First Love (Première amour) by Samuel Beckett (Analysis)

 

First Love (Première amour)

by Samuel Beckett

(Analysis) 

Analysis of First Love by Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett’s First Love is a bleak and ironic exploration of human isolation, emotional incapacity, and the absurdity of intimacy. Written in 1946, the story reflects Beckett’s emerging existential vision and anticipates the themes and techniques of his later works. Through an alienated first-person narrator, Beckett dismantles conventional notions of love, family, and social belonging, presenting human relationships as intrusive rather than fulfilling.

The narrative opens with the death of the narrator’s father, an event traditionally associated with grief and emotional reckoning. However, the narrator reacts with indifference, treating the death as a logistical inconvenience rather than a loss. This emotional detachment immediately establishes the narrator’s estrangement from human feeling. His expulsion from the family home reinforces the theme of homelessness, both physical and psychological, which runs throughout the story. The narrator exists on the margins of society, drifting without purpose and resisting all forms of attachment.

Central to the story is the narrator’s relationship with Lulu, later renamed Anna. Rather than functioning as a romantic partner, Lulu represents the persistent presence of human connection that the narrator seeks to avoid. Her attempts at care, conversation, and intimacy are perceived as violations of his need for solitude. Beckett subverts traditional gender and romantic roles: Lulu gives without receiving, while the narrator takes without gratitude or responsibility. Love, instead of being redemptive, becomes a burden.

Beckett’s portrayal of sexuality further reinforces this anti-romantic vision. Physical intimacy is stripped of passion and emotional meaning, described in mechanical and uncomfortable terms. The narrator’s inability to experience desire or affection underscores his alienation from his own body as well as from others. Sexual relations are reduced to an obligation or irritation, aligning with Beckett’s broader depiction of the human body as a site of suffering rather than pleasure.

The birth of the child marks the climax of the narrator’s psychological conflict. Fatherhood, which typically signifies continuity and responsibility, is here experienced as an unbearable intrusion. The crying infant symbolizes the inescapable demands of life and human dependence. Unable to tolerate disorder, noise, and obligation, the narrator abandons Lulu and the child without remorse. His departure affirms Beckett’s bleak assertion that human beings may be fundamentally incapable of sustaining meaningful relationships.

Stylistically, First Love employs a sparse, ironic prose that mirrors the narrator’s emotional emptiness. The first-person narration limits the reader to a consciousness marked by obsession, routine, and withdrawal. Beckett uses dark humor and understatement to expose the absurdity of existence, particularly through the contrast between the story’s title and its content. The “first love” of the title is neither loving nor transformative, but merely another failed encounter with life.

Philosophically, the story aligns with existentialist thought, particularly in its emphasis on alienation, freedom, and the absence of inherent meaning. The narrator exercises his freedom not by choosing engagement, but by repeatedly choosing withdrawal. His final return to solitude suggests that escape from human connection is both his greatest desire and his greatest limitation.

In conclusion, First Love is a powerful early example of Beckett’s existential and absurdist vision. Through its anti-romantic narrative, emotionally vacant protagonist, and minimalist style, the story challenges traditional literary representations of love and human fulfillment. Beckett presents love not as salvation, but as another form of suffering—one that the narrator ultimately refuses to endure. The story thus stands as a profound meditation on isolation and the limits of human intimacy.