deal with this statement? Clearly, like the Celtic Knot, these three elements are interwoven, but like the Celtic Knot, the circle is empty, or infinite. How can the "rings" be assessed when a ring signifies zero, circular and infinite, and even "O" and "Oh," not to mention jewelry and beautification? The ring is in a state of flux, just as the characters, in which Flo(w) can mean to circulate and Vi(e) can mean to strive for superiority, a very linear idea, or Vi(a) also forms a linear idea.

Particularly problematic are the three "Oh[s]!" Because the they are said with expressiveness, the reader/audience is sure to take note of them. Oh can be simply an expressive response; oh can mean zero and is connected linguistically (and with its linguistic history) to the letter O. The same absence, presence, nothingness and infinity are present (and in the stage directions Beckett writes that the Ohs are "three very different sounds" [197]). The Oh is related to the Celtic Knot, to the circle that it creates, to its infinity and its own negation. Beckett has successfully, in the way that he appeared to want it, constructed and deconstructed meaning from the signifier. However, the reader must remember that Beckett has taken possession of the sign only to give the power of possession to the audience/reader.

Another technique that Beckett employs to accomplish this repositioning of power is his use of monotone voices. Though "colourless" voices remove emotion (a key feature of this play that needs no explaining), colourless voices also create an unusual rhythm which is vital in the formation of the question because increases in pitch and speed are good indications of a question. With the voices that Beckett envisions, he almost removes the question.

It is in the question that Beckett has created a masterpiece. To understand what Beckett has done with the question one must chart them. If one starts with the first line, "When did we three last meet?", the response is, "Let us not speak" (194). However, "Let us not speak," as mentioned before, is not really an answer but more of a statement. This would be couplet number one (C1). C1 gives us three types of lines, the Question (Q), the Answer (A) and the Statement (S). If we continue to the next line, "Ru," we see a Statement, but by the reply, "Yes," "Ru" now becomes a Question as well, and "Yes" becomes a Question, too (and could be a statement as well). Thus, C2 continues the confusion of the question. Let us now view the play as question-couplets in a chart: C1 Q A/S C2 Q/S A/S/Q C3 Q A/S "Oh!" C4 Q A/S C5 Q/S/A A/S/Q C6 Q/S A/S/Q C7 Q A/S "Oh!" C8 Q A/S C9 S S C10 Q/S A/S/Q C11 Q A/S "Oh!" C12 Q A/S C13 QQQ A/S

The above demonstrates, first, the disintegration of the idea of what is a question, an answer and a statement (the three possibilities in our speech) leads to the three becoming one and the same, or all becoming none of them (by the time the reader gets to C9, it does not matter that the couplet appears to be a pair of statements, for the destruction of them already took place). Second, this is a structure that is close to being a perfect system but is flawed in minor ways, just like the primary colors earlier in this essay. It is almost symmetrical. Before the middle (second) "Oh!" there are three question-couplets, an "Oh!" and then four question-couplets. After the middle "Oh!" there are four questions and then two. To continue with the third point, we must make a somewhat evident conjecture first. This play closely resembles small talk, a quite persistent presence in Beckett. These women seem to know each other and seem to be gossiping. Because we know they used to sit in the playground, probably on a log, and are potentially sitting on a log again (for the audience cannot tell otherwise), we can suppose that their meetings are habitual. So now, if you assume that this is a habitual meeting, start with C13 and continue again to C1 without pause. Because of the flaw, there were almost four couplets (possibly seasons) between each "Oh" in a cycle that we, or Beckett, have almost created of twelve (possibly months), an almost perfect cyclical pattern--a circle, an Oh, an O, a zero, infinity, ad infinitum. There was almost total order resulting in chaos. But this is not the case. Instead, it is a Leap Year, it is thirteen, it is seven (seven "Successive positions" in "Notes"), it is three (three "Ohs!"), it is a prime number. It is only divisible by itself and one.

This play is the theatricalization of its very own essence--its arbitrary nature. It is this arbitrary nature that, when dramatized, leaves the audience in a state of uncertainty. What becomes subversive about Beckett's "Come and Go" is that the audience feels that they are walking on uncharted ground. But again, this play is not dramatizing those experiences; the play is exposing us to our own language and making us feel extremely uneasy about what we experience.

Michael Y. Bennett, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater