Endgame (Themes)

Themes

Live or Die?

The characters, trapped in their single room occupy themselves with routines and tasks. Hamm is paralyzed and blind, Nagg and Nell cannot leave their ashbins, and the action of the play occurs in a single room, outside of which life evidently cannot survive. These characters struggle to move on or take action, and the actions they do take are often stagnant and nondescript. Each is dependent upon another for his or her very survival and Hamm questions the benefit of continuing life at all, often pestering nag for the ultimate painkiller — death.

The existence of God is also questioned and indirectly denied, painting a bleak picture of life as hard and without redemption, directed by the needs of handicapped tyrants like Hamm. When Hamm orders both Clov and Nagg to pray to God, Hamm cries in agony, "The bastard! He doesn't exist!" Hamm and the other characters, in their stagnant misery and frustrations, lack faith in a benevolent promise of God to reprieve or redeem their anguish. Life seems a merciless cycle of desire and grief, of handicaps and ashbins, and, to these characters, death is no reward for enduring that cycle. The characters of Endgame maneuver through lives of emotional strife that anticipate death, though they lack the means to achieve it on their own.

Interdependence

One of the most obvious themes of Endgame is the necessity of interdependence, even if the relationship is one of hate. Clov, for example, depends on Hamm for food since Hamm is the only one who knows the combination to the cupboard. Hamm relies completely on Clov for movement and vision. Critics often compare Endgame to Beckett's previous drama Waiting for Godot, noting that characters in both plays are grouped in pairs. Endgame is bleaker and more perplexing because it lacks the hope for redemption that Waiting for Godot contains.

Generational Conflict

Generational conflict, particularly between father and son, also emerges as a prominent theme. Hamm twice tells a story about a father and son and seems to view parent-child relationships only in terms of power and resentment. Critics have argued that Hamm resents Nagg, his father, for not being kind to him when he was young, whereas Hamm resents Clov, his son, for being young at a time when his own life is in decline. Endgame has also been interpreted as a depiction of humanity's denial of such life processes as death and procreation.

Artistry

Endgame is a self-reflexive work in which the hand of Beckett can often be seen. For example, Hamm's narration is at once taking its own course in developing his personality while it also comments on the idea of creation, alluding to the creative process of an author. At the end of the story Hamm talks about the difficulty of creation:

CLOV: Will it end soon?

HAMM: I'm afraid it will.

CLOV: Pah! You'll make up another.

HAMM: I don't know. (Pause.) I feel rather drained. The prolonged creative effort.

The characters make numerous, explicit references throughout Endgame to their roles as characters in a play. Hamm at one-point states: "I'm warming up for my last soliloquy." Clov, at another instance, announces: "This is what we call making an exit." Such self-reflexive references to the action of the play are representative of modernism and also suggest humankind's inclination for dramatization to assign meaning in life and help understand the world.

Humor

"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness." Though Endgame is dark, there is humor in the play. Clov's confusion over which items to fetch first and his antics with the ladder could be directly out of a film starring Charlie Chaplin, whom Beckett admired. Commenting on Endgame himself, Beckett identified the phrase "nothing is funnier than unhappiness" as key to the play's interpretation and performance.

MEDIA ADAPTATIONS

• Released by Ambrose Video on DVD in 2002, the Beckett on Film DVD set is the first ever cinematic screening of all nineteen of Samuel Beckett's plays. The acclaimed Beckett on Film project brings together some of the most distinguished directors and actors working today. Directors include Atom Egoyan, Damien Hirst, Neil Jordan, Conor McPherson, Damien O'Donnell, David Mamet, Anthony Minghella, Karel Reisz, and Patricia Rozema. The exceptional acting talent involved includes Michael Gambon, the late Sir John Gielgud, John Hurt, Jeremy Irons, Julianne Moore, Harold Pinter, Alan Rickman, and Kristen Scott-Thomas. Several of the films from the Beckett on Film project have been exhibited at international film festivals around the world including New York, Toronto, and Venice.