SOURCE: Wilcher, Robert. “‘What's It Meant to Mean?’ An Approach to Beckett's Theatre.” Critical Quarterly (summer 1976): 9-37.

In the following essay, Wilcher maintains that in his works, Beckett strives to defy definition and leave the audience/readers disconcerted, yet searching for their own understanding.

Just as the ‘quality of language’ in Proust was more important than ‘any system of ethics or aesthetics’ [according to Beckett], so the quality of an experience in Beckett's theatre becomes more important than any system of ‘meaning’ that might be extracted from the words of the text or from the ‘symbolism’ of the sets, characters, and actions. A dramatic art is created that is ‘symbolic without symbolism’.

The purpose of this article is to explore further the implications of [his] statement ‘form is content, content is form’ for Beckett's drama and to show that the allegorical approach, which is misleading when applied to...