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176 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1957
دنبا نه با انفجاری مهیب، بلکه با ناله و هق هق گریه به آخر خواهد رسید
تی اس الیوت
-Nature has forgotten us.
-There's no more nature.
-No more nature! You exaggerate.
-In the vicinity.
-But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom! Our ideals!
HAMM: Have you not had enough?Endgame is an absurdist, tragicomic one-act play about a blind, paralyzed, domineering elderly man, his geriatric parents and his doddering, dithering, harried, servile companion in an abandoned shack in a post-apocalyptic wasteland who mention their awaiting some unspecified “end” which seems to be the end of their relationship, death, and the end of the actual play itself.
CLOV: Yes. [Pause.] Of what?
HAMM: Of this ... this ... thing.
CLOV: I always had.
CLOV: I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.Endgame was originally written in French (entitled Fin de partie) and was translated into English by Beckett himself. Written before but premiered after Waiting for Godot, it is arguably among Beckett's best works. Samuel Beckett considered it his masterpiece as the most aesthetically perfect, compact representation of his artistic views on human existence, and refers to it when speaking autobiographically through Krapp in Krapp's Last Tape when he mentions he had “already written the masterpiece”.
HAMM: You weep, and weep, for nothing, so as not to laugh, and little by litte ... you begin to grieve.By the end of the play, Clov finally seems intent on pursuing his commitment of leaving his cruel master Hamm. Clov tells him there is no more of the painkiller left which Hamm has been insisting on getting his dose of throughout the play. Hamm finishes his dark, chilling story by having the narrator berate the collapsed man for the futility of trying to feed his son for a few more days when evidently their luck has run out. Hamm believes Clov has left, being blind, but Clov stands in the room silently with his coat on, going nowhere. Hamm discards some of his belongings, and says that, though he has made his exit, the bloodstained rag “will remain”.
HAMM: Nature has forgotten us.Endgame is an expression of existential angst and despair and depicts Beckett’s philosophical worldview, namely the extreme futility of human life and the inescapable dissatisfaction and decay intrinsic to it. It is also a quintessential work of what Beckett called “tragicomedy”, or the idea that, as Nell herself in the play puts it, “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” Another way to think about this is that things which are absurd can be encountered both as funny in some contexts and horrifyingly incomprehensible in others. To Beckett – due to his existential worldview – life itself is absurd, and this incurs reactions of both black mirth and profound despair.
CLOV: There's no more nature.
HAMM: No more nature! You exaggerate.
CLOV: In the vicinity.
HAMM: But we breathe, we change! We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom! Our ideals!
CLOV: Then she hasn't forgotten us.
HAMM: We're not beginning to... to... mean something?As Adorno famously put it: "To understand Endgame can only mean understanding why it cannot be understood." Rather than simply asserting an absence of meaning, the play strives to demonstrate this absence. It also embodies the human condition. Beckett knew how to capture what it meant to be human, he captured the tragicomedy that is all our lives. And for that, we remember him.
CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brief laugh.] Ah that's a good one!
Clov (sguardo fisso, voce bianca). Finita, è finita, sta per finire, sta forse per finire. (Pausa). I chicchi si aggiungono ai chicchi a uno a uno, e un giorno, all'improvviso, c'è il mucchio, un piccolo mucchio, l'impossibile mucchio. (Pausa)
Hamm. Ho conosciuto un pazzo che credeva che la fine del mondo ci fosse già stata. Dipingeva. Gli volevo bene. Andavo a trovarlo, al manicomio. Lo prendevo per la mano e lo tiravo davanti alla finestra. Ma guarda! Là. Tutto quel grano che spunta! E là! Guarda! Le vele dei pescherecci! Tutta questa bellezza! (Pausa). Lui liberava la mano e tornava al suo angolo. Spaventato. Aveva visto solo ceneri. (Pausa). Lui solo era sopravvissuto. (Pausa). Dimenticato. (Pausa). Sembra che questi casi non siano... non fossero così... così rari.