Frank Foley
Frank Foley
DANTE AND THE LOBSTER
Beckett, Samuel
Published: 1934
Category: Short Story
Themes: life and death; youth, intelligence and inexperience; the joy and horror of ritual
Overview
Philosophical, existential, and sobering, Dante and the Lobster, published in the 1934 story collection, More Pricks than Kicks, is in my opinion, one of the greatest short stories ever written. And that ending!
Frank's highlight!
The last sentence. Those final three words where the narrator throws aside any semblance of objectivity to reinforce our uneasiness at the plight of the lobster, and dismiss Belacqua's attempt to conceptual mitigate its sufffering. "...it's a quick death, God help us all. "It is not."
Life-affirming / uplifting message
The care and attention to detail with which Belacqua's goes about his sandwich making is something to behold! It's a essentially human process, from initial conception in the mind, and intent to bring the sandwich into reality, to actually taking the steps to make it happen. Of course, there's a thread linking Belacqua's process and the traditional process of cooking lobster. What do you think?
Life wisdom
Life is full of harsh realities, many of which we can only learn through experience. Understanding that there are perspectives completely at odds with one's youthful idealism, gives us insight into the complexity of the world. This doesn't always mean passive acceptance, but rather, knowledge with which to act.
A Personal Note
Sometime back in 1995, when most of the students of the University of Wales, College Cardiff, had gone home to their families for the summer, I experienced a moment that can only be described as a mixture of existential terror and sublimity. I was in the middle of a library shelves browsing session, and I'd come across Samuel Beckett. We'd studied his plays Endgame and Waiting for Godot, so I was familiar with his work, and eagerly picked up a collection of his short stories, More Pricks than Kicks. I flicked it open and began reading the first story, Dante and the Lobster. It's dramatic to say it now, all these years later, but something in me changed that day. Twenty or so minutes to read words written decades before, by a man long now since dead ... that have stayed with me a lifetime. They say literature is dead, that it's devalued in the face of technology in the 21st century. It is not.
Quoted passages
QUOTE: "His aunt was in the garden, tending whatever flowers die at that time of year. She embraced him and together they went down into the bowels of the earth, into the kitchen in the basement. She took the parcel and undid it and abruptly the lobster was on the table, on the oilcloth, discovered.
“They assured me it was fresh,” said Belacqua.
Suddenly he saw the creature move, this neuter creature. Definitely it changed its position. His hand flew to his mouth.
“Christ!” he said, “it’s alive.”
His aunt looked at the lobster. It moved again. It made a faint nervous act of life on the oilcloth. They stood above it, looking down on it, exposed cruciform on the oilcloth. It shuddered again. Belacqua felt he would be sick.
“My God,” he whined, “it’s alive, what’ll we do?”
The aunt simply had to laugh. She bustled off to the pantry to fetch her smart apron, leaving him goggling down at the lobster, and came back with it on and her sleeves rolled up, all business.
“Well,” she said, “it’s to be hoped so, indeed.”
“All this time,” muttered Belacqua. Then suddenly aware of her hideous equipment: “What are you going to do?” he cried.
“Boil the beast,” she said, “what else?”
“But it’s not dead,” protested Belacqua, “you can’t boil it like that.”
She looked at him in astonishment. Had he taken leave of his senses.
“Have sense,” she said sharply, “lobsters are always boiled alive. They must be.” She caught up the lobster and laid it on its back. It trembled. “They feel nothing,” she said.
In the depths of the sea it had crept into the cruel pot. For hours, in the midst of its enemies, it had breathed secretly. It had survived the Frenchwoman’s cat and his witless clutch. Now it was going alive into scalding water. It had to. Take into the air my quiet breath.
Belacqua looked into the old parchment of her face, grey in the dim kitchen.
“You make a fuss,” she said angrily, “ and upset me and then lash into it for your dinner.
She lifted the lobster clear of the table. It had about thirty seconds to live.
Well, thought Belacqua, it’s a quick death, God help us all.
It is not.