Human Wishes (c. 1936–1937, fragment) by Samuel Beckett (Analysis)

 

Human Wishes (c. 1936–1937, fragment)

by Samuel Beckett

(Analysis) 

Analysis of Human Wishes (c. 1936–1937, fragment) by Samuel Beckett

Human Wishes stands as a fascinating early experiment in Beckett’s dramatic development—a work that is at once traditional in structure and strikingly modern in spirit. Though unfinished, the fragment reveals a young writer already wrestling with the philosophical tensions that would later define his major plays. Through his portrayal of Samuel Johnson during the period of composing The Vanity of Human Wishes, Beckett explores the irony, fragility, and ultimate futility embedded within human aspiration.

At the heart of the fragment lies a profound thematic contradiction: Johnson is writing a poem that critiques human ambition while being driven by ambition himself. This duality forms the central dramatic tension of the piece. Beckett does not rely on external conflict or elaborate plot developments. Instead, the drama unfolds internally—through Johnson’s reflections, anxieties, and strained domestic interactions. The true battlefield is the mind.

Beckett presents Johnson as a figure suspended between intellect and vulnerability. He is brilliant, disciplined, and morally serious, yet deeply insecure and haunted by failure. His financial instability, social uncertainty, and his wife Tetty’s declining health intensify his psychological unrest. In this way, the fragment becomes less a historical reconstruction and more a study of existential unease. Johnson is not simply an 18th-century literary figure; he becomes a universal symbol of humanity’s restless striving for permanence in a transient world.

The use of verse is particularly significant. By employing poetic dialogue, Beckett mirrors Johnson’s intellectual world while simultaneously creating a sense of distance. The elevated language heightens the seriousness of the themes—ambition, mortality, fame, decay—yet also exposes their tragic irony. The formal structure contrasts sharply with the emotional instability beneath it. This tension anticipates Beckett’s later technique of pairing stylized language with existential despair, most famously realized in Waiting for Godot.

A striking feature of Human Wishes is its preoccupation with futility. Johnson’s reflections echo the central argument of his poem: that power collapses, wealth corrupts, beauty fades, and knowledge cannot shield one from suffering. Yet Beckett deepens the irony by showing that awareness of futility does not eliminate desire. Johnson knows the vanity of human wishes—and still wishes. This insight becomes one of the most enduring themes in Beckett’s oeuvre: consciousness does not liberate humanity from longing; it intensifies the burden of it.

Furthermore, the fragment’s incompleteness is thematically resonant. The unfinished nature of the play mirrors the unfinished nature of human striving itself. Just as Johnson seeks lasting achievement in a world defined by impermanence, Beckett’s text remains suspended—without resolution, without finality. The fragment thus becomes a subtle embodiment of its own subject.

In examining mortality, ambition, and disappointment, Human Wishes foreshadows Beckett’s later existential minimalism. While it retains traces of conventional historical drama and poetic structure, its emotional landscape is unmistakably Beckettian: subdued, ironic, introspective, and quietly tragic.

Ultimately, the fragment reveals a writer in transition. Beckett has not yet stripped the stage bare as he would in his later masterpieces, but he has already begun stripping away illusions. Through Johnson’s struggle, Beckett probes a timeless truth—that human beings are compelled to desire meaning and permanence even while recognizing their fragility. The tragedy is not merely that wishes fail, but that we cannot stop wishing.