Endgame Research

Endgame 

                                                                                           

        

               - written by Samuel Beckett in 1957

                   - translated in English in 1958 (several differences: title, scene where Clov spots the   young boy)

               - critiqued as a play where nothing happens once

                   - as opposed to Waiting for Godot, a play where nothing happens twice

                       - sense of despair: characters are not waiting for anything other than death

               - Author

                   - Beckett was born in Foxrock, Ireland, in 1906; moved to Paris after graduated from college

                      - during WWII, joined the French Resistance and fled from the Nazis; hid in a village in Southern France with his girlfriend for over two years 

                         - gained his own renown with his theatrical masterpiece --- Attendant en Godot --- was staged in Paris in 1953

               - Character List

                   - Hamm: a blind man who is no longer able to walk; in charge of the shelter where all four characters are trapped; seems to be Clov's master or father; links with Clov as a "pair", if one of them leaves, the other will die

                       - Clov: serves as Hamm's menial, son, or beast; paired with Hamm because he can see and stand, whereas Hamm is blind and must sit

                           - Nagg: Hamm's father, lives in an ashcan; paired with his wife Nell

                               - Nell: Hamm's mother, lives in ashcan which is situated next to Nagg's can, but very far apart

                - Theme

                    - Emptiness and Loneliness 

                        - constant tension in the play: whether Clov will leave Hamm or not; he threatens to and does sometimes, but he is never able to make a clean break; Hamm continually tells Clov to leave him alone but pulls him back before an exist is possible

                            - both wonder why they stay with each other, but both give reasons for why they put  up wit each other; they are the consolation for each other's empty lives which filled with unyielding pain

                                - Beckett has compared Hamm and Clov's tense co-dependency to his own relationship with his wife: both wanted to leave the other, but were afraid to

                - Theatre of the Absurd     

                    - minimal use of language, minimalist use of setting, self-consciousness of characters, nothing happens ~> absurdism 

                       - views life as meaningless and beyond human rationality to understand, which is a sentiment to which Endgame subscribes, with its conception of circularity and non-meaning

                          - combines tragedy and comedy in new ways: Winnie says, "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness"