Samuel Beckett’s Endgame

Samuel Becketts maneuvers ar immersed in a post- apocalyptic, grizzly light that reveals only a barren landscape with a a couple of(prenominal) stray survivors who are waiting for the give the sack of e precisething. bar enlivened, like Becketts separate contacts, is situated in a minimalist setting which retains only a few disparate elements of the complex universe as we know it.The military personnel of oddity gimpy is one dominated by absence seizure and emptiness, marked by the characters allusion to the gradual disappearance of things. despite the apocalyptic setting however, the activity of the valet goes on uninterruptedly.Becketts characters are trapped in what seems an infinite postponing of the eventual(prenominal) ending that would erase the mock simulation of existence that take over persists. Although the end of the world seems to have already occurred, a form of look still drags on without any apparent closure or resolution. The essence of Endgame therefo re lies in this lack of closure in an already beat(p) universe. As the title of the reanimate foretells, the text foc utilisations on the final game of existence. This game is incredibly reduced, with only four human characters on the branch and very few other elements.Nevertheless, the game seems to be everlasting and the characters that play it are force to continue despite their weariness. The game is nonhing else than tone itself, in its infinite but monotonous flux. The never-failing repetitions that mark the gestures and the expression of the characters are a representation of the game pattern. The pauses which often interrupt the speechless motion of the act appear to be pauses that occur before a movement in the game. Critic Jeevan Kumar observes that the game in Becketts play is a metaphor that reflects life itself.In his view moreover, the game represented in the play is very similar to a game of chess, but which is characterized by absolute irrationality For Bec kett, a game of chess reflects life itself exclusively the game of life, unlike a game of chess, is quite irrational. Man is a being tossed in the smashed universe like a atom on the chess board, and his fate is as dubious as that of a chessman. (Kumar 545) Thus, Beckett makes recourse to the chess representation in order to portray life in its absurdity and illogicality.As in a game of chess, the characters are forced either to move only in a certain behavior or to be completely motionless. Hamm is ineffectual to stand up and is intent to his wheelchair, without suffering from an actual physical disability. His obsession with being at the very center of the room is also significant as it hints to a icy position on the board. This may also allude to mans place in the universe and his relationship to nature. By contrast, Clov, Hamms servant, is unable to sit down. Hamms old parents are legless and live bottled-up in 2 ashbins.Position and movement are very important in Beckett s plays, as they emphasize the human beings lack of freedom. heart is seen as an entrapping and absurd game, which seems to offer no escape and no relief. The beginning of the play is already an ending, as Clov announces the approach of a finish Clov Finished, its finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished. (Beckett 3) significantly, what Clov announces is only the beginning of the end, a state where these dickens extremities meet but where there is no actual conclusion.As Hamm remarks later in the play, the end and the beginning are coincide, but, paradoxically, nothing begins and nothing ends while everything continues Hamm The end is in the beginning and yet you go on. (Beckett 78) It is this absurd waiting and pro acheation that is at the core of Becketts plays. Life is two a shooter of nothingness and one of infinity, and it is this duality that drives the characters in Beckett to desperation. One repeated pronounce in the play sums up this idea.The simple fa ct of existing on earth is immutable and incurable Use your head, cant you, use your head, youre on earth, theres no cure for that (Beckett 78) Endgame therefore transmits the sense of absurdity and desperation in life. The endless repetitions and recurrent images serve to represent life like a game in which the players are trapped. The roles that Clov and Hamm play, common for most of Becketts works, are also significant. The two characters are bound by a curious relationship of dependency which seems unjustified.They are tied to their own roles and positions in the game, which cannot be violated. The game lacks a conclusion and therefore its meaning can never be settled. Life is a game where the human beings seem to wait for life to at long last become life. The meaning of life is deferred until its actual ending, and therefore life cannot be lived as an actual existence but only as endless waiting Moment upon moment, pattering down, like the millet grains of(he hesitates) that old Greek, and all life long you wait for that to mount up to a life.(Beckett 80) William S. Haney notes that this liminal world that Beckett describes, where we confront both the ending and the fullness of life is a confederacy between absence and plenitude In alluding to the end of the world and all of its contentobjects, time, nature, food, colors, fleas, rats, weather, laughter, kisses, sun, sound, God, and so onbut infinitely deferring this end, Endgame suggests the possibility of experiencing a fusion of fullness and emptiness.(Haney 48) Beckett therefore pinpoints in Endgame the essence of life itself, which is not a flow of events but rather a fusion among some contradictions. Endgame is therefore a representation of life itself as endless waiting of a finish or a conclusion. Through images of cyclical movement and repetition, the play emphasizes the idea of life as an endless game. Despite the minimalist setting, the atmosphere of the play is one that fuses absence with f ullness. There are very few things remaining, and yet the scene seems populated.Nothing actually happens and everything seems to draw to an end and yet there is no closure, as the last word of the play is the verb to remain Youremain. (Beckett 96) Thus, Endgame portrays life as an infinite and absurd game of waiting, which claws man into its void. Works Cited Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. New York Grove Press, 1959. Haney, William S. , II. Beckett out of his mind the sign of the zodiac of the absurd. Studies in the Literary Imagination. 34. 2 (2001) 39-55. Kumar, K. Jeevan. The chess metaphor in Samuel Becketts Endgame. . mod Drama. 40. 4 (1997) 540-553.