Néomorts et faux vivants: communautés dépeuplées chez Beckett et Agamben

This article reworks and recontextualises the problematic of the unspeakable in Beckett’s Le Dépeupleur by reference to the recent work of Giorgio Agamben, and in particular the analysis of the figure of the Muselmann in Ce qui reste d’Auschwitz. As well as producing textual parallels with the ‘vaincu’ in Le Dépeupleur, the association of the Muselmann with unspeakability, exclusion and exception in Agamben’s work allows new light to be shed on the elusive project of Beckett’s text. In both cases, representation is avowedly impossible: while the narrative structure of Le Dépeupleur turns on a series of internal ‘errors’, Agamben’s theory in Ce qui reste d’Auschwitz is based on the impossible testimony of the Muselmann, a figure who by definition cannot bear witness.