"Ping" by Samuel Beckett

"Ping" was first written in French as "Bing" and published by Editions de Minuit in 1966.

Study Questions

Is "never seen" (69) a let-down after the opening "All known"?
What changes or developments are revealed at each repetition of a word, phrase or imagery? Follow some of these recurring items and notice where they lead, how they shift, expand or suggest other things.

all white

What happens in the text when the initial "all white" becomes "almost white"?
What happens in the text when "grey," "blue," "black," and "rose" are respectively introduced?

bare white body fixed
only the eyes only just
one yard
Light heat white
legs joined like sewn
heels together right angle
Traces blurs signs no meaning light grey almost white.
Head haught eyes light blue almost white
Traces
ping
same

How do the word, phrase or imagery developments illuminate the scope of our values, expectations, or imagination?
What body parts are mentioned? What effect does the emergence of a new body part have on the story?
What absolute words are used in the text and what non-absolute or approximate words?
Which words have ambiguous meaning?
What words are coinages? What meanings do they have?
How do the absolute and approximate words and meanings interact?

Beckett, Samuel. "Ping." First Love and Other Shorts. Grove Weidenfeld, 1974, pp. 69–72.

Ackerly, C. J., and S. E. Gontarski. The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought. New York: Grove, 2004. Print.

Bair, Deirdre. Samuel Beckett: A Biography. Rev. ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Print.

Gontarski, S. E., ed. A Companion to Samuel Beckett. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.

Knowlson, James R. Damed to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. Print.

McMillan, Dougald, and James Knowlson, eds. The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove, 1993. Print.

Pilling, John. The Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.