İNÖNÜ ÜNİVERSİTESİ SANAT VE TASARIM DERGİSİ İnönü University Journal of Art and Design ISSN: 1309-9876 E-ISSN: 1309-9884 Cilt/Vol. 6 Sayı/No.13 (2016): 305-312
AN ABSURDIST PLAY: SAMUEL BECKETT’S ENDGAME Ayşenur İplikçi Özden1
1: Ankara Üniversitesi, Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi, Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları (İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı) Anabilim Dalı, Ankara. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.16950/iüstd.62636.
ABSTRACT This study aims to examine Samuel Beckett’s Endgame as an absurdist play considering certain aspects and characteristics of this kind of drama such as silence, pause, repetitions, no story or plot, no recognizable or definable decor, unconventional dialogue and interest in global and universal problems rather than contemporary issues. With the changing state of the world and especially due to the destructive effects of the Second World War, feelings of meaninglessness and nothingness spread over the world sending forth despair and disenchantment with the accepted values. Beckett, reflecting these issues in his plays, can be considered to be a prominent absurdist playwright and his play Endgame is a typical absurdist play which depicts the characteristics of this kind of drama and shows the emptiness and alienation in the modern world. In this study, by examining this play, it is depicted that with the absurdist drama the alienated modern world is successfully put on the stage and the familiar well-made plays have begun to be replaced by these typical examples of absurdist drama.
Keywords: Absurd drama, Meaninglessness, Silence, Pause, Repetition, Nothingness
ABSÜRT BİR OYUN: SAMUEL BECKETT’İN ENDGAME ADLI ESERİ ÖZET Bu çalışmanın amacı sessizlik, ara, tekrarlar, hikaye ya da olay örgüsü yokluğu, fark edilebilir ve tanımlanabilir dekor yokluğu, sıra dışı diyalog ve çağdaş meselelerden çok küresel ve evrensel sorunlarla uğraş gibi absürt tiyatro türünün belli noktaları ve özelliklerini göz önünde bulundurarak, Samuel Beckett’in Endgame eserini absürt bir oyun olarak incelemektir. Dünyanın değişen düzeniyle birlikte ve özellikle de İkinci Dünya Savaşının tahrip edici etkilerine bağlı olarak, anlamsızlık ve hiçlik duyguları, kabul edilen değerlere karşı duyulan bir düş kırıklığı ve ümitsizlik saçarak dünya üzerinde yayılmıştır. Bu konuları eserlerinde yansıtan Beckett, önde gelen bir absürt oyun yazarı olarak kabul edilebilir ve Endgame isimli oyunu, bu oyun türünün özelliklerini yansıtan ve modern dünyadaki boşluğu ve yabancılaşmayı gösteren karakteristik bir absürt oyun olarak değerlendirilebilir. Bu çalışmada, adı geçen oyun incelenerek, absürt tiyatroyla, yabancılaşmış modern dünyanın başarılı bir şekilde sahnelendiği ve alışılan iyi yapılandırılmış ve olay örgüsü olan oyunların, absürt drama örnekleriyle yer değiştirmiş olduğu ortaya konmuştur.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Absürt drama, Anlamsızlık, Sessizlik, Ara, Tekrar, Hiçlik.
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AN ABSURDIST PLAY: SAMUEL BECKETT’S ENDGAME
1. INTRODUCTION dialogue or dialectical monologues that go nowhere. There is no progression, no The Theatre of the Absurd is the kind of development, no resolution” (Greenblatt, drama that presents the absurdity of 2006). Absurdity which is, according to human condition and that combines Beckett, the essence of human characteristics such as silences, existence, is the main way he uses in repetitions, unconventional dialogue, no order to depict the emptiness and recognizable decor, no story, no alienation in the modern world. Further- progression and no resolution. The term more, centering upon silences and “the Theatre of the Absurd” was coined repetitions, Beckett doesn’t follow a by Martin Esslin in his book of the same traditional theatrical form and procedure name. Esslin, in his book, claims that in writing his plays. Worton explains absurdist plays are the fulfilment of Beckett’s writing style as follows: Albert Camus’s philosophy and his concept of ‘the absurd’ which is reflected Instead of following the tradition which in Le Mythe de Sisyphe. As Esslin demands that a play have an exposition, expresses “by 1942, Albert Camus was a climax and a denouement, Beckett’s calmly putting the question why, since plays have a cyclical structure which life had lost all meaning, man should not might indeed be better described as a seek escape in suicide” (Esslin, 1980). diminishing spiral. [...] In this spiral And Camus, in the same work, says that descending towards a final closure that “in a universe that is suddenly deprived can never be found in the Beckettian of illusions and of light, man feels a universe, the characters take refuge in stranger [...] The divorce between man repetition, repeating their own actions and his life, the actor and his setting, is and words and often those of others – in properly the feeling of Absurdity” order to pass the time (69). (Camus, 1942). Obviously, this feeling of In the 1930s, Beckett wrote short poems absurdity is closely related to the that were collected in Echo’s Bones and Second World War, its destructive Other Precipitates (1935). Writing short effects all around the world and the stories as well, Beckett is best known for feeling of meaninglessness it created. his plays, most of which he wrote in And Camus’s existentialist views that French and later translated into English. see “human beings as moving from the Among his most well-known plays are nothingness from which they came, to En Attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot, the nothingness in which they will end 1948-1949), Fin de Partie (Endgame, through an existence marked by anguish 1955-1957), Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) and absurdity” (Harmon and Holman, and Happy Days (1961). These plays 1995) can be thought to be the are often considered to be remarkable philosophical base of absurdism. In a examples of the theatre of the absurd, of way, the plays of the theatre of the which Beckett was a master and absurd, not only deals with the despair pioneer. and disenchantment with the accepted values and beliefs but also the process After 1960s, Beckett’s works started to of going through the nothingness and tend towards compactness, by which through an incomprehensible existence. he’s also called a minimalist. A perfect example of this is Breath (1969), which Irish playwright, novelist, theatre director lasts only for thirty five seconds. His and poet, Samuel Beckett is considered other important plays Play (1962) and to be a prominent absurdist playwright Not I (1972) are very short plays which whose works have been translated into include three characters and solely a over twenty languages. In his plays, he mouth, respectively. usually deals with human suffering, the subject of despair and survival, with his Apart from plays and poems, Samuel characters generally grappling with Beckett wrote novels and prose works, meaninglessness in an incomprehen- as well. His early novels Murphy (1938), sible world. “Characters engage in Watt (1953) and the trilogy Molloy
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(1951), Malone Meurt (Malone Dies, rule may be thought to symbolise the 1951) and L’innommable (The Unname- King in a game of chess. Similarly, Clov able, 1953) are considered to be may be regarded to be the Queen, who important works of postmodern fiction. has the potential to move better than Later in the second half of the twentieth Hamm and the other two characters century, he wrote his prose work Nagg and Nell, who can be likened to Comment c’est (How it is, 1961), which pawns, restricted in their bins, only was written in a different style, in allowed to make their heads appear. unpunctuated paragraphs. Clov may also represent the Knight in a chess game, as his actions are restricted Beckett, who was also thought to be a in a certain direction and repeat modernist writer, under the influence of themselves with vertical movements. At French discussions about the use of the beginning of the play, he goes to the language in literature, was in favour of right window, looks outside, goes to the the idea that a man of literature should left window and looks outside. Then never repeat the language he used bringing a ladder from the kitchen, he before, as the language should change climbs to the right window, opens the all the time. Samuel Beckett, who was curtain and looks outside, then des- awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in cends, leans the ladder to the left 1969 and won international fame, died in window, climbs, opens the curtain, looks 1989, just after publishing his last book outside and descends. Throughout the Stirring Still (1989). play, he repeats his similar actions as if he draws the shape of L like a Knight in a game of chess. In a sense, “like pieces 2. ENDGAME AS AN ABSURDIST on a chessboard, the characters of PLAY Endgame are severely restricted in their Endgame was first performed as Fin de movements, each obeying a different Partie, with its original name at the Royal rule of motion” (Hale, 1992). Court Theatre, London, on April 3, 1957. The characters in the play, Hamm, Clov, Before analysing the play in detail, it Nagg and Nell “live in a world in which may be useful to explain the meaning of there is no way to establish a significant endgame and why Beckett chose this relationship between themselves and title for his play. Endgame is a term used their environment” (Harmon and Hol- to describe the last stage in a game of man, 1995). Isolated from both themsel- chess when only a few pieces are left on ves and the overcast world that’s the board. Beckett, a chess player, surrounding them, they are trapped in a seeing a similarity between the endgame room which they cannot leave. Hamm is of chess and that of life, considers death a blind man who is unable to walk and to be the certain outcome, as whatever a Clov, “Hamm’s present servant and person does, he or she will die. Accor- ‘son’” (Lawley, 1992) is unable to sit. dingly, in the play it seems as if the “Hamm rules this diminished universe characters live the final stages of their from his centre-stage wheelchair, as he lives, as they frequently talk about the barks his orders to Clov, who resentfully past to which they cannot get through. follows every order – moving the chair, Furthermore, their continual repetitive checking the earth and sky” (Cooke, actions, such as Clov’s using the ladder 1985). They are considered to be a pair, and looking out of the window or the former being a master and the latter Hamm’s calling Clov, can be likened to being a servant. Although Clov the moves in a game of chess when one frequently says that he’ll leave Hamm, is approximating the end. These they cannot part company as they are repetitive actions may also be an dependent on each other – Clov can indication of human condition, as human walk and see, thus helps Hamm and beings usually repeat their mistakes and Hamm supplies food for them. “It does routines. Moreover, Hamm who has the indeed seem that though Clov cannot food supply and who has the power to stand to live with his difficult master, he
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AN ABSURDIST PLAY: SAMUEL BECKETT’S ENDGAME would not be able to exist without him” ‘me’ who maintains contact with the (Hale, 1992). Nagg and Nell, the other external world; Nell and Nagg could be pair in the play, are Hamm’s parents and simply memories that are weakening having no legs, they live in dustbins, in a and disappearing (81). way condemned for their act of In the light of what Hale states above, it procreation. Throughout the play all the can be assumed that, in Endgame, a four characters routinely pass the time single mind of a human being is depicted by blabbering, complaining, and telling through the use of four characters, stories. representing different sides of the As Endgame is an example of “the personality. Theatre of the Absurd”, in the following In these plays, there are no recognizable part, after explaining a characteristic of or definable decor, costumes or stage this movement, an example from the articles. Accordingly in Endgame, there play associated with that characteristic is only a bare room with two windows, a will be given. door, and a picture; there aren’t First of all, the plays of the theatre of the costumes, a proper setting or decor. absurd have no story or plot to speak of, “Denying the audience the comfortable with neither a beginning nor an end. security of a recognizable world” (Green- They portray not connected incidents blatt, 2006), the play opens with the telling a story but only a situation in an description of the place the four incomprehensible universe. Similarly, in characters are in: “Bare interior. Grey Endgame there isn’t a story or plot; light. Left and right back, high up, two instead the characters are stuck in a small windows, curtains drawn. Front meaningless and unchanging world in right, a door. Hanging near door, its face which they repeat their actions in a to wall, a picture” (92). How the stage ritualistic way. Apart from this, these seems in Endgame, helps to create the plays are “often without recognizable dramatic effect Beckett wants to reflect characters and present the audience in his play of the theatre of the absurd. with almost mechanical puppets” (Esslin, Hale expresses her thoughts about the 1980). Namely, in the theatre of the decor and setting in the play as follows: absurd, there are no recognizable The decor of Endgame [...] contributes to characters that are defined by the social the impression of a world coming to its class they represent. Furthermore, “the end. [...] and its bareness, grey light, and fact that characters, freed from the grey nothingness of the barren, individuality, are abstracted in a way that uninhabited world outside the windows they mostly present the main all point to the distinct possibility that characteristics of the universal man” Hamm, Clov, Nell, and Nagg may be the (Yüksel, 1992) is an important feature of last survivors of some dreadful the theatre of the absurd. Accordingly, catastrophe. [...] Even though a picture the characters in Endgame are not remains on the wall of the room, it is recognizable characters of a certain turned over so its decorative function is society. Apart from being two different no longer served (72-73). couples who need each other as living beings, they may also be abstracted as From what Hale states above can be the components of a human mind. What deduced that, the decor, different from Hale expresses in her article ‘Endgame’: the conventional ones, contributes to the ‘How Are Your Eyes?’ is a significant essential philosophical thought in the point to reflect on: play, which portrays a world, nearing its end with only a few survivors. The four characters might represent diverse elements of a single human Beckett expresses that “every word is personality: Hamm would be the inner like an unnecessary stain on silence and ‘me’, irrational and emotional (this would nothingness” (Beckett). This statement explain his sudden, savage mood in fact reveals perhaps the most changes); Clov would be the rational important characteristic of the theatre of
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the absurd, that is the function of coherence. Moreover, it is full of language. Instead of “witty repartee and contingencies, and these would be a pointed dialogue”, absurdist plays “often stumbling block for any successful consist of incoherent babblings” (Esslin, communication [...]. Their dialogue lacks 1980). In these plays, the language representative qualities and hardly which has become dysfunctional as it makes ‘sense’ to us (89; 91). can no more produce meaning, isn’t In fact, in Endgame and most of the used as a tool for communication. absurdist plays, language is used to Accordingly, in Endgame, although the show that it has lost its function; as characters seem to talk throughout the nothing certain exists in the world, it’s play, they can’t communicate and don’t impossible to get through to certain understand what the other person is meanings. saying. A striking example of this is a dialogue between Hamm and Clov: Another point that should be set forth is “Clov: Who? / Hamm: What? / Clov: the fact that, in absurdist plays, silence, Who do you mean, he? / Hamm: Who do pause and repetitions are important I mean! Yet another. / Clov: Ah him! I dramatic elements from which the wasn’t sure.” (121). Though they seem audience get the meaning. Throughout to converse, they in fact cannot reach Endgame, one can observe these out to each other. In another dialogue, elements of the plays of the theatre of one can see the same situation: the absurd. For instance, in a dialogue between Hamm and Clov, pauses and Hamm: Answer me first. silences form the basis of their Clov: What? conversation: Hamm: Do you know what’s happened? Hamm: Outside of here it’s death! Clov: When? Where? (Pause.) Hamm: (Violently.) When! What’s And the rat? happened? Use your head, can’t you! Clov: He’s got away. What has happened? Hamm: He can’t go far. Clov: What for Christ’s sake does it matter? (Pause. Anxious.) (He looks out of the window.) Eh? Hamm: I don’t know. Clov: He doesn’t need to go far. (128-129) (Pause.) As observed in the dialogue, their words Hamm: Is it not time for my pain-killer? do not produce meaning and they find Clov: Yes. themselves at the point they started - what they say doesn’t have any Hamm: Ah! At last! Give it to me! Quick! significance like the world around them. Clov also reinforces this idea by saying: (Pause.) “I use the words you taught me. If they Clov: There’s no more pain-killer. don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.” (113). (Pause.) Schwab also expresses his ideas about (126-127) dialogue and communication in the play with the following statements: In this excerpt and other similar passages in the play, silences and Neither is the dialogue situated in any pauses break the continuity of words, intelligible context, nor does it derive thus creating an effect of not being able from any representative function of to communicate and fostering the sense speech or even a minimal amount of of meaninglessness. Furthermore,
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AN ABSURDIST PLAY: SAMUEL BECKETT’S ENDGAME according to Worton, silences in the play Hamm's lines, only to be revived on have different aspects: Clov's return to the stage. […] Clov's line recalls the sound of glass, which has The pauses [...] enable Beckett to only just quit tinkling, and so offers the present: silences of inadequacy, when possibility of a laugh (a smile) of characters cannot find the words they reminiscence (112-113). need; silences of repression, when they are struck dumb by the attitude of their Another point that should be set forth interlocutor or by their sense that they about the conversations between Hamm might be breaking a social taboo; and and Clov is the fact that their conversa- silences of anticipation, when they await tions are continuously stunted by the fact the response of the other which will give that whenever one of them says some- them a temporary sense of existence thing, it is countered by the other (75). character. Then the first speaker agrees with the argument and the conversation Apart from this, “the frequent ‘pause’, immediately ends. Just after that, they which is by far the most common stage start to talk about another thing, as can direction in Endgame, helps to structure be seen from their following statements: the play like a chess game where each player reflects silently before proceeding Hamm: How are your eyes? with his next move” (Hale, 1992). Clov: Bad. Repetitions are also frequently encoun- Hamm: How are your legs? terred in the play, whose example can be given with a dialogue between Hamm Clov: Bad. and Clov, when Hamm insists that Clov Hamm: But you can move. use the telescope to look out of the window: Clov: Yes. Clov: I’ve looked. Hamm: (Violently) Then move! Hamm: With the glass? (Clov goes to the back wall, leans Clov: No need of the glass. against it with his forehead and hands.) Hamm: Look at it with the glass. Where are you? [...] Clov: Here. Clov: I’ll go and get the glass. Hamm: Why don’t you kill me? (Exit Clov.) (95-96) Hamm: No need of the glass! (Enter Clov with telescope.) As it can be seen, their conversation about one topic suddenly ends and they Clov: I’m back again, with the glass. start to talk about another subject. A dialogue in the middle of the play also (105) exemplifies this: The word “glass” is repeated in almost Hamm: [...] Imagine if a rational being all the sentences of the characters. In came back to earth, wouldn’t he be liable one of his articles, Weales expresses to get ideas into his head if he observed the following statements about this us long enough. [...] ...we ourselves...at dialogue: certain moments... (Vehemently.) The repetition of the word glass gives To think perhaps it won’t all have been the exchange a frame on which to build for nothing! its rhythm […] What is more, the necessary hesitation before Clov's last Clov: (Anguished, scratching himself.) I line (there will be a small break even if have a flea! the telescope is ready for him just Hamm: A flea! Are there still fleas? beyond the eyes of the audience) allows the passage apparently to end on
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Clov: On me there’s one. Hamm: Then what is it? (108) Clov: (Looking.) Grey. In this conversation, the topic suddenly (107) changes from a philosophical thinking to a flea, indicating that they cannot have a Another dialogue which defines the properly progressing dialogue; they’re nonsensical and wasted world and always interrupted and stunted. Apart universe is again between Hamm and from this, the language used in absurdist Clov: plays isn’t the language of a certain social class or group of people. Not Hamm: Yes, but how would I know, if you were merely dead in your kitchen? having cultural connotations, the language used in these plays is a Clov: Well...sooner or later I’d start to general language that may be used by stink. everybody in the world, as the one in Endgame in which the audience cannot Hamm: You stink already. The whole see any particular cultural usages or place stinks of corpses. peculiarities related to a specific group of Clov: The whole universe. (114) people. As it can be seen Clov says that the The theatre of the absurd doesn’t deal whole universe is stinking, meaning it with contemporary issues and problems, has lost all its meaning and everything instead it makes reference to global or on it has died out. In other words, “the universal problems and questions. The patient and his caretaker, who are plays, having no nationality, deal with completely abstracted from the outer general problems and question the place world, consider the universe to be a and function of man in the world. The meaningless emptiness” and “what fact that the world seemed meaningless matters is the collapse of not only the and everything was supposed to go to characters in the room but also the nothingness, is reflected in the plays of whole civilisation and humankind” the theatre of the absurd. In Endgame, (Yüksel, 1992). Furthermore, in this what Beckett focuses on is “the sense of world of catastrophe, life is painful. deadness, [...] leaden heaviness and “Hamm repeatedly asks Clov for a pain- hopelessness, that is experienced in killer, and Clov always answers that the states of deep depression” (Esslin, time for it has not yet come, until the end 1980). The four characters are the only when he informs him, ,’There’s no more survivors who have been able to escape pain-killer’” (Astro, 1990). In this world, from a great catastrophe which rendered it’s not possible to escape from the fact the world outside dead. This deadness that existence is painful and everything of the universe is made more clear by is in ruin. the specific conversations between Hamm and Clov. As part of their ritual actions, when Hamm asks Clov what he 3. CONCLUDING REMARKS sees outside, he defines everything he Endgame, as a typical example of sees with words such as ‘grey’, ‘lead’ or Beckett’s absurdist drama, depicts the ‘zero’: feelings of meaninglessness and Hamm: The waves, how are the waves? nothingness in the surrounding world and by using the elements such as Clov: The waves? [...] Lead. silence, pause, repetitions, unconven- Hamm: And the sun? tional dialogues, no recognizable decor and no plot, this alienating effect is Clov: (Looking.) Zero. [...] strengthened. In Endgame, it can be Hamm: Is it night already then? seen that the feeling of meaninglessness and chaos the world is in, is made Clov: (Looking.) No. concrete by the story about a tailor. “The concept of an imperfect world sacrificed
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AN ABSURDIST PLAY: SAMUEL BECKETT’S ENDGAME to a nonexistent creator is figured” making me a pair of trousers in three (Astro, 1990) in the story, in which an months!” (102-103). The answer the Englishman orders a pair of trousers to tailor gives is striking: “But my dear Sir, his tailor. However, when the tailor my dear Sir, look [...] at the world [...] continuously puts him off, the man gets and look [...] at my TROUSERS!” (103). angry and says that: “In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. Yes Sir, no less Sir, the WORLD! And you are not bloody well capable of
REFERENCES 1. Astro, A. 1990. Understanding Sa- London: Macmillan. 71-86. muel Beckett. Columbia: University of 9. Harmon, W. and Holman, C. H. 1995. South Caroline Press. A Handbook to Literature. New 2. Beckett, S. 1986. The Complete Dra- Jersey: Prentice Hall. matic Works. London: Faber and 10. Lawley, P. 1992. “Adoption in Faber. Endgame”. Waiting for Godot and 3. Beckett, S. Samuel Beckett > Quotes Endgame. Ed. Steven Connor. Lon- > Quotable Quote. 29 March. 2011. don: Macmillan. 119-127.
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