Endgame: A Series of Endings

Abstract

Samuel Beckett's popular play Endgame, depicts a prison-like room with two windows that show a dead universe and a "corpsed world". Throughout his play, Beckett uses ideas, symbols, objects, and actions that reflect an ending. In Endgame the characters cannot choose; it seems that everything is coming to an end and they can do nothing about it; they have to accept it. The play's world is devoid of meaning, warmth, humor and all beautiful things. In most of his works Beckett shows that human faculties are deteriorating and Endgame is no exception. Hamm and Clov are not mobile; Hamm cannot stand and Clov just moves in a limited way. Nagg and Nell are confined in a dustbin totally without action and mobility. Hamm's chronicle is an unfinished one and one can generalize it to all Beckett's works as they avoid closure. In fact the play starts from the point where it's "nearly finished" and it ends the same.