| Summary: | Beckett’s utilization of subjectivity is directly linked to his excavation of the carceral, restrictive, and debilitating formations which are vital to the structure of his plays. His preoccupation with confined bodies is expressed across multiple dramatic texts and the characters of Endgame, Happy Days, and Play are forced to endure such strictures to varying degrees. The carcerality imposed by or upon the characters in these plays is central to Beckett’s development of the dramatic trajectory of repetition, confinement, constraint, and immobility and, I argue, this demonstrates how Beckett’s drama utilizes subjectivity in a way that both engages and resists Sartrean themes. Beckett’s partitioning of the subject and the dispersal of the self bears striking resemblances to Michel Foucault’s work. This article parses panoptic constructions with Beckett’s portrayals of subjectivity, fragmentation, and debilitated physicality to establish how his treatment of subjectivity anticipates Foucault’s explorations of carcerality.
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