Examining the use of language and the understanding of subjectivity in the Samuel Beckett theater

This study is based on the view that the relationship between language, truth and subjectivity affects theater and representation around changing philosophical views. From Ancient Greece to the 19. century, the logos-centered Western thought, in which language and truth coincide exactly, reflecting the essence of language and things and replacing them absolutely symbolically, was shaken by the linguistic and psychoanalytic developments in these centuries. The view that the man-made nature of language is not formed by the things themselves but by social consensus throughout history, especially since Descartes' thoughts, has displaced the cogito –coherent and integrated– subject idea. Language begins to be thought of as a system that the subject can not change, it changes only by the rules of social convention, and also changes the subject itself. This change causes a paradigmatic shift in all fine arts, especially in theatre. Thus, from Aristotle to Hegel, the understanding of classical drama, which developed with reason and speech, is subjected to some radical transformations. Rhe rejection of the classical representation with the historical avant-gardes couses the theater's drag into a period known as the "Representation Crisis". Language turns into a tool used to describe the fragmented structure of subjectivity with it's performative nature. Samuel Beckett brings different breath to this representation crisis that started with the Historical Avant-gardes with his absurd theater perception. Beckett's perception of language and representation offers a structure that is so open to reflection that it puts theater in a constant exchange between performance and text. Beckett sees language as the biggest obstacle for the truth. Therefore, language must be fragmented, and the light of the Real behind it must seep through the gaps of this fragmented language, through silences and diminished meanings. At this point, Jacques Lacan will be the most important name in that study. Lacan's linguistic studies and subject perception will be the main sources for the analysis of Samuel Beckett's plays. Beckett's plays who has the subject theory developed in the path of postmodern thought will be traced in the light of the idea that not the subject has the language, contrarily language has the subject. Keywords: Language, Subjectivity, Beckett, Lacan, Postmodernism.