Krapp's Last Tape

Krapp is a deeply lonely person. As a younger man, he intentionally isolated himself to focus on his work. In his quest for intellectual achievement, he rejected relationships with women as mere distractions from what he believed to be most important in life: serving his own literary aspirations. He pushed people away until he became the bedraggled and miserable person we see at seventy years old. Nearing the end of his life, he is full of regret and self-blame.

Krapp is, however, not altogether certain that he was wrong to sacrifice human connection for the sake of his work. After listening to the tape and calling himself a “stupid bastard,” he also muses that “maybe he was right” in thinking that complicated human relationships were too distracting (10).

Krapp’s search for a life of the mind is juxtaposed with the inescapable urges and shortcomings of his physical body. This is most strongly represented in Krapp’s Last Tape by his chronic constipation. This humbling malady always exists alongside his loftier intellectual and spiritual concerns. In the ledger, for instance, he notes an “improvement in bowel condition” right before mentioning the “memorable equinox” when he had his vision at the jetty (5).