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"Nothingness/ In Words Enclose" : Supplementarity And The "Veil" Of Language In Samuel Beckett's Murphy And Watt, Justin P. Jakovac

Master's Theses

Samuel Beckett has asserted that language is a "veil" in which he must "bore one hole after another..., until what lurks behind it - be it something or nothing - begins to seep through." This thesis employs Derrida's assertion that language involves the play of differance and the supplementarity of the sign. Since the supplement, in Derrida's words, "fills and marks a determined lack," language calls attention to the gap of nothingness already present in the play of differance. Murphy and Watt present both the desire for "semantic succour" of the veil and the awareness - more fully …