This essay proposes that the picture of a broken circle encountered by Watt during the second part of his tale marks a crucial collision point between Beckett's literary and mathematical interests and triggers a process of fractal scaling self-similarity. Building on recent interest concerning the role of the mathematics and mathematical forms found in Beckett's work, I argue that the broken circle depicted in the picture from Watt is a geometric form which (re)appears within at least three interlocking scales throughout Beckett's novel-length prose: (i) its moment of arrival in the picture from Watt, (ii) a macroscopic reinscription in the names of the protagonists populating the five novels spanning Watt through to The Unnamable and (iii) buried within the narratological depths of How It Is. As a structural principle, the interminable irregularity of fractals offered Beckett a viable solution for what he considered the defining task of the modern artist: ‘to find a form to accommodate the mess’. Moreover, the specific shape selected for his fractal is shown to contain within its geometry one of Beckett's most universal and pressing concerns: the inevitable insufficiency of language. Therefore, although this essay restricts itself to examining Beckett's novel-length prose, the idea of a broken circle fractal promises to provide a valuable heuristic through which to reassess the author's other generic avenues. Fractals thus offer a means through which one can bind together the length and breadth of Beckett's oeuvre without ever reducing dynamic chaos to stable order.
Analysis of the Effect of Urban Geometric Form Factors on Heat Islands in Guangzhou
