Noli Me Tangere: Haptic Certitude in Beckett’s Eh Joe and Nacht und Träume

This article will examine the act of touch, real or imagined, in Beckett’s television plays Eh Joe and Nacht und Träume. The kinesis and soundscape of Eh Joe are structured around an absent (female) figure. The solitary body of this play is touched by the (absent) presence of an exterior, ghostly figure. In Nacht und Träume, there is a significant moment of touch: hands emerge from the darkness in the image dreamed by the lone figure. These hands also withdraw, and the dream fades. I argue that this reaching toward – and oftentimes failure to make – contact with the other is a key “haptic” element of Beckett’s aesthetic in these plays. Using the work of philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, I connect the act of touch as presented in these plays with its meaning in culture as a verifier of presence, human or divine. Touch, while it signifies an attempt to verify presence (one thinks of Doubting Thomas) also, in Nancy’s thinking, reveals an anxiety over presence, thus enabling a discussion of these plays in relation to their medium and the ghostly or ‘virtual’ bodies presented therein.