Texs for Nothing

Beckett questions the relativity of time in “Texts for Nothing” by juxtaposing the words “here” and “there”. He writes, “there never much varied, only the here would sometimes seem to vary.” Here is the present which changes constantly. There is the past which does not change, because the past has no place to change. One line which displays the relation of time to the speaker’s self is when he says, “I had only been here, now I’m here still, soon I won’t be here yet.” Again the word here is the present and the narrator is trapped in the present. Until the final clause when he says, “soon I won’t be here yet.” Is there some lag in memory which pulls the narrator from the present?

The voices of “Texts for Nothing” are not merely two, but several. It is certain the entity of the narrator has multiple voices. This is seen when he says, “Ah yes, we seem to be more than one.” However, the use of “they” to refer to the other voices, by the “I” shows that this is not just a conversation including only the self and the body, but rather multiple selves trapped inside a body.