Beckett's short story "The Expelled" has much in common with "First Love", discussed in an earlier entry. Oh, sure, it isn't about love, real or imagined, like "First Love" is, but the similarities of images and events are striking.
Like "First Love", "The Expelled" is a first person narrative. The narrator in both stories is a homeless man. In the case of "First Love" the narrator has been homeless for a long time. In the case of "The Expelled" the narrator is recently homeless, though not for the first time. Both narrators focus on minute details that most people would consider insignificant – smells, the date of his father's death, the proper way to count steps on a staircase.
Both narrators suggest that they should have had some kind of inheritance from their fathers, and both suggest that the fact that they don't is the result of chicanery on the part of others. In "First Love", the narrator arguably should have had his father's house, but was evicted by some undefined others. In "The Expelled", the narrator hints that he should have received money from his father's estate, but didn't for some uncertain reason. The only money he has is from a woman whose name he has forgotten and whose connection he cannot explain. As I read this, I thought that perhaps Beckett is writing about Esau – who was either cheated out of his inheritance by his younger brother or sold it to him for a meal.
Likewise, both stories have similar "return to the womb" images. In both, the narrator ends up in a plain room (the room emptied of furniture in "First Love", the stable in "The Expelled"). He enters a smaller container within the room (the sofa against the wall; the cab). Some other nearby (the child crying; the horse staring) disturbs the narrator and he leaves abruptly by a constricted passage (the furniture-clogged hallway; the stable window). In "The Expelled", the birth image is even more explicit because the narrator leaves head first.
And let us not forget one other detail. Both narrators are jobless, not because they cannot work, but because they choose not to work. Both narrators talk about how they wish to stay in a room, isolated from the world, and have their food brought to them. In "First Love", the narrator achieves this state, to some extent, until the child drives him out. In "The Expelled", the narrator simply describes his ideal state and bemoans his poverty which "compels [him] to bestir [him]self." In neither case do either try to better their financial situation so they might, one day, achieve that blissful state of isolation they so desire.
This hunger for isolation reminds me of the phenomenon called "hikikomori" in Japan, a form of extreme social withdrawal. While the phenomenon isn't isolated to Japan, it seems to be concentrated there, with estimates ranging as high as a million people, or about 1% of the population, isolating themselves from society. Often, they are young and live with their parents. They shut themselves in their room and come out rarely if at all. Their parents may not see them for months or years at a time, leaving food at their door and collecting the empty plates later. (NYT Article, Wikipedia Article)
Western psychologists and psychiatrists suggest the behavior is just another form of extreme social withdrawal due to severe depression. Japanese researchers suggest the hikikmoroi cannot cope with the intense pressures for conformity within Japanese culture and so withdraw. These aren't the kids who hang out in Shibuya on the weekends in goth or loli-goth attire, primping and posing for the cameras – or any of the other zoku. They aren't integrated into the various otaku subcultures that have their own support groups in Akihabara and on Internet sites like Futaba (aka 2-chan). They're the people whose difference isn't so trendy or well defined or controllable. They feel truly isolated and carry that to a physical level. Some are bullied in school. Some withdraw due to poor grades. Some just can't deal with some aspect of life in general.
Beckett's narrators seem to be a hybrid of the two theories of hikikomori and neither. Both have some limited social interaction with others. They live or move outside of a room. They do not have the luxury of living the hikikomori lifestyle.
But they long to live it. They exhibit signs of depression or are in situations that typically lead to depression. They see themselves as different and isolated from others. They have little or no desire to socialize with other people, each displaying some degree of misanthropy, which is not part of the hikikomori makeup. They have some of the signs, but not the full manifestation.
So why does Beckett focus on these kinds of characters – at least in these first two short stories? I'll think on that as the semester progresses, though I'm not fond of them so far. That deserves a brief note. I am intensely drawn to damaged characters, but to damaged characters that are trying to mend their damage, not who want to revel in it.
Beckett's characters are damaged and revel in their damage, want it to be worse, or want to be dead. I prefer damaged characters who want to live, to fight, to change. I suspect Beckett didn't believe that healing is possible, or at least that it isn't worthwhile. And, I'm sure a deconstructionist critic would turn my whole preference upside down and say Beckett's characters aren't "damaged" for wanting to be more so, I am for wanting to be less so, and the only sane people are those in the asylum.
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