Beckett’s Eyes

In class we looked at a picture of Samuel Beckett. WE discussed how he looked Kafkaesque and a little creepy. Yet, in his eyes I saw someone I knew from my childhood adventures on my friend’s ranch. My friend’s grandfather was the oldest cowboy I could remember ever meeting. His name was Mr. Valentine and his eyes matched Samuel Beckett’s or rather Beckett’s eyes matched his.

They both have a depth and tiredness that lends them the illusion of knowing more about the world than they could ever shear with anyone else. This wisdom of the world gives both these mend the power to disillusion those around them. They are able to enlighten those around them to reality even though reality is at times dull and dim. Beckett uses this power of disillusionment to remind us that the writer is simply creating whatever story he wants to and can at any moment remind the reader that none of it is real. Beckett reminds his readers that while it is nice to read stories and literature they are just stories and not to read to deeply into them. Mr. Valentine used this power when the greenhorn ranch hands got too full of themselves and forgot what working on a ranch really meant. I was often one of these greenhorns and unlike Beckett Mr. Valentine never told us straight up that reality sucks but we can’t ignore it. Beckett tells us “it was not midnight, it was not raining” but Mr. Valentine never told us working on a ranch is more that riding a pretty horse over the range. His favorite way of grounding us was to assign fence duty (riding the perimeter in the sketchy ranch truck and replacing any bent or broken fence posts and restringing wire) or work on weaning calves (he knew that the cries of calves half starving and ripped from their mothers was enough to sober us to reality).

Beckett’s eyes are those of someone who knows too much and has the unfortunate duty of sharing it with those around them running the bright, happy, illusion.