Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Not I / Pas moi

MS-UoR-1227-7-12-1-analysis

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Segment 1

Birth ... hole in bog - name forgotten - parents
unknown - premature - no love - [waifs' home]

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Segment 2

Field ... [aetat.] 65 - picking cowslips to make a ball -
April morning - idly - stop & stare into space
- eye fixed on distant cowslip & going towards it
when all went out - fantasy of returning there -
lie down face in grass - nothing but the larks

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Segment 3

insentience ... first total - doesn't know what position
she's in - only eyelids moving since [ray]
disappears - this questioned with memory
of field - then lips moving and [whole]
speaking apparatus - also eyes 100° - (mention
earlier!!
) cut - fear lest this extend to whole
frame [unfounded] so far -

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Segment 4

So far .. [with] ref. to no pain from beam - [now
extrusion of puking] - amplify

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Segment 5

buzzing .. so-called - not in ears but heart of skull -
preventing her from hearing - from thinking -
dull roar like falls - now regularly [forgotten]
in [enumeration of woes]

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Segment 6

brain .. working from beginning - first thought -
[next though ] always much later - gets
gradually out of hand - raving - flickering
[around] - snatching at straws - bringing
up past - preventing her from hearing -
the odd thought like the odd word - no
idea what she's thinking - flashes in the dark -
can't stop it (amplify)[]

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Segment 7

memories .. shopping centre - [fined] - odds & ends of
walking - one time she cried - add to

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Segment 8

speculations .. perhaps something she had to say - (how it had been e.g.)
perhaps something she had to think -
then forgiven - back in field - both
denied by "interrupter"

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Segment 9

walking .. walking all her days - stop & stare into
space - amplify []

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Segment 10

punishment
suffering ... first thought punishment - merciful God -
waifs - [denied since] not suffering -
[questionable] if thought to be suffering -
failure to simulate suffering (groan)
amplify - tho not explicitly stated
[suffering begins] with voice [&] thought
& buzzing

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Segment 11

interruptions .. to [propose] 1st person "what? - who? - what? -
no - no!" (passim) - to remind of
buzzing (passim) - to correct age (bis) -
to deny she had to say tell anything (how reconcile with )
to deny she had to think anything (bis)
to object to bog (1) []

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Segment 12

[beam] ... from beginning - moon image - moon
denied - just part of punishment -
but [pain]less - so far - same spot at
first (not [explicitly stated] made clear) [then] flickering
(analogy with thought) - ferreting -.
pain beginning (not made clear) []

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Segment 13

speechless ... speechless infant - all her days - vowel sounds rare
occasions - ex. supermart - another ex. - how she survived []

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Segment 14

voice ... always stream - not the quarter - first denied
as hers - in spite of sounds - then accepted [when]
lips move - no idea what she's saying - can't
stop it - amplify []

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Title 1
Analysis
Transcription
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