This paper considers allusion, parody and ethics in Beckett's work. Bearing in mind Genette's thoughts on the tenderness of parody, it considers Beckett's allusions to The Tempest and explores the difficulty in determining his sympathies towards other writers, readers, and fictional creatures. This difficulty is partly due to his tonal indeterminacy and reluctance to own allusive sources. I argue that this indeterminacy about sources and origins is in itself parodic - recalling Prospero's difficult acknowledgment of Caliban. The article proceeds to uncover allusions to Browning's "Caliban upon Setebos" in How It Is, suggesting that Beckett's mockery of sympathetic identification works through parodic (and therefore tender) acts of textual allusion.
