samuel beckett unborn

With The Friends of the Institute - in person or via Zoom - at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

In 1935, just before concluding two years of analysis with then trainee Wilfrid Bion in London, writer Samuel Beckett attended one evening of the "Tavistock Lectures" (CW 18, Ch 1) where he heard Jung speak of a young girl "who had never been born entirely." Beckett’s strong identification with the unborn archetype would infuse his characters for the rest of his life. Jungian analyst John Beebe believes that the unborn child is paired with the devouring mother archetype. For us to escape, something the young girl never had the chance to accomplish because she died (as Jung predicted), one must be able to initiate a ritual rebirth.

We will examine Jung’s descriptions of the devouring mother archetype, along with his accounts of “rebirth,” and consider how fully Beckett may have understood his own psychic condition—and how he drew upon it as both source material and structural “scaffolding” for stories that would later resonate so forcefully with the public.