Difference and the reality of fiction in a theoretical world: Beckett, Resnais, and Deleuze

This dissertation focuses on the years from 1959 to 1964 to investigate the theory of difference that emerged in Samuel Beckett's How it is (1964) and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour (1959). I posit the idea that their work expresses a similar notion of difference to that of Deleuze in Difference and Repetition (1967). All three texts, DR, HII, and HMA respond to unique events that forced them to address reality in, such a manner as to reconsider our ontological position in the world. Beckett, Resnais, and Deleuze's work has yet to be addressed together and in terms of the social and political imprints they had on the theory of difference. An overarching theme throughout this dissertation is the notion of the Deleuzian simulacrum which serves as the paradigm of difference. Chapter 1 introduces the major theoretical, social, and historic themes that appear throughout my research. Chapter Two investigates the world-wide backlash that occurred in fiction and philosophy as a consequence of the trauma inflicted by WWII and the unbelievable horrors of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Further, I establish Resnais and Beckett as consummate outsiders from the dominant movements of their time, the Nouvelle Vague and the Nouveau Roman respectively. Chapter Three begins with an examination of Resnais and HMA criticism and a review of Beckett and HII criticism. I conclude with the notion that Resnais and Beckett responded to nuclear destruction in a similar manner. Chapters Four and Five provide close readings and explications of Deleuze's theory of difference and repetition respectively in conjunction with HMA and HII. Chapter Six, concludes with a discussion of Deleuze's theory of difference and repetition as a function of the virtual and the actual. Lastly, there is a discussion of three possible directions this research has exposed with regard to HII and HMA; sense and event, Deleuzian signs, and the intersection of Possible Worlds theory and fictionality.