Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 22 December 1989) Although puzzling in his approach to art, Beckett broke

e every realistic convention and prophesied the consumerist mentality and the lack of communication in an era permeated by the technology of communication. As a student, assistant, and friend of James Joyce, Beckett is considered one of the last modernists; as an inspiration to many later writers, he is sometimes considered one of the first postmodernists Beckett is publicly most famous for the play Waiting for Godot. In a muchquoted article, the critic Vivian Mercier wrote that Beckett "has achieved a theoretical impossibilitya play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." (Irish Times, 18 February 1956, p. 6.) Beckett's career as a writer can be roughly divided into three periods: his early works, up until the end of World War II in 1945; his middle period, stretching from 1945 until the early 1960s, during which period he wrote what are probably his best-known works; and his late period, from the early 1960s until Beckett's death in 1989, during which his works tended to become shorter and his style more minimalist. Similar elements are present in Beckett's first published novel, Murphy (1938), which also to some extent explores the themes of insanity and chess, both of which would be recurrent elements in Beckett's later works. The novel's opening sentence also hints at the somewhat pessimistic undertones and black humour that animate many of Beckett's works: 'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new'. Watt, written while Beckett was in hiding in Roussillon during World War II, is similar in terms of themes, but less exuberant in its style. This novel also, at certain points, explores human movement as if it were a mathematical permutation, presaging Beckett's later preoccupationin both his novels and dramatic workswith precise movement. "Theatre of the Absurd"deals in a very blackly humorous way with themes similar to those of the roughly contemporary existentialist thinkers Many of his the plays deal with the subject of despair and the will to survive in spite of that despair, in the face of an uncomprehending and, indeed,
1

incomprehensible world. The words of Nellone of the two characters in Endgame who are trapped in ashbins, from which they occasionally peek their heads to speakcan best summarize the themes of the plays of Beckett's middle period: "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. ... Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more." Beckett's outstanding achievements in prose during the period were the three novels Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951; Malone Dies) and L'innommable (1953: The Unnamable). In these novelssometimes referred to as a "trilogy", though this is against the author's own explicit wishes the reader can trace the development of Beckett's mature style and themes, as the novels become more and more stripped down, barer and barer. Molloy, for instance, still retains many of the characteristics of a conventional noveltime, place, movement and plotand is indeed, on one level, a detective novel. In Malone Dies, however, movement and plot are largely dispensed with, though there is still some indication of place and the passage of time; the "action" of the book takes the form of an interior monologue. Finally, in The Unnamable, all sense of place and time are done away with, and the essential theme seems to be the conflict between the voice's drive to continue speaking so as to continue existing and its almost equally strong urge to find silence and oblivion. Despite the widely-held view that Beckett's work, as exemplified by the novels of this period, is essentially pessimistic, the will to live seems to win out in the end; witness, for instance, the famous final phrase of The Unnamable: 'I can't go on, I'll go on'. Many of these late plays, taking a cue from Krapp's Last Tape, were concerned to a great extent with memory, or more particularly, with the often forced recollection of haunting past events in a moment of stillness in the present. Moreover, as often as not these late plays dealt with the theme of the self confined and observed insofar as a voice either comes from outside into the protagonist's head, as in Eh Joe, or else the protagonist is silently commented upon by another character, as in Not I. He opened up the possibility of drama and fiction that dispense with conventional plot and the unities of place and time in order to focus on essential components of the human condition.

Life and writings The Becketts were members of the Church of Ireland. Beckett studied French, Italian, and English at Trinity College, Dublin from 1923 to 1927. Beckett graduated with a BA, andafter teaching briefly at Campbell College in Belfasttook up the post of lecteur d'anglais in the cole Normale Suprieure in Paris. While there, he was introduced to renowned Irish author James Joyce . In 1929, Beckett published his first work, a critical essay entitled "Dante... Bruno. Vico... Joyce". The essay defends Joyce's work and method, chiefly from allegations of wanton obscurity and dimness, and was Beckett's contribution to Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, a book of essays on Joyce which also included contributions by Eugene Jolas, Robert McAlmon, and William Carlos Williams, among others. Beckett's close relationship with Joyce and his family, however, cooled when he rejected the advances of Joyce's daughter Lucia owing to her progressing schizophrenia. It was also during this period that Beckett's first short story, "Assumption", was published in Jolas's periodical transition. The next year he won a small literary prize with his hastily composed poem "Whoroscope", which draws from a biography of Ren Descartes that Beckett happened to be reading when he was encouraged to submit. In 1930, Beckett returned to Trinity College as a lecturer. He soon became disillusioned with his chosen academic vocation, however. He expressed his aversion by playing a trick on the Modern Language Society of Dublin, reading a learned paper in French on a Toulouse author named Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called Concentrism; Chas and Concentrism, however, were pure fiction, having been invented by Beckett to mock pedantry. Beckett resigned from Trinity at the end of 1931, terminating his brief academic career. He commemorated this turning point in his life by composing the poem "Gnome", inspired by his reading of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and eventually published in the Dublin Magazine in 1934: Spend the years of learning squandering Courage for the years of wandering Through a world politely turning From the loutishness of learning
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After leaving Trinity, Beckett began to travel in Europe. He also spent some time in London, where in 1931 he published Proust, his critical study of French author Marcel Proust. Two years later, in the wake of his father's death, he began two years' treatment with Tavistock Clinic psychoanalyst, Dr. Wilfred Bion, who took him to hear Carl Jung's third Tavistock lecture, an event which Beckett would still recall many years later. The lecture focused on the subject of the "never properly born," and aspects of it would become evident in Beckett's later works including Watt and Waiting for Godot. In 1932, he wrote his first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, but after many rejections from publishers decided to abandon it; the book would eventually be published in 1993. Despite his inability to get it published, however, the novel did serve as a source for many of Beckett's early poems, as well as for his first full-length book, the 1933 short-story collection More Pricks Than Kicks. In 1935 the year that Beckett successfully published a book of his poetry, Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates , he was also working on his novel Murphy. Murphy appeared in 1938 and he himself translated into French the next year. He preferred "France at war to Ireland at peace. In Paris, in January 1938, while refusing the solicitations of a notorious pimp who ironically went by the name of Prudent, he was stabbed. At a preliminary hearing, Beckett asked his attacker for the motive behind the stabbing, and Prudent casually replied, "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur. Je m'excuse" ("I do not know, sir. I'm sorry. Beckett joined the French Resistance after the 1940 occupation by Germany, working as a courier, and on several occasions over the next two years was nearly caught by the Gestapo. Beckett chose to write in French becauseas he himself claimedin French it was easier for him to write "without style." Beckett is publicly most famous for the play Waiting for Godot. In a muchquoted article, the critic Vivian Mercier wrote that Beckett "has achieved a theoretical impossibilitya play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." (Irish Times, 18 February 1956, p. 6.) Like most of his works after 1947, the play was first written in French with the title En attendant Godot. Beckett
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worked on the play between October 1948 and January 1949. He published it in 1952, and premiered it in 1953. The English translation appeared two years later. He translated all of his works into English himself, with the exception of Molloy, whose translation was collaborative with Patrick Bowles. The success of Waiting for Godot opened up a career in theatre for its author. Beckett went on to write a number of successful full-length plays, including 1957's Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape (written in English), 1960's Happy Days (also written in English), and 1963's Play. In he graveyard he wanted a simple granite gravestone which could be "any colour, so long as it's grey." Works Beckett's career as a writer can be roughly divided into three periods: his early works, up until the end of World War II in 1945; his middle period, stretching from 1945 until the early 1960s, during which period he wrote what are probably his best-known works; and his late period, from the early 1960s until Beckett's death in 1989, during which his works tended to become shorter and his style more minimalist. Early works Beckett's earliest works are generally considered to have been strongly influenced by the work of his friend James Joyce: they are deeply erudite, seeming to display the author's learning merely for its own sake, resulting in several obscure passages. The opening phrases of the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks (1934) affords a representative sample of this style: "It was morning and Belacqua was stuck in the first of the canti in the moon. He was so bogged that he could move neither backward nor forward. Blissful Beatrice was there, Dante also, and she explained the spots on the moon to him. She shewed him in the first place where he was at fault, then she put up her own explanation. She had it from God, therefore he could rely on its being accurate in every particular." The passage makes reference to Dante's Commedia, which can serve to confuse readers not familiar with that work. At the same time, however, there are portents of Beckett's later work: the physical inactivity of the character Belacqua; the character's immersion in his own head and thoughts; the somewhat irreverent comedy of the final sentence.
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Similar elements are present in Beckett's first published novel, Murphy (1938), which also to some extent explores the themes of insanity and chess, both of which would be recurrent elements in Beckett's later works. The novel's opening sentence also hints at the somewhat pessimistic undertones and black humour that animate many of Beckett's works: 'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new'. Watt, written while Beckett was in hiding in Roussillon during World War II, is similar in terms of themes, but less exuberant in its style. This novel also, at certain points, explores human movement as if it were a mathematical permutation, presaging Beckett's later preoccupationin both his novels and dramatic workswith precise movement. It was also during this early period that Beckett first began to write creatively in the French language. In the late 1930s, he wrote a number of short poems in that language, and these poems' sparsenessin contrast to the density of his English poems of roughly the same period, collected in Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates (1935)seems to show that Beckett, albeit through the medium of another language, was in process of simplifying his style somewhat, a change also evidenced in Watt. Middle period who may tell the tale of the old man? weigh absence in a scale? mete want with a span? the sum assess of the world's woes? nothingness in words enclose? From Watt (1953) During the 15 years subsequent to the war, Beckett produced four major fulllength stage plays: En attendant Godot (written 19481949;Waiting for Godot), Fin de partie (19551957; Endgame), Krapp's Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days (1960). These playswhich are often considered, rightly or wrongly, to have been instrumental in the so-called "Theatre of the Absurd"deal in a very blackly humorous way with themes similar to those of the roughly contemporary existentialist thinkers. The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin in a book of the same name; Beckett and Godot were
6

centrepieces of the book. Esslin claimed these plays were the fulfilment of Albert Camus's concept of "the absurd"; this is one reason Beckett is often falsely labelled as an existentialist (this is based on the assumption that Camus was an existentialist, though he in fact broke off from the existentialist movement and founded his own philosophy). Though many of the themes are similar, Beckett had little affinity for existentialism as a whole. Broadly speaking, the plays deal with the subject of despair and the will to survive in spite of that despair, in the face of an uncomprehending and, indeed, incomprehensible world. The words of Nellone of the two characters in Endgame who are trapped in ashbins, from which they occasionally peek their heads to speakcan best summarize the themes of the plays of Beckett's middle period: "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. ... Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more." Beckett's outstanding achievements in prose during the period were the three novels Molloy (1951), Malone meurt (1951; Malone Dies) and L'innommable (1953: The Unnamable). In these novelssometimes referred to as a "trilogy", though this is against the author's own explicit wishes the reader can trace the development of Beckett's mature style and themes, as the novels become more and more stripped down, barer and barer. Molloy, for instance, still retains many of the characteristics of a conventional noveltime, place, movement and plotand is indeed, on one level, a detective novel. In Malone Dies, however, movement and plot are largely dispensed with, though there is still some indication of place and the passage of time; the "action" of the book takes the form of an interior monologue. Finally, in The Unnamable, all sense of place and time are done away with, and the essential theme seems to be the conflict between the voice's drive to continue speaking so as to continue existing and its almost equally strong urge to find silence and oblivion. It is tempting to see in this a reflection of Beckett's experience and understanding of what the war had done to the world. Despite the widely-held view that Beckett's work, as exemplified by the novels of this period, is essentially pessimistic, the will to live seems to win out in the end; witness, for instance, the famous final phrase of The Unnamable: 'I can't go on, I'll go on'. He published some brief "stories" later collected as Texts for Nothing. In the late 1950s, however, he managed to create one of his most radical prose works, Comment c'est (1961; How It Is). This work relates the adventures of an
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unnamed narrator crawling through the mud while dragging a sack of canned food, and was written as a sequence of unpunctuated paragraphs in a style approaching telegraphese: "You are there somewhere alive somewhere vast stretch of time then it's over you are there no more alive no more than again you are there again alive again it wasn't over an error you begin again all over more or less in the same place or in another as when another image above in the light you come to in hospital in the dark" Following this work, it would be almost another decade before Beckett produced a work of non-dramatic prose, and indeed How It Is is generally considered to mark the end of his middle period as a writer. Late works time she stopped sitting at her window quiet at her window only window facing other windows other only windows all eyes all sides high and low time she stopped From Rockaby(1980) Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, Beckett's works exhibited an increasing tendencyalready evident in much of his work of the 1950s towards compactness that has led to his work sometimes being described as minimalist. The extreme example of this, among his dramatic works, is the 1969 piece Breath, which lasts for only 35 seconds and has no characters (though it was likely intended to offer ironic comment on Oh! Calcutta!, the theatrical revue for which it served as an introductory piece). In the dramas of the late period, Beckett's charactersalready few in number in the earlier playsare whittled down to essential elements. The ironically titled 1962 Play, for instance, consists of three characters stuck to their necks in large funeral urns, while the 1963 television drama Eh Joewritten for the actor Jack
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MacGowranis animated by a camera that steadily closes in to a tight focus upon the face of the title character, and the 1972 play Not I consists almost solely of, in Beckett's words, 'a moving mouth with the rest of the stage in darkness'. Many of these late plays, taking a cue from Krapp's Last Tape, were concerned to a great extent with memory, or more particularly, with the often forced recollection of haunting past events in a moment of stillness in the present. Moreover, as often as not these late plays dealt with the theme of the self confined and observed insofar as a voice either comes from outside into the protagonist's head, as in Eh Joe, or else the protagonist is silently commented upon by another character, as in Not I. Such themes also led to Beckett's most politically charged play, 1982's Catastrophe, dedicated to Vclav Havel, which dealt relatively explicitly with the idea of dictatorship. After a long period of inactivity, Beckett's poetry experienced a revival during this period in the ultraterse French poems of mirlitonnades, some as short as six words long. These defied Beckett's usual scrupulous concern to translate his work from its original into the other of his two languages. Beckett's prose pieces during the late period were not so prolific as his writing of drama, as suggested by the title of the 1976 collection of short prose texts Fizzles, (illustrated by American artist Jasper Johns). He did, however, experience something of a renaissance, beginning with the 1979 novella Company, and continuing on through 1982's Ill Seen Ill Said and 1984's Worstward Ho, later collected in Nohow On. In the prose medium of these three '"closed space" stories', Beckett continued his preoccupation with memory and its effect on the confined and observed self, as well as with the positioning of bodies in space, as the opening phrases of Company make clear: "A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine." "To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can be verified. As for example when he hears, You are on your back in the dark. Then he must acknowledge the truth of what is said." In the hospital and nursing home where he spent his final days, Beckett wrote his final work, the 1988 poem "What is the Word" ("Comment dire"). The poem grapples with an inability to find words to express oneself, a theme echoing Beckett's earlier work, perhaps amplified by his sickness late in life. Legacy Of all the English-language modernists, Beckett's work represents the most sustained attack on the realist tradition. He opened up the possibility of drama
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and fiction that dispense with conventional plot and the unities of place and time in order to focus on essential components of the human condition. Writers likeVclav Havel, John Banville, Aidan Higgins and Harold Pinter have publicly stated their indebtedness to Beckett's example. He has had a wider influence on experimental writing since the 1950s, from the Beat generation to the happenings of the 1960s and after. In an Irish context, he has exerted great influence on poets such as John Banville, Derek Mahon, Thomas Kinsella, as well as writers like Trevor Joyce and Catherine Walsh who proclaim their adherence to the modernist tradition as an alternative to the dominant realist mainstream. Many major 20th-century composers, including Luciano Berio, Gyrgy Kurtg, Morton Feldman, Pascal Dusapin, Scott Fields, Philip Glass, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and Heinz Holliger have created musical works based on his texts. Beckett's work was also an influence on many visual artists, including Bruce Nauman, Douglas Gordon, Alexander Arotin, and Avigdor Arikha; Arikha, in addition to being inspired by Beckett's literary world, also drew a number of portraits of Beckett and illustrated several of his works. Beckett is one of the most widely discussed and highly prized of twentieth century authors, inspiring a critical industry to rival that which has sprung up around James Joyce. He has divided critical opinion. Some early philosophical critics, such as Sartre and Theodor Adorno, praised him, one for his revelation of absurdity, the other for his works' critical refusal of simplicities; others such as Georg Lukcs condemned for 'decadent' lack of realism. American critic Harold Bloom pays attention to his atheism of Anglican source, compared with James Joyce's, former Catholic bent, noting "Beckett and Joyce shared the aversion to Christianity in Ireland. The two chose Paris and atheism."

- Bibliography Works in English Whoroscope : Poem on Time. Paris : Hours, 1930 Proust. London : Chatto & Windus, 1931 ; New York : Grove, 1957 More Pricks Than Kicks. London : Chatto & Windus, 1934 ; New York: Grove, 1970 Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates. Paris : Europa, 1935
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Murphy. London : Routledge, 1938 ; New York : Grove, 1957 Watt. Paris : Olympia, 1953 ; New York : Grove, 1959 ; London : Calder, 1963 All That Fall. New York : Grove, 1957 ; London : Faber & Faber, 1957 From an Abandoned Work. London : Faber, 1958 Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces . New York : Grove, 1960. Comprises Krapp's Last Tape, All That Fall, Embers, Act Without Words I, and Act Without Words II Happy Days. New York : Grove, 1961; London : Faber, 1962 Poems in English. London : Calder, 1961 ; New York : Grove, 1963 Play and Two Short Pieces for Radio. London : Faber, 1964 Eh Joe and Other Writings. London : Faber, 1967. Comprises Eh Joe, Act Without Words II, and Film Breath and Other Shorts. London : Faber, 1972. Comprises Breath, Come and Go, Act Without Words I, Act Without Words II, and From an Abandoned Work Not I. London : Faber, 1973 That Time. London : Faber, 1976 Fizzles. New York : Grove, 1976 All Strange Away. New York : Gotham Book Mart, 1976 ; London : Calder, 1979 Footfalls. London : Faber, 1976 Ends and Odds : Eight New Dramatic Pieces. New York : Grove, 1976. Comprises Not I, That Time, Footfalls, Ghost Trio, Theatre I, Theatre II, Radio I, and Radio II Ends and Odds : Plays and Sketches. London : Faber, 1977. Comprises Not I, That Time, Footfalls, Ghost Trio, Theatre I, Theatre II, Radio I,Radio II ,
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and ... but the clouds ... Four Novellas. London : Calder, 1977. comprises First Love, The Expelled, The Calmative, and The End Expelled, and Other Novellas. New York : Penguin, 1980. comprises First Love, The Expelled, The Calmative, and The End Company. New York : Grove, 1980 Nohow On : Three Novels. New York : Grove, 1980. comprises Company, Ill Seen, Ill Said, and Worstward Ho Rockaby and Other Short Pieces. New York : Grove, 1981. Comprises Rockaby, Ohio Impromptu, All Strange Away, and A Piece of Monologue Three Plays. New York : Grove, 1984. Comprises Ohio Impromptu, Catastrophe, and What Where As the Story Was Told. Cambridge : Rampant Lions, 1987 Stirrings Still. New York : Blue Moon, 1988 ; London : Calder, 1988 Dream of Fair to Middling Women / edited by Eoin O'Brien and Edith Fournier. Dublin : Black Cat Press, 1992

Works in French Molloy. Paris : Minuit, 1951 Malone meurt. Paris : Minuit, 1951 En attendant Godot. Paris : Minuit, 1952 L'innommable. Paris : Minuit, 1953 Nouvelles et Textes pour rien. Paris : Minuit, 1955 Fin de partie, suivi de Acte sans paroles. Paris : Minuit, 1957 Ttes-Mortes. Paris : Minuit, 1967. d. Augm. 1972 Acte sans paroles II // Dramatische Dichtungen. Vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main:
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Suhrkamp, 1963 Comment c'est. Paris : Minuit, 1961 Imagination morte imaginez. Paris : Minuit, 1965 Assez. Paris : Minuit, 1966 Bing. Paris : Minuit, 1966 Pomes. Paris : Minuit, 1968 Sans. Paris : Minuit, 1969 Le Dpeupleur. Paris : Minuit, 1970 Mercier et Camier. Paris : Minuit, 1970 Premier amour. Paris : Minuit, 1970 Pour finir encore et autres foirades. Paris : Minuit, 1976 Pomes , suivi de Mirlitonnades. Paris : Minuit, 1978 Catastrophe et autres dramaticules. Paris : Minuit, 1982 Eleuthria. Paris : Minuit, 1995

Eleuthria The plot concerns the efforts of a young member of the bourgeoisie, Victor Krap, to cut himself off from society and his family--while at the same time accepting hand-outs from his mother. The title, eleutheria is Greek for "liberty".

Waiting for Godot is a play in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Waiting for Godot is Beckett's translation of his own original French version, En attendant Godot, and is subtitled (in English only) "a tragicomedy in two acts". Act I Waiting for Godot follows two days in the lives of a pair of men who divert themselves while they wait expectantly and in vain for someone named Godot to
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arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but in fact hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognise him were they to see him. To occupy themselves, they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay". The play opens with the character Estragon struggling to remove his boot from his foot. Estragon eventually gives up, muttering, "Nothing to be done." His friend Vladimir takes up the thought and muses on it, the implication being that nothing is a thing that has to be done and this pair is going to have to spend the rest of the play doing it. When Estragon finally succeeds in removing his boot, he looks and feels inside but finds nothing. Just prior to this, Vladimir peers into his hat. The motif recurs throughout the play. The pair discuss repentance, particularly in relation to the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus, and that only one of the Four Evangelists mentions that one of them was saved. This is the first of numerous Biblical references in the play, which may be linked to its putative central theme of the search for and reconciliation with God, as well as salvation: "We're saved!" they cry on more than one occasion when they feel that Godot may be near. Presently, Vladimir expresses his frustration with Estragon's limited conversational skills: "Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a while?" Estragon struggles in this regard throughout the play, and Vladimir generally takes the lead in their dialogue and encounters with others. Vladimir is at times hostile towards his companion, but in general they are close, frequently embracing and supporting one another. Estragon peers out into the audience and comments on the bleakness of his surroundings. He wants to depart but is told that they cannot because they must wait for Godot. The pair cannot agree, however, on whether or not they are in the right place or that this is the arranged day for their meeting with Godot; indeed, they are not even sure what day it is. Throughout the play, experienced time is attenuated, fractured or eerily non-existent. The only thing that they are fairly sure about is that they are to meet at a tree: there is one nearby. Estragon dozes off, but Vladimir is not interested in hearing about his dream after rousing him. Estragon wants to hear an old joke about a brothel, which Vladimir starts but cannot finish, as he is suddenly compelled to rush off and urinate. He does not finish the story when he returns, asking Estragon instead what else they might do to pass the time. Estragon suggests that they hang themselves, but they quickly abandon the idea when it seems that they might not both die: this would leave one of them alone, an intolerable notion. They decide
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to do nothing: "It's safer," explains Estragon, before asking what Godot is going to do for them when he arrives. For once it is Vladimir who struggles to remember: "Oh ... nothing very definite," is the best that he can manage. When Estragon declares that he is hungry, Vladimir provides a carrot, most of which, and without much relish, the former eats. The diversion ends as it began, Estragon announcing that they still have nothing to do. Their waiting is interrupted by the passing through of Pozzo and his heavilyladen slave Lucky. "A terrible cry" from the wings heralds the initial entrance of Lucky, who has a rope tied around his neck. He crosses half the stage before his master appears holding the other end. Pozzo barks orders at his slave and frequently calls him a "pig", but is civil towards the other two. They mistake him at first for Godot and clearly do not recognise him for the self-proclaimed personage he is. This irks him, but, while maintaining that the land that they are on is his, he acknowledges that "the road is free to all". Deciding to rest for a while, Pozzo enjoys a pre-packed meal of chicken and wine. Finished, he casts the bones aside, and Estragon jumps at the chance to ask for them, much to Vladimir's embarrassment, but is told that they belong to the carrier. He must first, therefore, ask Lucky if he wants them. Estragon tries, but Lucky only hangs his head, refusing to answer. Taking this as a "no", Estragon claims the bones. Vladimir takes Pozzo to task regarding his mistreatment of his slave, but his protestations are ignored. When the original pairing tries to find out why Lucky does not put down his load (at least not unless his master is prevailing on him to do something else), Pozzo explains that Lucky is attempting to mollify him to prevent him from selling him. At this, Lucky begins to cry. Pozzo provides a handkerchief, but, when Estragon tries to wipe his tears away, Lucky kicks him in the shins. Before he leaves, Pozzo asks if he can do anything for the pair in exchange for the company they have provided him during his rest. Estragon tries to ask for some money, but Vladimir cuts him short, explaining that they are not beggars. They nevertheless accept an offer to have Lucky dance and think. The dance is clumsy and shuffling, and everyone is disappointed. Lucky's "think", induced by Vladimir's putting his hat on his head, is a lengthy and disjointed verbal stream of consciousness. The soliloquy begins relatively

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coherently but quickly dissolves into logorrhoea and only ends when Vladimir rips off Lucky's hat. Once Lucky has been revived, Pozzo has him pack up his things and, together, they leave. At the end of the act (and its successor), a boy arrives, purporting to be a messenger sent from Godot, to advise the pair that he will not be coming that "evening but surely tomorrow." During Vladimir's interrogation of the boy, he asks if he came the day before, making it apparent that the two men have been waiting for an indefinite period and will likely continue to wait ad infinitum. After the boy departs, they decide to leave but make no attempt to do so, an action repeated in Act II, as the curtain is drawn. Act II Act II opens with Vladimir singing a recursive round about a dog which serves to illustrate the cyclical nature of the play's universe, and also points toward the play's debt to the carnivalesque, music hall traditions, and vaudeville comedy (this is only one of a number of canine references and allusions in the play). There is a bit of realisation on Vladimir's part that the world they are trapped in evinces convoluted progression (or lack thereof) of time. He begins to see that although there is notional evidence of linear progression, basically he is living the same day over and over. Once again Estragon maintains he spent the night in a ditch and was beaten by "ten of them" this time though once again he shows no sign of injury. Vladimir tries to talk to him about what appears to be a seasonal change in the tree and the proceedings of the day before, but he has only a vague recollection. Vladimir tries to get Estragon to remember Pozzo and Lucky but all he can call to mind are the bones and getting kicked. Vladimir realises here an opportunity to produce tangible evidence of the previous day's events. With some difficulty he gets Estragon to show him his leg. There is a wound which is beginning to fester. Only then Vladimir notices that Estragon is not wearing any boots. He discovers the pair of boots, which Estragon insists are not his but nevertheless fit when he tries them on. With no carrots left, Vladimir offers Estragon the choice between a turnip and a radish. He opts for the radish but it is black and he hands it back. He decides to try and sleep again and adopts the same foetal position as the previous day. Vladimir sings him a lullaby. Vladimir notices Lucky's hat, and he decides to try it on. This leads to a frenetic hat swapping scene. They play at imitating Pozzo and Lucky, but Estragon can barely remember having met them and simply does what Vladimir asks. They fire insults at each other and then make up. After that, they attempt some
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physical jerks which do not work out well and even attempt a single yoga position, which fails miserably. Pozzo and Lucky arrive with Pozzo now blind and insisting that Lucky is dumb. The rope is now much shorter, and Lucky who has acquired a new hat leads Pozzo, rather than being driven by him. Pozzo has lost all notion of time, and assures them he cannot remember meeting them the day before, and does not expect to remember the current day's events when they are over. They fall in a heap at one point. Estragon sees an opportunity to extort more food or to exact revenge on Lucky for kicking him. The issue is debated at length. Pozzo offers them money but Vladimir sees more worth in their entertainment value since they are compelled to wait to see if Godot arrives anyway. Eventually though, they all find their way onto their feet. Whereas the Pozzo in Act I is a windbag, he now (as a blind man) appears to have gained some insight. His parting words which Vladimir expands upon later eloquently encapsulate the brevity of human existence: "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more." Lucky and Pozzo depart. The same boy returns to inform them not to expect Godot today, but promises he will arrive the next day. The two again consider suicide but their rope, Estragon's belt, breaks in two when they tug on it. Estragon's trousers fall down, but he does not notice until Vladimir tells him to pull them up. They resolve to bring a more suitable piece and hang themselves the next day, if Godot fails to arrive. Again, they agree to leave but neither of them makes any move to go. Characters Vladimir and Estragon When Beckett started writing he did not have a visual image of Vladimir and Estragon. They are never referred to as tramps in the text. There are no physical descriptions of either of the two characters; however, the text indicates that Vladimir is the heaviest of the pair. The bowlers and other broadly comic aspects of their personas have reminded modern audiences of Laurel and Hardy, who occasionally played tramps in their films. "The hat-passing game in Waiting For Godot and Lucky's inability to think without his hat on are two obvious Beckett derivations from Laurel and Hardy - a substitution of form for essence, covering for reality," wrote Gerald Mast in The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2nd ed. 1979). Beckett also alludes to
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the comedy team specifically in his novel Watt (1953), when a healthy shrub is described at one point as "a hardy laurel". Vladimir stands through most of the play whereas Estragon sits down numerous times and even dozes off. "Estragon is inert and Vladimir restless." Vladimir looks at the sky and muses on religious or philosophical matters. Estragon "belongs to the stone", preoccupied with mundane things, what he can get to eat and how to ease his physical aches and pains; he is direct, intuitive. He finds it hard to remember but can recall certain things when prompted, e.g. when Vladimir asks: "Do you remember the Gospels?" Estragon tells him about the coloured maps of the Holy Land and that he planned to honeymoon by the Dead Sea; it is his short-term memory that is poorest and points to the fact that he may, in fact, be suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Al Alvarez writes: "But perhaps Estragon's forgetfulness is the cement binding their relationship together. He continually forgets, Vladimir continually reminds him; between them they pass the time." They have been together for fifty years but when asked by Pozzo they do not reveal their actual ages. Vladimir's life is not without its discomforts too but he is the most resilient of the pair. "Vladimir's pain is primarily mental anguish, which would thus account for his voluntary exchange of his hat for Lucky's, thus signifying Vladimir's symbolic desire for another person's thoughts." Throughout the play the couple refer to each other by pet names, "Didi" and "Gogo" although one of the boys addresses Vladimir as "Mister Albert". Vivian Mercier famous for describing Waiting for Godot as a play which "has achieved a theoretical impossibilitya play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." (Irish Times, 18 February 1956, p. 6.) once questioned Beckett on the language used by the pair: "It seemed to me ... he made Didi and Gogo sound as if they had earned Ph.D.s. 'How do you know they hadn't?' was his reply." They clearly have known better times, a visit to the Eiffel Tower and grape-harvesting by the Rhne; it is about all either has to say about their pasts. Vladimir at least is capable of being scandalised ... on a matter of etiquette when Estragon begs for chicken bones or money." Pozzo and Lucky When Beckett was asked why Lucky was so named, he replied, "I suppose he is lucky to have no more expectations..."
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Pozzo's dominance is noted to be superficial; "upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that Lucky always possessed more influence in the relationship, for he danced, and more importantly, thought not as a service, but in order to fill a vacant need of Pozzo: he committed all of these acts for Pozzo. As such, since the first appearance of the duo, the true slave had always been Pozzo." Pozzo credits Lucky with having given him all the culture, refinement, and ability to reason that he possesses. His rhetoric has been learned by rote. Pozzo's "party piece" on the sky is a clear example: as his memory crumbles, he finds himself unable to continue under his own steam. Little is learned about Pozzo besides the fact that he is on his way to the fair to sell his slave, Lucky. He presents himself very much as the Ascendancy landlord, bullying and conceited. His pipe is made by Kapp and Peterson, Dublin's best-known tobacconists (their slogan was 'The thinking man's pipe') which he refers to as a "briar" but which Estragon calls a "dudeen" emphasising the differences in their social standing. He confesses to a poor memory but it is more a result of an abiding self-absorption. "Pozzo is a character who has to overcompensate. That's why he overdoes things ... and his overcompensation has to do with a deep insecurity in him. Pozzo controls Lucky by means of an extremely long rope which he jerks and tugs if Lucky dares to be slow. Lucky is the absolutely subservient slave of Pozzo and he unquestioningly does his every bidding with "dog-like devotion". He struggles with a heavy suitcase without ever thinking of dropping it. Lucky speaks only once in the play and it is a result of Pozzo's order to "think" for Estragon and Vladimir. Pozzo and Lucky had been together for sixty years and, in that time, their relationship has deteriorated. Lucky has always been the intellectually superior but now, with age, he has become an object of contempt: his "think" is a caricature of intellectual thought and his "dance" is a sorry sight. Despite his horrid treatment at Pozzo's hand however, Lucky remains completely faithful to him. Even in the second act when Pozzo has inexplicably gone blind, and needs to be led by Lucky rather than driving him as he had done before, Lucky remains faithful and has not tried to run away; they are clearly bound together by more than a piece of rope in the same way that Didi and Gogo are "tied to Godot. The Boy The cast list specifies only one boy. The boy in Act I, a local lad, assures Vladimir that this is the first time he has seen him. He says he was not there the previous day. He confirms he works for
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Mr. Godot as a goatherd. His brother, whom Godot beats, is a shepherd. Godot feeds both of them and allows them to sleep in his hayloft. The boy in Act II also assures Vladimir that it was not he who called upon them the day before. He insists that this too is his first visit. When Vladimir asks what Godot does the boy tells him, "He does nothing, sir." We also learn he has a white beard possibly, the boy is not certain. This boy also has a brother who it seems is sick but there is no clear evidence to suggest that his brother is the boy that came in Act I or the one who came the day before that. Interpretations Freudian "Bernard Dukore develops a triadic theory in Didi, Gogo and the absent Godot, based on Sigmund Freud's trinitarian description of the psyche in The Ego and the Id (1923) and the usage of onomastic techniques. Dukore defines the characters by what they lack: the rational Go-go embodies the incomplete ego, the missing pleasure principle: (e)go-(e)go. Di-di (id-id) who is more instinctual and irrational is seen as the backward id or subversion of the rational principle. Godot fulfils the function of the superego or moral standards. Pozzo and Lucky are just re-iterations of the main protagonists. Dukore finally sees Beckett's play as a metaphor for the futility of man's existence when salvation is expected from an external entity, and the self is denied introspection." Jungian (Carl Jung, personality studies/behaviourist) "The four archetypal personalities or the four aspects of the soul are grouped in two pairs: the ego and the shadow, the persona and the soul's image (animus or anima). The shadow is the container of all our despised emotions repressed by the ego. Lucky, the shadow serves as the polar opposite of the egocentric Pozzo, prototype of prosperous mediocrity, who incessantly controls and persecutes his subordinate, thus symbolising the oppression of the unconscious shadow by the despotic ego. Lucky's monologue in Act I appears as a manifestation of a stream of repressed unconsciousness, as he is allowed to "think" for his master. Estragon's name has another connotation, besides that of the aromatic herb, tarragon: "estragon" is a cognate of oestrogen, the female hormone (Carter, 130). This prompts us to identify him with the anima, the feminine image of Vladimir's soul. It explains Estragon's propensity for poetry, his sensitivity and dreams, his irrational moods. Vladimir appears as the complementary masculine principle, or perhaps the rational persona of the contemplative type."
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Existential Broadly speaking, existentialists hold that there are certain fundamental questions that every human being must come to terms with if they are to take their subjective existences seriously and with intrinsic value. Questions such as death, the meaning of human existence and the place of (or lack of) God in that existence are among them. By and large, the theories of existentialism assert that conscious reality is very complex and without an "objective" or universally known value: the individual must create value by affirming it and living it, not by simply talking about it or philosophizing it in the mind. Much of Beckett's work including Godot is often considered by philosophical and literary scholars to be part of the movement of the Theatre of the Absurd, a form of theatre which stemmed from the Absurdist philosophy of Albert Camus. Absurdism itself is a branch off of the traditional assertions of existentialism, pioneered by Sren Kierkegaard, and posits that, while inherent meaning might very well exist in the universe, human beings are incapable of finding it due to some form of mental or philosophical limitation. Thus humanity is doomed to be faced with the Absurd, or the absolute absurdity of existence in lack of intrinsic purpose. Ethical Just after Didi and Gogo have been particularly selfish and callous, the boy comes to say that Godot is not coming. The boy (or pair of boys) may be seen to represent meekness and hope before compassion is consciously excluded by an evolving personality and character, and in which case may be the youthful Pozzo and Lucky. Thus Godot is compassion and fails to arrive every day, as he says he will. No-one is concerned that a boy is beaten. In this interpretation, there is the irony that only by changing their hearts to be compassionate can the characters fixed to the tree move on and cease to have to wait for Godot. Christian Much can be read into Beckett's inclusion of the story of the two thieves from Luke 23:3943 and the ensuing discussion of repentance. It is easy to see the solitary tree as representative of the Christian cross or, indeed, the tree of life. Similarly, because The Boy describes God as having a white beard, and Godot, if the boy's testimony is to be believed, also has a white beard, many see God and Godot as one and the same. Vladimir's "Christ have mercy upon us!" could be taken as evidence that that is at least what he believes. This reading is given further weight early in the first act when Estragon asks Vladimir what it is that he has requested from Godot:
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VLADIMIR: Oh ... nothing very definite. ESTRAGON: A kind of prayer. VLADIMIR: Precisely. ESTRAGON: A vague supplication. VLADIMIR: Exactly. Much of the play, steeped as it is in scriptural allusion, deals with the subject of religion. The entire play takes place atop a hill, which some may interpret as being closer to heaven, giving the play a purpose as religious parable. According to Anthony Cronin, "[Beckett] always possessed a Bible, at the end more than one edition, and Bible concordances were always among the reference books on his shelves" At a symbolical level, we can visualize the two characters Estragon and Vladimir as the two thieves mentioned in the drama. Estragon is punished for some reasons unknown which could mean that he is the thief who has been damned for abusing Christ. On the other hand, Vladimir could be the thief who has escaped from damnation even if it is only physical. This retribution shows the arbitrary God depicted by Beckett. Homoerotic That the play calls on only male actors, with scarcely a reference to women, has caused some to look upon Vladimir and Estragon's relationship as quasi-marital: "they bicker, they embrace each other, they depend upon each other [....] They might be thought of as a married couple." In Act One, Estragon speaks gently to his partner, approaching him slowly and laying a hand on his shoulder. After asking for his hand in turn and telling him not to be stubborn, he suddenly embraces him but backs off just as quickly, complaining, "You stink of garlic!" When Estragon reminisces about his occasional glances at the Bible and remembers how prettily coloured were the maps of the Dead Sea, he remarks, "That's where we'll go, I used to say, that's where we'll go for our honeymoon. We'll swim. We'll be happy." Furthermore, the temptation to achieve postmortem erections arises in the context of a world without females. Estragon in particular is "highly excited", in contrast with Vladimir, who chooses this moment to talk about shrieking mandrakes. His apparent indifference to his partner's arousal may be viewed as a sort of playful teasing. Production history

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Like all of Beckett's translations, Waiting for Godot is not simply a literal translation of En attendant Godot. "Small but significant differences separate the French and English text. Some, like Vladimir's inability to remember the farmer's name (Bonnelly), show how the translation became more indefinite, attrition and loss of memory more pronounced." A number of biographical details were removed, all adding to a general "vaguening" of the text which he continued to trim for the rest of his life. In the nineteen-fifties, theatre was strictly censored in the UK, to Beckett's amazement since he thought it a bastion of free speech. The Lord Chamberlain insisted that the word "erection" be removed, "'Fartov' became 'Popov' . Indeed, there were attempts to ban the play completely. For example, Lady Dorothy Howitt wrote to the Lord Chamberlain, saying: "One of the many themes running through the play is the desire of two old tramps continually to relieve themselves. Such a dramatisation of lavatory necessities is offensive and against all sense of British decency". "The first unexpurgated version of Godot in England ... opened at the Royal Court on 30 December 1964." Related works

Racine's Brnice is a play "in which nothing happens for five acts."In the preface to this play Racine writes: "All creativity consists in making something out of nothing." Beckett was an avid scholar of the 17th century playwright and lectured on him during his time at Trinity. "Essential to the static quality of a Racine play is the pairing of characters to talk at length to each other." The title character of Balzac's 1851 play Mercadet is waiting for financial salvation from his never seen business partner, Godeau. Although Beckett was familiar with Balzac's prose; he is insistent that he learned of this play after finishing Waiting for Godot. Coincidentally, in 1949, Balzac's play was closely adapted to film as The Lovable Cheat (starring Buster Keaton, whom Beckett greatly admired). Many critics regard the protagonists in Beckett's novel Mercier and Camier as prototypes of Vladimir and Estragon. "If you want to find the origins of Godot," he told Colin Duckworth once, "look at Murphy." Here we see the agonised protagonist yearning for selfknowledge, or at least complete freedom of thought at any cost, and
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the dichotomy and interaction of mind and body. It is also a book that dwells on mental illness something that affects all the characters in Godot. In defence of the critics, Mercier and Camier wander aimlessly about a boggy, rain-soaked island that, although not explicitly named, is Beckett's native Ireland. They speak convoluted dialogues similar to Vladimir and Estragon's, joke about the weather and chat in pubs, while the purpose of their odyssey is never made clear. The waiting in Godot is the wandering of the novel. "There are large chunks of dialogue which he later transferred directly into Godot." Works inspired by Godot

French playwright Matei Viniec (of Romanian origin), wrote his famous play Old Clown Wanted, inspired by Waiting for Godot. Matei Viniec's play, The Last Godot, in which Samuel Becket and Godot are characters, ends with the first lines in Waiting for Godot.

Molloy On first appearance the book concerns two different characters, both of whom have interior monologues in the book. As the story moves along the two characters are distinguished by name only as their experiences and thoughts are, to say the least, similar. The novel is set in an indeterminate place, most often identified with the Ireland of Beckett's birth. It was written in Paris, along with the other two books (Malone Dies and The Unnamable) of 'The Trilogy', between 1946 and 1950. The plot, what little there is of it, is revealed in the course of the two inner monologues that make up the book. The first monologue is split into two paragraphs. The first paragraph is less than a page long; the second paragraph lasts for over eighty pages. The first is by a former vagrant named Molloy, who is now living "in his mother's room" and writing to "speak of the things that are left, say his goodbyes, finish dying." He describes a journey he had taken some time earlier, before he came there, to find his mother. He spends much of it on his bicycle, gets arrested for resting on it in a way that is considered lewd, but is unceremoniously released. From town to anonymous town and across anonymous countryside, he encounters a succession of bizarre characters: an
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elderly man with a stick; a policeman; a charity worker; a woman whose dog he kills running over it with a bike (her name is never completely determined: "a Mrs Loy... or Lousse, I forget, Christian name something like Sophie"), and one whom he falls in love with ("Ruth" or maybe "Edith"); He abandons his bicycle (which he will not call "bike"), walks in no certain direction, meeting "a young old man"; a charcoal-burner living in the woods, whom he murders with a hard blow to the head; and finally a character who takes him in, to the room. The second is by a private detective by the name of Jacques Moran, who is given the task by his boss, the mysterious Youdi, of tracking down Molloy. He sets out, taking his recalcitrant son, also named Jacques, with him. They wander across the countryside, increasingly bogged down by the weather, decreasing supplies of food and Moran's suddenly failing body. He sends his son to purchase a bicycle and while his son is gone, Moran encounters a strange man who appears before him. Moran murders him (in manner comparable to Molloy's), and then hides his body in the forest. Eventually, the son disappears, and he struggles home. At this point in the work, Moran begins to pose several odd theological questions, which make him appear to be going mad. Having returned to his home, now in a state of shambles and disuse, Moran switches to discussing his present state. He has begun to use crutches, just as Molloy does at the beginning of the novel. Also a voice, which has appeared intermittently throughout his part of the text, has begun to significantly inform his actions. The novel ends with Moran delineating how the beginning of his report was crafted. He reveals that the first words of the section were told to him by this nascent voice, which instructed him to sit down and begin writing. 'It is midnight. Rain is beating against the window.' It was not midnight. It was not raining. Thus, Moran forsakes reality, beginning to descend into the command of this "voice" which may in fact mark the true creation of Molloy. Due to the succession of the book from the first part to the second the reader is led to believe that time is passing in a similar fashion. Characters in Molloy Molloy is a vagrant, currently bedridden; it appears he is a seasoned veteran in vagrancy, reflecting that "To him who has nothing it is forbidden not to relish filth." He is surprisingly well-educated, having studied geography, among other things, and seems to know something of "old Geulincx". He has a number of bizarre habits, not least of which is the sucking of pebbles, described by Beckett
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in an enormous and infamous passage, and also having an odd and rather morbid attachment to his mother (who may or may not be dead). Moran is a private detective, with a housekeeper, Martha, and son, Jacques, both of whom he treats with scorn. He is pedantic and extremely ordered, pursuing the task set him logically, to the point of absurdity, expressing fear that his son will catch him masturbating and being an extreme disciplinarian. He also shows an insincere reverence for the church and deference to the local priest, perhaps indicative of Beckett's perception of attitudes in Ireland. As the novel progresses, his body begins to fail for no visible or specified reason, a fact that surprises him, and his mind begins to decline to the point of insanity. This similarity in bodily and mental decline leads readers to believe that Molloy and Moran are in fact two facets of the same personality, or that the section narrated by Molloy is actually written by Moran. References to other works Molloy includes references to a number of Beckett's other works, especially the characters, who are revealed as fictional characters in the same manner as Molloy and Moran: "Oh the stories I could tell you if I were easy. What a rabble in my head, what a gallery of moribunds. Murphy, Watt, Yerk, Mercier and all the others." (Part II) Dantesque imagery is present throughout the novel, like in most of Beckett's work. In Part I, Molloy compares himself to Belacqua from the Purgatorio, Canto IV and Sordello from the Purgatorio, Canto VI. There are also Molloy's frequent references to the various positions of the sun, which calls to mind similar passages in the Purgatorio. Endgame Endgame is the term used to describe an ending in chess where the outcome is already known. Chess masters often study endgames in order to guarantee themselves victory once they maneuver their opponent into a certain position. Beckett, an avid chess fan, saw the parallel between the chess endgame the final stages of life. He realized that death is the final outcome and that regardless of how a person plays the game, he or she will die. The imagery of chess is presented in the play through Clov and Hamm who are red and Nagg and Nell who are white. The stage setting is important because it has been likened to a skull. The two windows on the back wall form the eye sockets of this skull, and the characters
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represent the brain and memory. Thus the entire stage serves as a metaphor for an aging mind. This skull-like setting is complemented by several textual references to Dante's Inferno. For instance, Clov comments at one point that they are in a refuge between earth and sea, while Hamm observes, "That here we're down in a hole." The text later adds that the sun is sinking, "down among the dead," that they are beyond certain hills, and that beyond the walls, "is the...other hell." The implication of placing the characters in Dante's inferno is that they will be doomed to repeating the act of their crime for all eternity. In typical Beckettian fashion, the crime can be viewed as "life," meaning that they are doomed to repeat life forever. The subject of Endgame is whether Clov will leave Hamm. Their relationship, which alternates between slave/master and son/father, is also a mutually beneficial one. Hamm provides food and shelter, whereas Clov provides legs and eyesight. Part of the problem with Clov leaving is that doing so is an act of suicide. If he leaves Hamm, he will not have any food, and without someone to feed him, Hamm will die as well. The relationship between Hamm and Clov is also confused by Hamm's biographical story. Told daily and seemingly without an end (because a biography can only truly be ended when the person is dead), the story seems to hint at the possibility that Clov might be the boy alluded to. This is supported in the text by Clov's comment, "And then he [the boy] would have grown up." Hamm responds enigmatically with, "Very likely." Beckett highlights one theme in particular, that of "finishing". This theme is presented right in the opening moments, with Clov saying, "Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be finished." This same theme is later echoed by Hamm. However, what soon becomes clear is that things remain unfinished; actually finishing something represents death. The theme of finishing ties in with the daily rituals and games. These serve as a means of affirming life for the various characters; Clov knows he is still not dead as long as Hamm demands that he look out of the windows. Nagg and Nell do the same thing: Nagg asks Nell to kiss him as a way of affirming that he and she are still in the same position they were in the day before. Thus when both Nell and Clov ask, "Why this farce, day after day?," we realize that they do nonetheless perform the ritual in order to satisfy their own need to affirm their existence. It is interesting and important that Nell dies. Although Hamm asks Clov to kill him, he is unable perform the act. Thus Nell is the only character able to escape
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this world. Her last word is "desert", which has several interesting implications. Clov interprets this to mean that he should go into the desert. This brings to mind Christ venturing into the desert for forty days of temptation by the devil; perhaps Nell has given Clov a hint as to how he can achieve salvation. However, Clov does not listen well enough, and we soon learn that he did not understand everything that she said to him. One of the greatest fears that all the characters share is that of being reincarnated or resurrected after death. Thus they make an effort to kill all potential procreators such as the flea: "But humanity might start from there all over again! Catch him, for the love of God!" This is taken to the extreme in the form of trying to kill the the rat and later trying to kill the little boy. The emergence of the boy at the end has been interpreted by many critics as a symbol of resurrection. Whether or not this is accurate, his appearance does cause Hamm to say, "It's the end, Clov, we've come to the end. I don't need you any more." However, Clov's eventual departure is thrown into doubt at the very end when Clov does not actually leave the stage, but rather remains standing in the doorway dressed to leave. One of the things that Beckett said about Endgame is that it is "Rather difficult and elliptic, mostly depending on the power of the text to claw." He also pointed out that it is less hopeful than Waiting for Godot. As one critic noted, Waiting for Godot is a despairing play about hope, Endgame is a despairing play about despair. A further difference is that the ambiguous "thing" replaces Godot in terms of tormenting the characters. Hamm asks, "Do you not think this has gone on long enough?...This...this...thing."

Study questions:

What could Godot stand for? Ways of annihilating time and space limits in art. What is translationese? Identify the sources of humour in Becketts plays.

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