Women in Samuel Beckett's Prose and Drama

Beckett's early writing is structured upon very sharply defined gender polarities. Objects of alarm, lust, derision, or indifference, women incarnate the 'Other', Beckett's shift from fiction to stage and media drama - giving a voice to women - unsettles this adversarial structure. In the later prose and drama, gender qualifies Beckett's people for neither fear nor favour. Mary Bryden's analysis, embraces not only Beckett's published prose and drama, but also a number of unpublished and draft manuscripts from Reading University's Beckett Archive.