“A thing I carry about with me”

Abstract

This article discusses Sisyphus as a recurrent (philosophical) image in Samuel Beckett’s work. Starting from his prewar reading notes, it moves on to the 1940s and the radio play All That Fall (1956), which is studied in light of Albert Camus’s essays Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942) and L’ Homme révolté (1951). By focussing on how the radio play deals with the absurd, revolt, suicide and murder, the article reads All That Fall as one of Beckett’s most critical but overlooked engagements with Camus, merging classical and modern versions of the character Sisyphus.