"I OPEN": Narration in Samuel Beckett's Cascando

This essay pursues a thorough analysis of narrative elements contained in Samuel Beckett's short radio play Cascando (1962) in order to support recent claims made by Brian Richardson, Monica Fludemik, Ansgar Nunning, Roy Sommer and Manfred Jahn concerning narrativity of drama. Stating that Cascando is exemplary for level of narrativity that can be found in dramatic texts, essay aspires to be a first step in providing practical research recognition of as a narrative genre demands.As might be expected, one of most compelling dramatists to employ narration on stage is Samuel Beckett, especially in his later work, where dramatic narrators and monologists create world around them as they name it.Brian Richardson, Unnatural VoicesI open.Opener, in Beckett, CascandoIn recent years, several narratologists have insisted on recognition of as a narrative genre, going as far as to declare the most important narrative genre whose narrativity needs to be documented (Fludemik 1996, 348). Brian Richardson provides a good summary of issue:It is conventionally assumed that, because plays are non-narrative, complex issues associated with theories of point of view can have nothing to do with stage. Furthermore, major theorists of both narrative discourse and semiotics of theater generally agree that is exclusively a mimetic genre, while fiction combines mimesis and diegesis.(1988, 193)Recently, several scholars have objected to this dichotomy between narrative and drama, pointing out presence of several diegetic elements in drama. Brian Richardson is widely considered pioneer of research in this direction. His work adapts concepts like 'narrative voice,' 'point of view' and 'narrative time,' typically associated with fiction, to world of theatre (see Richardson 1987, 1988 and 2001). Scholars such as Manfred Jahn, Ansgar Nunning and Roy Sommer and Monika Fludemik have followed in his footsteps. Their valuable contributions are a powerful plea to bridge gap between and narrative, a plea that is best summarized in Richardson's own words: Narrative and performance are two of most widespread and best appreciated cultural forms of our time: now, both seem to be everywhere. It is only appropriate that site in which they are fused together is given attention it deserves (2001, 690).Several of aforementioned scholars have insisted on practical narratological research of drama. I have already quoted Fludemik's request to document narrativity of drama, which dates back to 1996. She recently repeated her plea, agreeing with Nunning and Sommer's proposal for a research programme that assesses utility of narratological categories for analysis of drama (Fludemik 2008, 357). These two researchers further urge us to explore different ways in which novels and plays tend to use narratives (Nunning and Sommer, 347). Therefore, it is striking how little actual textual research has been done on subject. Although nearly all of previously cited articles mention several plays and briefly indicate their narrative qualities, few contain exhaustive textual analysis. Their objectives are situated on theoretical level, rather than practical, to call attention to possibilities of utilizing narratology in theory. The one exception I managed to find is again by Richardson, who wrote up an extensive analysis of narrativity in one of Harold Pinter's plays in his 1991 article 'Tinter's Landscape and Boundaries of Narrative. Suggesting that problems critics have had with Pinter may be owing to revolutionary nature of his work, he explains motivation behind article as follows:If Pinter is actually challenging fundamental elements of narrative, we will have to look to cornerstones of narrative theory in order to explain nature of Pinter's undertaking. …