Samuel Beckett's articulation of unceasing inner speech

The literal sounds in his characters' minds express a subtle and revealing understanding of how we all talk to ourselves

Hearing voices: what's your experience when reading?

In a letter to Alan Schneider in 1957, Samuel Beckett wrote that: "My work is a matter of fundamental sounds (no joke intended), made as fully as possible, and I accept responsibility for nothing else. If people want to have headaches among the overtones, let them. And provide their own aspirin."

This laconic statement has nourished a vast array of critical readings focusing on the sounds of words and the presence of music in Beckett's fictional worlds. However, undoubtedly the most ubiquitous sound in Beckett's work is that of the mysterious voices buzzing, murmuring or whispering within the heads of his characters. To borrow from the narrating figure in The Unnamable (1953), the narrative core of Beckett's dark universes seems to be "all a matter of voices; no other metaphor is appropriate". The question is: to what extent are voices in Beckett's fiction just metaphorical presences?

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