Watt: Samuel Beckett’s Sceptical Fiction

Abstract

As Lawrence E. Harvey pointed out in his admirable study,¹ one of the earliest conversational exchanges in Watt (1945; published in 1953) serves to adumbrate the novel’s concerns. The speakers in this conversation are Mr Nixon and Mr Hackett; their subject is Watt, who has stepped off a tram one stop before the railway station and proceeded to walk the remaining distance to the terminal. Their curiosity about the Chaplinesque Watt, apparently ‘wrapped up in dark paper and tied about the middle with a cord’ (16),² focuses on who he is and what he is doing. Mr Nixon, who once lent Watt some money, is asked by Mr Hackett to ‘describe your friend a little more fully’:

I really know nothing, said Mr. Nixon.

But you must know something, said Mr. Hackett. One does not part with five shillings to a shadow. Nationality, family, birthplace, confession, occupation, means of existence, distinctive signs, you cannot be in ignorance of all this.

Utter ignorance, said Mr. Nixon.

He is not a native of the rocks, said Mr. Hackett.

I tell you nothing is known, cried Mr. Nixon. Nothing.

A silence followed these angry words, by Mr. Hackett resented, by Mr. Nixon repented (21).