Endgame and Act Without Words

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Modern English Drama - Written Assignment  - Dominique Nagpal Tooher  -  04-132-833 -  26.05.2005

Beckett: Endgame

Hamm is horrofied at the notion that existence is a recurring matter and therefore is cyclic; that beginnings and endings (60- 62) may be amalgamated in the grand scheme of things and that life will start afresh again. Nevertheless, the contradictions confuse his desires. He is terrified of the flea and rat that Clov finds and wants to exterminate them in case "humanity might start from there all over again," but he also suggests that he and Clov go South to other "mammals." He wants to be left alone, but clings to Clov and does anything he can to pull him back into the room. Most confusingly, he believes that nature is changing, though all evidence indicates that it has "zero" change. Under his misanthropic exterior is a desperate craving, the fear of being alone that has been with him ever since childhood (as Nagg tells it).

     Light (52- 56), which is used as a symbol of hope and life, expresses many of the displayed facetts of Hamm's personality. He is attracted to whatever light there is in a world where the light is fading (54), asking Clov to push him under the window so he can feel it on his face. On the other hand, we also learn that he withheld light from someone named Mother Pegg, who died of darkness. Compounding this is Hamm's blindness; he has been cursed with darkness (50-56), and he wants others to share the same depressing and miserable fate. When he polishes his dark glasses (41- 45), it is a futile routine of equal parts poignancy, resentment and bitterness.

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     Indeed, Hamm's routines are all futile (38, 44). As in many of Beckett's plays, routines are what humans perform to convince themselves that death is not imminent, that each day is the same. Ironically, the empty, absurd practices only push them closer to death. In the "endgame" of his life, Hamm is only partially reconciled to death—he wants it to come, but he admits that he "hesitate[s]" to "finish." (Beckett 3) The routines fill this middle ground, staving off death while drawing it ever closer. Both men question why they put up with each other, and ...

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