Alexander Reckford

English 126 – Lupton

March 24, 2014

Blog Post 4 – Endgame

In the play Endgame, Samuel Beckett provocatively explores the meanings of life, death, and eternity. Although the title suggests an exact, final ending, Beckett presents a situation full of life, but that lacks hope, purpose, pleasure, or a future. Through his use of the repetition of routine, discomfort, and hopelessness, Beckett forces the reader to question the purpose and point of being alive, what it means to die, and what life would be like without an ending.

Beckett opens the play with Clov, one of the main characters, proclaiming, “finished, it’s finished, nearly / finished, it must be nearly finished… I can’t be punished anymore” (1-2, 5). Clov’s words, contradicting the title, set the tone for the play and establish his desire for the end to the punishment that is his life. Another of the main characters, Hamm, exists in severe physical pain, living day by day on pain medication hoping to simply dull his discomfort with no end in sight. Hamm’s despair is evident when he asks Clov, “Why don’t you just kill me?” and expresses his belief that “outside of here is death,” and “nature has forgotten us” (119, 135, 171). Repeating the exact same routine of actions and telling the same stories every day, the characters in Endgame lose their sense of time and place and any pleasure life may have once brought. They refer to “yesterday” as any time that happened in the past and seem to live stuck in a never-ending present with no hope of a future.

Reading this minimalist, dystopian play forces readers to question the purpose and direction, as well as appreciate the value of, their own lives. Additionally, Endgame raises fear of any event occurring without an end, whether that is immortality of our current life, or a never-ending after life. Either way, the play clearly demonstrates that if one does anything for too long, it eventually loses all meaning.