Samuel Beckett

Endgame, A play in one act

London, 1957

Characters:

Hamm: He is an adult man, blind and unable to walk. He suffers a lot but calm his pain with pain-killers. Hamm depends completely on Clov and need him to everything for him. He enjoys telling stories about the past.

Clov: He is younger than Hamm and their relationship is not clear, but he acts as Hamm’s servant now. He depends on Hamm because he still has a change for living there, while outside there’s nothing. Anyway, he is tired of living like that and prefers to adventure himself.

Nagg: He is Hamm’s father and lives in a bin. He lost his legs. He spends his last days remembering the good moments of his life.

Nell: She is Hamm’s mother and lives in the same conditions as her husband. She is very sensitive and never bothers to anyone, not even when she dies without disturbing at all.

Plot:

Hamm remains seated with a handkerchief over his face and calls Clov. He helps Hammer everyday with whatever he wants, in exchange, he can eat and live with him and his parents, Nagg and Nell, who stay in a bin because they don’t have legs. Clov can’t stands anymore listening to Hamm’s stories and menaces. Nagg asks for food and talks to his wife about the time before the catastrophe happens. Hamm wants them to remain quite and Clov obeys his orders. Later Hamm tells his daily story and after a while Nell dies and Nagg cries inside his bin. Clov discuss the fact of leaving the house and setting an alarm clock to let Hamm know that he is not death, but he continues with the same labours as usual like handling his toy dog and looking throughout the windows, and when he looks through the window he see a little boy and tells that to Hamm, who tells Clov he won’t need him anymore. Then Clov leaves and everything seems to be over for all of them without each other’s help.

Space:

The play goes on inside a house, in the middle of nowhere because we are told that the world is over. On one side of the house they have the ocean and on the other side the land; but there’s no sign of any kind of life nearby. The room has two windows, a chair and two bins. There’s also a kitchen on other room, but the whole house is grey, dirty and almost empty. The author doesn’t concrete any real space where we could place this house.  

Time:

The time is not given by the playwright. Even the hour of the day is uncertain for the characters because everything is grey outside always.

The play goes on continuously with some flash-backs of Nell’s memories and of Hamm’s stories.

Literary and stylistic sources:

Conversation items are sometimes really hard, but their language is very normal. Beckett’s indications submerge us in their environment and let us understand their desperation.

Personal point of view:

In this play the main characteristic is the absence of any kind of faith. Everything is over and the characters just keep on living knowing that their death time will come soon. It can be compared to our own existence because we keep doing our daily labours walking to an inevitable end; the only difference is the lifestyle. We continue keeping our faith on a future improvement of our lifestyles, or maybe a divine help; but in Endgame there’s no possible help, and new breath is a waste of energy. Just two characters rejected the inertia: Nell who died, and Clov who decided to leave.

“Clov: 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”

Academic year 2005/2006
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Ivonne Pamela Landázuri
ilanbe@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press