Neither nothing nor being: Beckett Derrida Heidegger

Abstract

The thesis examines the work of Jacques Derrida alongside two major writers in twentieth century literature and philosophy: Samuel Beckett and Martin Heidegger. By reading Derrida between the works of a philosopher and a literary writer, to whom he has expressed a sense of either proximity (Beckett) or indebtedness (Heidegger), the thesis aims to establish that a consistent a??deconstructivea?? logic, which is neither philosophical nor literary, applies in specific ways in texts that are otherwise rather different. The aim is to clarify both the special character, and the force, of procedures of deconstruction, as they emerge under the terms theatricality, excess and, ultimately, justice. This special character and force can be interpreted as operating rather differently in the texts of all three writers and can be located as residing between two profoundly metaphysical categories, being and nothing, but in ways that are reducible to neither.