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

 

First Love (Première amour)

by Samuel Beckett

(Themes) 

Themes in First Love by Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett’s First Love explores a bleak vision of human existence through themes of alienation, the failure of love, absurdity, and the burden of bodily and social life. Written in the aftermath of World War II, the story reflects Beckett’s growing preoccupation with isolation and the inadequacy of human relationships. Through an emotionally detached narrator, Beckett subverts traditional literary themes, presenting love and domestic life not as sources of meaning but as oppressive intrusions.

One of the central themes of the story is alienation and isolation. From the opening sentence, the narrator reveals his emotional distance from others, responding to his father’s death with indifference. His homelessness after being expelled from the family house mirrors his deeper psychological homelessness. Throughout the narrative, he seeks solitude, preferring benches, silence, and routine over human company. Even when he enters a relationship, he remains inwardly withdrawn, highlighting Beckett’s portrayal of modern individuals as fundamentally isolated beings.

Closely related to this is the theme of the failure of love and intimacy. Despite the title First Love, the story deliberately undermines romantic expectations. The narrator experiences no emotional attachment to Lulu, later called Anna. Love is depicted not as mutual affection but as obligation, irritation, and discomfort. Lulu’s emotional investment is met with indifference, suggesting that love requires a capacity for empathy that the narrator lacks. Beckett thus challenges the romantic ideal that love can transform or redeem the individual.

Another important theme is the absurdity of human relationships. The narrator’s rigid routines, obsessive measurements, and emotional detachment create a sense of absurdity. His responses to major life events—death, sex, birth—are flat and mechanical, stripping them of traditional meaning. The contrast between society’s expectations and the narrator’s reactions exposes the absurd nature of imposing meaning on human existence. Beckett’s dark humor reinforces this theme, especially through ironic understatement and anti-climactic moments.

The theme of the body as a burden also plays a significant role. Physical existence in First Love is associated with discomfort, illness, sexuality, and noise. Sexual relations are awkward and unpleasant, and the birth of the child introduces physical demands that the narrator finds intolerable. The crying infant symbolizes the inescapable reality of embodied life. Beckett portrays the body not as a source of pleasure but as a constant reminder of vulnerability and suffering.

Finally, the story explores freedom and responsibility in an existential context. The narrator repeatedly chooses withdrawal over engagement. His final act of abandoning Lulu and the child reflects an assertion of personal freedom, but it is a freedom defined by negation rather than fulfillment. Beckett presents this choice without moral judgment, emphasizing the existential tension between autonomy and responsibility. The narrator’s freedom ultimately leads not to meaning, but back to isolation.

In conclusion, First Love presents a deeply pessimistic view of human existence through its exploration of alienation, failed intimacy, absurdity, bodily burden, and existential freedom. Beckett dismantles traditional themes of love and family, replacing them with a vision of life as intrusive, repetitive, and emotionally barren. The story’s enduring power lies in its uncompromising honesty and its challenge to comforting illusions about human connection.