Samuel Beckett's Use of Color in Company: Blue

This article looks at Samuel Beckett's use of color in his late short prose text Company (1980). In its reference to Beckett's "Olympic" notebook, it demonstrates how Beckett's writing process is not merely visual but is also highly dependent upon color in its creation of atmosphere and setting. Instead of seeing Beckett's later work as simply deracinated and monochromatic, it suggests that his prose evidences a painterly style. By analysing Company from an art historical perspective, the article claims that Beckett's use of blue is linked to his comments on paintings by Poussin and da Messina. Saint Augustine's writings on memory are also invoked to understand Beckett's use of color in connection with childhood recollections. The article argues for a reading of Company that uses color to create a self-reflexive narrative that avoids polarization between light and dark, hope and dejection.