the early twentieth century. Taylor put
forth three principals for so reorganizing
the workplace as to increase profitability:
(a) greater division of labor; (b) complete managerial control of the workplace ; and (c) cost-accounting. Taylor believed that with employee motivation
being determined by financial considerations, the feeling that they were sharing in the increased profitability produced
by workplace reorganization would lead
ELEUTHERIA
1 95
employees to greater cooperation with
management. Taylor's emphasis on the
suppression of useless gestures must have
had a complicated appeal for Beckett the
man of the theater.
In large part, as might be expected,
companies that adapted scientific management paid no attention to its aim of creating a system of payments involving
profit-sharing. It is also believed that in
the name of simplifying the gestural
economy of the workplace , scientific
management as practiced robbed workers of the opportunity to make use of
their professional knowledge, their
qualifications, and their initiative.
p. 1 48
Bequet. In typography, a small strip of
writing added to a proof. Or, more to the
poin t here, a small part of a scene that
an author either adds or alters during
rehearsals.
p. 1 49
Canebiere. Well-known avenue
(Marseilles) leading to the port.
p. 1 50
Crevecoeur-sur-Auge . Literally ( and
Beckett loves these geographical
fantaisies: cf. Condom-on-the-Baise in
Three Novels) , Heartache-on-the-Trough.
p. 1 72
Manille. Card game where the ten
cards. For four players ( two against two) .
p. 1 76
Honor to whom honor. Shortened yet
completely self-contained form of the
196
SAMUEL BECKETT
New Testament expression Honor to whom
honor is du e (Romans 1 3:7) , and thus
equivalent to Beckett's A tout seigneur
( the correspondingly autonomous
abridgement of A tou t seign eur tou t
honneur) . Here and, a fortiori, in other
instances throughout this work, the
translator has tried to remain true to the
shape of Beckett's utterance: compressed, close to the bone, warily rationing its lyrical evocation amid the colloquialization of abstract thinking.
p. 182
Aspirin (A spirine) du Rhone. A standard
brand of aspirin.
Document Outline
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Introduction
Translator's Note
Acknowledgments
Eleuthéria Cast of Characters
Note on the Stage Set-Up and the Marginal Action
Act I
Act II
Act III
Notes