ENDGAME

By Samuel Beckett
... a portrait of desolation, lovelessness,
boredom,ruthlessness, sorrow, nothingness.
(Atkinson 32).

The Origins: The Dark Side of S.

Beckett

Endgame originated in Becketts mind in

1953 to 1954 and was written in French
between 1955 and 1956. It is Becketts
one of the most discussed plays, and it is
perhaps his critics favourite, as well as
its authors, and many have written very
well on it.

The Characters

Hammunable to stand and blind

Clovservant of Hamm; unable to sit.
NaggHamm's father; has no legs and
lives in a dustbin.
NellHamm's mother; has no legs and
lives in a dustbin next to Nagg.

Setting, Stage, and

Context

In Endgame Samuel Beckett as setting employs the

image of a confined dim room, which is not surprising
as his plays are produced in out-of-the way places.
Hamm is seated in a wheelchair and covered with a
sheet when the curtain opens. Barrenness prevails in
the bare interior. Two ashbins stand on the left stage,
which later turn out to be the containers of Hamms
legless parents. Also, there are two high and tiny
windows, facing both earth and sea, curtained. Other
objects displayed on the stage either at the opening of
the curtain or later on in the play are a picture, whose
face is interestingly to the wall, hanging near the door,
a toy dog, lacking one of its legs, a telescope, the flea
in Clovs trousers, and an alarm clock.

The Plot?

Four characters in dialogue?

Clov leaves in the end.
Nell dies?
Nell and Nagg are probably dead in the
end?

Concept of Time in
Endgame

In Endgame another component, though

invisible, is the notion of time. Beckett likes to
play with the existence or non-existence of it
frequently throughout the play. There is indeed
no notion of time in the comprehensible sense
of the worldly usage. Beckett, very similar to
the corpsed world by humanity, incapacitates
the concept of time. Going further, saying that
time does not exist any more might be a more
appropriate statement because the nature of
the course that is taking place in Endgame
remains undefined.

Cont

Nothing changes in Endgame such as the weather

condition and the colour of Hamms face.
Bored, on a number of occasions, the characters
affirm that nothing alters including time. Undefined
and corpsed time is approached with suspicion, as
there is no clue what time of the day it is
The best explanation for time can be that time can
be lost because time would contain hope. The lost,
incapacitated and frozen time of the play implies
that there is no hope on the stage, which is a feeling
that may irritate a reader or an audience by
triggering anxiety. This function of the Beckettian
time is accompanied by existential despair.

The Infinity of Possibilities in

the Context of Time

The time concept in Endgame signals that

there is no need for a change and time will
never end, which reveals despair more:
HAMM: Have you not had enough?
CLOV: Yes! (Pause.) Of what?
HAMM: Of this... this... thing.
CLOV: I always had. (Pause.) Not you?
HAMM (gloomily): Then there's no reason for
it to change.
CLOV: It may end. (Pause.) All life long the
same questions, the same answers.

The Beginning & The End

Endgame has the theme of 'End' and

'Finished'. The opening line of the play
has a word 'Finished' and the very word is
repeated throughout the play several
times. Beckett tries to clarify the idea
that beginning and ending is inter-wined.
The worst thing for him is to take birth
and the best is to have death.

Cont

There is an old legend that king Midas for a long time

hunted the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, in the
forests, without catching him. When Silenus finally fell into
the kings hands, the king asked what was the best thing of
all for men, the very finest. The daemon remained silent,
motionless and inflexible, until, compelled by the king, he
finally broke out into shrill laughter and said these words,
Suffering creature, born for a day, child of accident and
toil, why are you forcing me to say what would give you
the greatest pleasure not to hear? The very best thing for
you is totally unreachable: not to have been born, not to
exist, to be nothing. The second best thing for you,
however, is this to die soon. (Nietzsche, The Birth of
Tragedy)

Nagg and Nell

Hamm thinks that Nagg and Nell are guilty of

bringing him to life and responsible for his existential
pain. As he blames them for all his sufferings, he
treats them in anger. He calls, for instance, his
father an accursed fornicator , and accursed
progenitor. He even goes so far as to question his
father: Scoundrel! Why did you engender me? . All
these blameful statements of Hamm stem from the
existentialist fact that he is, like all other men,
thrown into desolate isolation with the contribution
of his parents. Whatever the reason, there is a deep
hostility in Hamm and his fathers relationship, which
is present in their exchanges.

Cont

Nell and Nagg, like Clov, are dependent

on Hamm. In particular, Nagg seems so
because he has to plead for food and
favours, which are sugarplums.
Furthermore, their sand in the ashbins is
also changed with the order of Hamm. On
the other hand, Hamm is also dependent
on his parents since he needs listeners to
prove his existence.

The Use of Language

Very similar to the characters on the

stage, language is peculiar since it looks
paralysed, immobile, purposeless, and
filled with repetition, which is sometimes
absurd. Despite languages having very
little function of communication, and thus
engendering difficulty in interpretation, it
is a fact that a lack of action in Endgame
intensifies the interest in and forces
concentration upon the dialogues between
the characters.

Cont

Raymond T. Riva, in his essay Beckett

and Freud states Beckett seems to be
communicating in an essentially symbolic
language, one which is quite capable of
communication while seeming to say
nothing and of going nowhere. This is
what the Beckettian language is: telling
some-thing in nothing-ness.

Cont

The fundamental characteristics that

reflect the Beckettian use of language are
the extensiveness of the stage
directions compared to dialogues,
repetitions, abrupt exchanges of trivial
talk and quick shift of subjects, lack of
purpose and meaning, chains of
association, short sentences, frequent
use of pauses and deliberate choice of
third person plural in Clovs utterances.

Language as Clarification of the

Play

Language sometimes decides what is real

for the characters due to the fact that what
they utter can determine the reality in
which they live and the objects with which
they are in contact, though it has no
purpose of communication.
Language has a role of affirming the
existence of the characters because they
still continue to speak so as to convince
themselves that they are alive. (Derridas
all reality is textual)

Important Dialogues.