Krapp's last tape

Krapp’s last tape

Krapp is the central character of the play. He is an ambitious but disintegrated man who harbors a dream to be a successful writer creating his “opus magnum”. But ironically he happens to spend solitary, secluded and hard life. He faces failure as a writer, lover and a member of society. His only companion is his own voice with which he interacts throughout the play. Krapp is an isolated a delineated character. At the age of 69 he is all alone. His isolation is self chosen and his tragedy is self invited. Krapp has isolated himself from human contact and love of a woman. He stays far away from any human companionship. He eagerly listens to the tape because he has no one to talk with. At the verse of his life he realizes that how alien and alone he are and what a terrible mistake he made for seeking human companionship. Krapp is also a failure writer. Krapp had a dream of becoming a successful writer but it did not happen. He devoted all his life to attend the popularity but at the end he got nothing. In search of a separate identity as a writer he gets able to sell only 70 pieces of his books. Krapp’s become such a writer whose work has reached no one and who artistic vision is total failure. His writing carrier infact gives him nothing except loneliness, frustration and darkness. His rejection of love, woman, society, companionship and light of life makes him feel alienated.

He is an absurdist hero. He struggle with meaninglessness and the world of nothing. Krapp and old, sordid, weariest man, dressed in rags and living alone in the den, listen to a tape recorder of his own voice recorded 30 years ago. Krapp had very ordinary youth. He had family including father, mother and beloved as well. He was in love two times. Every time he would make some promises not to repeat same thing. He breaks his love affair without any proper reason. In this way we can understand Krapp as such an absurdist character who becomes victim of his own choice. Krapp’s last tape shows how model human society is giving birth to isolation and alienation. Presenting a frustrated character Krapp who leaves his society and lives in the den, the play write has attempted to show that model human beings are living the life of isolation, fragmentation and emotional detachment. In the name of being modern human being are losing their emotional tie, harmony and internal tranquility. In this play Krapp’s leaves his society to establish himself as separate beings. He wants to be a successful writer to create his opus magnum. But later he could not get that expected height. Rather his life ends in loneliness and futility. At the final days of his life he had no one to cared and share. Rather he is accompanied by his own recorded voice. He is compelled to enjoy his retired life listening the same absurd voice of himself, regularly. Moreover, his isolation is his own choice.

Krapp distanced himself from the companionship and love afford by many people. In a dream of becoming a great artist, Krapp has broken many more relation in the past. At the age of 29 Krapp lived with the woman named Bianca, whose loved he later called a hopeless business. Though Bianca was beautiful lady with warm eyes, Krapp deliberately separated himself from her contact so that he could step forward on his path of becoming a successful artist. At his age of 39 his mother died. Since then he has been completely alone. To seek carrier and fulfill his ambitions Krapp eventually isolate himself from all these who come to interfere his dream. Then he chooses to be in darkness, keeping himself aloof from human contacts. As the age of 69 his only companion is tape recorder. At that time he might have failed the need of companionship. While playing the tape he becomes restless and moves to and fro. Its shows his lamentation. He seems to be sad, missing those days. It makes him loneliness more clear. At the end of the play Krapp ultimately sees how alien and alone is he and what a terrible mistake he made forsaking human companionship.

The tape recorder is the only one companion of Krapp. The cold and mechanical nature of a recorded voice reflects his essential isolation from human companionship and emotion. The tape recorder has a mechanical brain; it reminds him of all his life. Krapp has loosed his organic brain. He has been short sighted, myopic and reserved. He is physically and mentally weak. In such condition he is accompanied by tape. He deliberately distances himself from the living world and chooses to live in as mechanical world. Here the tape recorder is a symbol of the artificial society and mechanical love and relations. For the last 30 years Krapp had recorded all his life in the tape. His identity and important facts of his life are containing in the tape. Directly or indirectly his existence is related with a tape. Life without tape seems unbearable to Krapp. We can imagine how lonely Krapp will be if there was no recording of his past life. Rejecting the real life of love he has accepted his life with machine, the tape. At the age of 69 the tape has been the best friend of Krapp. The tape also plays as a character in this play. It makes him react in different ways. And absurd Krapp sometime switches on the tape and another time he switches it off. The mechanical brain has collected both pleasurable and unpleasurable moments of his life but Krapp tries to avoid the dark days and hard time of his past switches off the tape. When the tape reveals the death of his mother he pauses it and becomes restless and exists outside. So the tape alone could not replace the love and companionship he was getting before. He is hunted by his past life time and again.

Reference-

Klaus, C. H. (2013). New York: Oxford University Press.