Blog Post 4 | Endgame

In Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, we meet Hamm and Clov who are stuck in a room (with Hamm’s parents, Negg and Nell), presumably after a nuclear bomb. The characters, and the play, seem to be stuck in a purgatory where nothing happens and the characters wait for an inevitable end. Similar to the endgame of chess, it is assumed that the play goes on as a stalemate, until there is a checkmate (when the characters die). Furthermore, Endgame shows the interdependence of people when face an inevitable death, leading to self-consciousness.

However, while rereading this play, I found myself thinking that Beckett was trying to capture the nature of death. So, the questions I asked myself were: what is Beckett saying about time? What is he specifically saying bout death? Is it bleak rather that welcoming like in other works? What is saying about life in general? Through these questions, I gathered that Beckett was trying to say that life can’t be measured in time; rather it must be measured in moments, especially when faced with death as death is inevitable and cold.

Through Endgame, Beckett illustrates that we are stuck in purgatory called life, until we actively leave this oblivion and do something worthwhile in attempt to have a meaningful death rather than a bleak one.

Between Hamm and Clov, Clov is the only character that can walk and see, making Hamm dependent on him. However, Clov (presumably Hamm’s servant or aid) must do whatever Hamm says, even though he threatens to leave much of the play.

HAMM: Why do you stay with me?

CLOV: Why do you keep me?

HAMM: There's no one else.

CLOV: There's nowhere else.

           In this section, it is clear that the two are staying together because they literally have no one else, and nowhere else to go. They need each other to live. Throughout the rest of the play, all we hear is the two banter and talk nonsense because they have nothing else to do but pass time. They argue, they go though tedious processes and they seem so blasé; they do things because they have nothing better to do.

Beckett referenced time many times, mostly in reference to his painkillers. Although, when asked what time it was:

HAMM: What time is it?

CLOV: The same as usual.

HAMM (gesture towards window right): Have you looked?

CLOV: Yes.

HAMM: Well?

CLOV: Zero.

             It is clear that time does not exist for them. Further, in Hamm’s final monologue he states “Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended” showing that time does not exist, especially in when death is lurking.

            There is no “I’m supposed to take a painkiller (which I thought was Hamm’s way of numbing life) at 5:30.” There is only “Remember the time it was time for your painkiller and there was none?” Only moments exist.

            Time is also shown through the alarm clock. Clov originally places the clock o the wall then Hamm moves it to the lid of Nagg’s bin, symbolizing that its just a matter of time until his death.

It is clear that Beckett was trying to say that death is inevitable, as seen trough putting the clock on the bin as well as when he covers his face with the handkerchief. Death, when stuck in this motionless and meaningless purgatory (that some could argue Beckett meant life), death is bleak. It is bitter, miserable, unwelcoming, and cold. It’s not what some Shakespearean works where it is honorable or tragic. No, it’s bleak and may sound depressing, but it is true.

Personally, I thought that Beckett was saying that we all lead a meaningless and motionless life until we leave our 10ft. room and actually do something, like Clov. That is the point of the play, from what I gathered. At the end, we see Clov is ready to leave and seek something else. He leaves his purgatory and now he can live and die in peace, rather than wait for death like Hamm.