Krapp’s Last Tape: Routines and Rituals

In Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, Krapp is an old man who finds it extremely difficult to simply move and live, even in his own office. As we encounter him in the play, it seems as though he has resigned himself to a sort of retirement from life; he is still alive and going through motions, but he is no longer an active character. In this state, he still keeps up with little things that matter in his own

world created behind his desk, no longer interacting with others. Despite difficulty, he remains loyal to a few habits, whether for better or worse; these include retrieving, stroking, and eating of a banana; the unclear ritual of preparing a drink; and his obsessive need to relive life via his tape recorder. In many ways, Krapp is a slave to his habitual rituals and routines that have

worked themselves into bad habits, addictive in their own way.

Krapp is most peculiar when it comes to these routines. His habits tend to have harmful

effects with little or no pleasure. He scarfs down two bananas, knowing full well that they do bad

things to his digestive tract. As heard in a clip of a younger Krapp eating “regretfully, three

bananas”, we know Krapp is aware of the harm he has done to himself and has even

regretted it before. The way he is very calculated and precise about the ritual to find, stroke, and

eat the banana could indicate comfort, but only for an instant, as the effect is unpleasant. The

meticulous retrieving of the banana and also the retrieving of a drink off stage has a sort of meditative quality about it, as if Krapp has entered another mindset, where there is only the object and what he must do with the object.

Even looking up and listening to tapes is an exercise in this meditative state. The

way Krapp has filed his tapes is reminiscent of what a brain might look like: big reels of

memories, organized by letter and number. The ritual of the tapes does not just end with this

action, though; he continues it through to this act of remembering and trying to remember how he

had felt in the period the tape was originally recorded. Krapp is highly critical of the recorded Krapp, who is in turn critical of the Krapp recorded before him. This distortion is because he can never relive a moment exactly as it happened the first time, no matter how he tries. This self-analysis leads to a form of self-loathing; sometimes in the form of regret or something Krapp had once said that now sounds stupid to him. This occurs often in people in general when listening,

looking, or remembering past moments, because a person is constantly changing and growing and

will never be the same as he or she was in that moment. Recorded Krapp expresses his distain for

this paradox “Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to

believe I was ever as bad as that. Thank God that's all done with anyway”, while the ‘now’ Krapp listens and judges who he himself used to be. People are in constant flux, changing and growing, and therefore constantly critical of their past selves.

As it stands, Krapp seems an unreasonable man, eating bananas and reliving unattainable

memories, though both bring him pain. If we can assume what Albert Einstein theorized, that "the

definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”, we

can be led to believe that Krapp is either insane or expecting the same result. If we assume that

Krapp is, in fact, sane, since we have no way to prove otherwise, it seems Krapp is a completely willing participant in this pain. The reason behind this bizarre banana interaction appears to be lacking, except in that it is known; Krapp knows what will happen when he eats the banana.

Knowing in a way can be a source of comfort. A bad outcome might be more comfortable than a

new, unknown reaction; In this way, there is comfort in predictability, even in pain. This odd

source of comfort is present in Krapp’s choice of life; he chooses a predictable, living-in-the-past

approach rather than genuinely living and trying new things as he had once done as a boy.

Recorded Krapp even speaks of listening to random tapes and how he would like to

wander in the dark areas of his office. These things all point to a less predictable outcome, but

still more predictable than an active life. Listening to random tapes has a sort of margin; there are

only so many tapes and experiences that he could end up listening to. This margin is still less

predictable than the current Krapp, going through the list of tapes and picking out which one he

specifically wanted to listen to. This pattern shows how Krapp has grown to prefer predictability,

though many of the memories he listens to seem to make him upset. Recorded Krapp also speaks

about how he enjoys the darkness surrounding his desk. Darkness here strongly represents the

unknown, as one can’t see what lies within it. The young Krapp had once talked of roaming around in his darkness while the now Krapp sits at his little, lit desk, surrounded by darkness, only to peer into it. He does not seem to enjoy the adventure into darkness as much as he once had.

Age has taken a toll on Krapp’s sense of adventure and surprise; through the tapes, we

gather a sense of its decay into the mundane, monotony Krapp’s patterns cause. However,

Krapp’s reactions to the repetitive actions and moments relived will be in constant flux. Though

he is not doing much, Krapp, as a human being, is constantly changing and changing his mind

and self-critiquing through his habits and tape recordings. His reactions and attitudes toward these actions seem to be the only thing to have any movement to them. This is especially evident

because no matter how much displeasure these habits cause him, he never seems to vary or

change. This inability to shift is perhaps Krapp’s biggest flaw and what pains him most of all.