Cartesian Thought in Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable

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Griffin 10and detailed stories, such as the ever-deceptive Mahood and the sludge pile Worm, yetare all eventually identified as the narrator’s own creation: unconsciously crafted by thenarrator to deceive, to imprint false hope in his undertaking towards silence (Beckett387). Silence is the only plausible end, for the Unnamable knows no truth: truth is onlya word, and the narrator is unsure whether words are credible.Before dissecting the Cartesian aspects of The Unnamable, we must firstestablish an analytical outline; a summary of things examined. Primarily, theUnnamable and Descartes begin from comparable standpoints: both are inwardlyignorant and alone. After the groundwork is established, both begin to search for truth,and both capitalize on deception. Subsequent to this is the realization of self: what is theUnnamable, and what is Descartes? Individually, they both realize that they are thingsthat think and conceive, but where Descartes presses onward, the Unnamable lingers onthis question throughout the novel. Furthering this, The Unnamable and Descartes alsoconclude that deception originates from the self. Underneath the hypothetical “EvilDemon,” Descartes’ senses deceive him; the self-propagated Mahood deceives theUnnamable. According to both, deviance from knowledge exists because of selfrestriction.However, Descartes believes in a divine third party, a perfect being capableof perfect truth; therefore, Descartes knows he can never truly be deceived. TheUnnamable, however, dismisses the “supreme being” as lies (Beckett 299).Finally, the Unnamable and Descartes vow to continue. Whereas Descartesdedicates his life to further knowledge, the Unnamable devotes his to the desire forsilence, ending in essentially the same state as he began. In Trapped in Thought: AStudy in Beckettian Mentality, Eric Levy writes:
Griffin 11Thus, the Cartesian cogito and the Unnamable are rationalist contraries.Both begin in absolute doubt, and both begin with introspection. But eachuses doubt and introspection in a way opposite to that of the other.Whereas the Cartesian cogito doubts now in order to know or affirmapodictic and indubitable truth later, the Unnamable doubts now in orderto go on doubting in the future. (Levy 103)The Unnamable feeds off his methodology; his doubt is self-propagation, whereDescartes’ doubt is a stepping-stone. The Unnamable doubts for the sake of doubting,and Descartes doubts for the sake of truth. Despite the apparent differences, TheUnnamable, Discourse on Method, and the Meditations search for the same thing—knowledge—but acquire different results. As Descartes states, “I think, therefore I am,”the Unnamable says, “I think, therefore I am a mere state of confusion about identity”(Levy 102). The Unnamable is Cartesian thought as stark reality, Descartes’philosophies forced into a darker perspective, one characterized by imprisoningobsession.Both Descartes and the Unnamable begin in isolation, though the reasons fortheir individual environments vary. The Unnamable has no control over location, nochoice but to continue the discourse; it is as though he is a man, perhaps a skepticthinker, placed directly into his element. In her essay, “Where now? Who now?”Maurice Blanchot describes the Unnamable in dark isolation: “…and in fact TheUnnamable evokes something of this malaise of a man fallen out of the world, eternallyhovering between being and nothingness, henceforth incapable of dying as of beingborn, haunted by his creatures, meaningless ghosts he no longer believes in” (147). TheUnnamable has no immediate knowledge about himself, and thus continues to a
Page 1 and 2: In the silence you don’t know:Car
Page 3 and 4: Griffin 3Descartes begins Discourse
Page 5 and 6: Griffin 5physical and mental deviat
Page 7 and 8: Griffin 7the inner world to exist a
Page 9: Griffin 9une Metaphysique Parodique
Page 13 and 14: Griffin 13most part, in place. They
Page 15 and 16: Griffin 15mind: the physical state
Page 17 and 18: Griffin 17because his inanimate sta
Page 19 and 20: Griffin 19He has undermined any amb
Page 22 and 23: Griffin 22narrator is alone. Perhap
Page 24: Griffin 24Snider, Alvin. “Cartesi

Cartesian Thought in Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable

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