Rough for Theatre II (Fragment de théâtre II, written c. late 1950s, published 1976) by Samuel Beckett (Key Facts)

 

Rough for Theatre II (Fragment de théâtre II, written c. late 1950s, published 1976)

by Samuel Beckett

(Key Facts) 

Key Facts: Rough for Theatre II

 

Full Title: Rough for Theatre II (Original French: Fragment de théâtre II)

 

Author: Samuel Beckett

 

Type of Work: Experimental/Fragmentary Play

 

Genre: Absurdist Drama / Philosophical Theatre / Minimalist Drama

 

Language: Originally written in French; widely available in English translation

 

Time and Place Written: Late 1950s, likely in Paris or Dublin, during Beckett’s late minimalist phase

 

Date of First Publication: 1976

 

Publisher: Grove Press (English translation)

 

Tone: Detached, clinical, bleak, existential, and unsettling

 

Setting (Time): Indeterminate; appears timeless, suspended between present and existential eternity

 

Setting (Place): Minimalist and abstract; interior space with a table and papers, C near a window or ledge, possibly a room or undefined administrative space

 

Protagonist: C (the silent figure whose life is evaluated)

 

Major Conflict: C’s life and worth are under examination by A and B, who decide whether he should continue to live; the conflict is existential and procedural rather than physical or emotional

 

Rising Action: A and B review documents, testimonies, and observations about C, debating the meaning and value of his life while grappling with ambiguity and contradictions

 

Climax: A and B reach a decision regarding C’s fate, concluding that there is no sufficient reason to preserve his life

 

Falling Action: C quietly exits, implied to move toward death, while A and B close the file without emotional response

 

Themes:

Judgment without empathy

Human life reduced to data

Silence and voicelessness

Conditional existence and expendability of life

Authority, power, and bureaucracy

Collapse of meaning and narrative coherence

Death as procedural closure

 

Motifs:

Silence and stillness

Fragmentation of identity

Bureaucratic procedure

Repetition of reading and deliberation

Physical separation (table as barrier)

 

Symbols:

Table → authority and separation

Files and papers → reduction of life to data

Pencil → administrative power, erasability of life

Window/ledge → threshold between life and death

C himself → vulnerability, voicelessness, existential suspension

 

Foreshadowing:

C’s position near the window/ledge foreshadows the inevitability of his disappearance or death

The repeated examination and unresolved contradictions in the files hint at the futility of intervention

A and B’s procedural detachment signals that the outcome will be determined by system rather than compassion.