Week #14 : 'EndGame' by Samuel Beckett

HAMM:  I wonder.  (Pause.)  

Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn't he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long enough.

(Voice of rational being)  Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now I understand what they're at!

( Normal voice)  And without going so far as that, we ourselves...

(with emotion)  ...we ourselves... at certain moments...

(Vehemently)  To think perhaps it won't all have been for nothing!

Samuel Beckett, the God of Absurdism, brings us a disastrously tragicomedy in one long act.  EndGame, the tale of four misfits living their rudimentary lives in a post apocalyptic world, not in any hope of gaining a better one, but just - to be.

Living in a cyclical stasis, Hamm and Clov discuss the world, it's complexities and the nature of beginnings and endings, whilst being completely alone and devoid of happiness.

Clov and Hamm

Hamm is the Protagonist of EndGame.  All though his obnoxious and disagreeable behaviour at times makes him the Antagonist to his man-servant, Clov. Blind and completely imprisoned (we assume, by old age) in his wheeled chair, Hamm continuously comments that no one suffers more in life than he. For Hamm, there is no reason for being on this Earth, particularly not in the damp and chilly hole where he also polices over his parents - Nagg and Nell.

HAMM:   In my house. (Pause)

(With prophetic relish) One day you'll be blind like me. You'll be sitting here, a speck in the void, in the dark, forever, like me. (Pause.)

One day you'll say to yourself, I'm tired, I'll sit down, and you'll go and sit down. Then you'll say, I'm hungry, I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up. You'll say, I shouldn't have sat down, but since I have I'll sit on a little longer, then I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up and you won't get anything to eat. (Pause.)

You'll look at the wall a while, then you'll say, I'll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, after that I'll feel better, and you'll close them. And when you open them again there'll be no wall any more.  (Pause.)

Infinite emptiness will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it, and there you'll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe.  (Pause.)

Yes, one day you'll know what it is, you'll be like me, except that you won't have anyone with you, because you won't have had pity on anyone and because there won't be anyone left to have pity on you.  (Pause.)

Clov is the Antagonist of EndGame (and as his character is more downtrodden and worn out – He is the more likable character and therefore assumes the role of Protagonist in our minds).  He is the servant to Hamm despite his own disability – Clov cannot ever sit, he is forever walking – often pacing from one side of the room to another and looking out the windows for something.

Adopted into his household by Hamm as a young boy, the play's tension centres around Clov's yearning to leave against his feelings of responsibility to stay with Hamm (an obligation he constantly questions throughout Endgame). Clov constantly attends to Hamm and his relentless commands, such as wheeling him around the dank hole, relaying the landscape outside the windows, giving Hamm his medicine and covering him up at night.  Clov has inexorable juxtaposing emotions of hatred and bonds to Hamm.

CLOV (as before):  I say to myself— sometimes, Clov, you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you— one day. I say to myself—sometimes, Clov, you must be better than that if you want them to let you go—one day. But I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good, it'll never end, I'll never go.  (Pause.)

Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don't understand, it dies, or it's me, I don't understand that either. I ask the words that remain— sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say.  (Pause.)

I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.  (Pause.)

It's easy going.  (Pause.)

When I fall I'll weep for happiness.  (Pause. He goes towards door.)

Nagg and Nell

Nagg is Nell's husband and Hamm's father. Living (or should I say – Not living, as Nagg and Nell are in all aspects of the word – dead) in a rubbish bin next to his equally ‘binned’ wife.   He arises every now and then to yell out for food or to try, and always in vain, to kiss Nell and retell the identical story he always tells (we assume on a daily basis). Often, especially when demanding food, he is childish, barely verbose, but sometimes he can be quite profound and articulate.

Nell is Nagg's husband and Hamm's mother. She is resigned to the routine and sameness of their existence, professing the frequent attempt and persistence of Nagg to kiss her a "farce." Nell, as a character, is minimal and not important to the plot, she appears to be the only reason Nagg keeps ‘living’ and is the the sole example of a normal relationship in the play.

NELL (without lowering her voice):  Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. …  ... ...  Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more. 

Hardly a verbose play, the dialogue is frequently one to three words in response from Hamm's musings and barking orders and Clov's responses.  Some of the longest sections are the stage directions for Clov.  They are long, detailed and highly important to the characterisation of EndGame.  The first entry to the play is Clov walking from one window, getting up on a chair, getting down and walking to the other side of the stage, only to repeat the same movement.  this is a long and laborious task, but gives the audience a clear depiction of the characters and the world that they are living in.

It is extremely  difficult to describe this play.  I suggest, if you have a week spare:

Read it.

Muse over it.  

Put it down.

Pick it up again and sigh.

Put it back down.

Stare at it wondering if the next time you attempt to read it, it will make a little more sense.

Pick it back up.

Read it.

Put it back down.

Sigh.

Pick up a pen.

Pick up the script again.

Read it and scribble notes all throughout the script.

Put it back down.

Sigh in realisation that you will NEVER fully grasp the complexity of Beckett's writings.

CLOV (straightening up): I'm doing my best to create a little order.

 (Don't ask why there is a red background to the text........ Grrrrrr... I have no idea why it is there and how to get rid of it......  Blogger is getting worse and worse to use.)

Next Week: 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' by Nora Ephron