ABSTRACT
The present chapter focuses on describing the phenomenology of the feeling of loneliness through a discussion of Rockaby, a play written by Samuel Beckett. It demonstrates how the experience of loneliness has an affective quality of “nameless dread” (Bion, 1962), and “unthinkable anxiety” (Winnicott, 1967), which allows it to be expressed not on the symbolic level but rather mainly on the semiotic, pre-verbal and pre-linguistic level. The auteur argues that from a phenomenological and psychoanalytic point of view, the experience of loneliness is not a static event but a persistent struggle between life and death Instincts, a continuous process of withdrawal, depletion, calcification, and finally mental annihilation. The uniqueness of Rockaby lies in Beckett's use of unique dramatic techniques that amplify the representations of the text's semiotic effect. The play allows the reader to experience the feeling of loneliness “from within,” as an aesthetic feeling in Meltzer's terminology (1988), which arouses, generates, and motivates consciousness.
