@article{ref1,
title=""The aesthetics of relinquishment": Natural and social contracts in Beckett's "The end"",
journal="Samuel Beckett Today - Aujourd'hui",
year="2009",
author="Giles, J.M.",
volume="20",
number="",
pages="175-188",
abstract="This article explores the notion of Beckett as an ecocritical writer by considering Lawrence Buell's criteria for an environmentally-centered work in terms of Beckett's short prose piece &quot;The End.&quot; As the nameless narrator moves from a monastic to a hermetic to a mendicant existence and then to death by suicide, he cycles between city and country, growing increasingly anonymous. Beckett casts doubt on the ethics of the &quot;social contract,&quot; formed in human culture, and suggests that the &quot;natural contract&quot; between humans and their environment may be the viable one, although it may lead to relinquishment and death.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0927-3131",
doi="10.1163/18757405-020001015",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18757405-020001015"
}