Beckett's Endgame: An Anti-Myth of Creation

BECKETT'S ENDGAME: AN ANTI-MYTH· OF CREATION WHEN SOLON, according to Plutarch, criticized Thespis on the basis of the potential danger to ethics inherent in the act of impersonation in drama, he assumed that the spectator would be unable to distinguish between reality and its imitation. While the percentage of spectators who have fulfilled Solon's prophesy has remained small, the balance of reality and illusion in the theater has been in question since the first actor assumed a character not his own in whatever form that impersonation was accomplished. The question of realism in the theater is, perhaps, the most difficult problem in aesthetics which the actor, producer, and critic faces. The naturalist claims realism in his representation which is as direct an imitation of the external qualities of nature as the basic convention of the theater allows. The symbolist claims that his representation projects a sense of "inner reality." The Epic Theater of Bertolt Brecht accepts the reality of the external world and claims the stage as a platform upon which some experience from the external world is demonstrated. While each theatrical form is based upon illusion, the playwright manipulates the spectator's sense of reality, focusing it upon the naturalistic action upon the stage as an imitation of nature, upon the symbol and its evocations, or upon the moral problem demonstrated upon the stage. The sense which is projected through the text of Samuel Beckett's Endgame is one of abstraction. However, it is not an abstraction which is gained by the translation of prosaic action into symbolic action; rather it is an abstraction which is gained by elimination and reduction. The details and elaborations which would place the characters within a specific context and establish them as individuals within a society are missing. The physical objects with which to define the characters are reduced to a three-legged toy dog, a gaff, an alarm clock, a ladder, a glass. Hamm, Clov, Nagg, and Nell seem to exist within no community other than that which they themselves form. They are not a unique but integral part of something larger; nor do they assume and maintain consistent mythical or archetypal relationships to each other. However, there is in Endgame a sense of an inhabited world with its elaborations in the past; and, in the 204 1964 BECKEIT'S Endgame 205 prO'gress O'f the play, the absence O'f thO'se elabO'ratiO'ns is affirmed. The absence Qf elabO'rative detail is nO't significant in itself in End· game; it is the awareness and cO'nfirmatiO'n Qf the present reduced cQnditiO'n which it accO'mplishes: "There are nO' mO're bicycles . . . there is nO' mO're pap ... The dO'ctQr is dead . . . There is nO' more tide ... nO' light ... There is nO'thing to' say." The past is alluded to'. Hamm had "paupers" which CIO'V inspected, and there is a dim recall to' the "beginning" when the fatherless CIO'V came to' Hamm and the single dear memO'ry Qf Nagg, but the remembrance O'f the past is remO'te and discO'nnected frO'm any present reality. The past dQes nO't illumine the present. There is nO' sense O'f cO'ntinuity be· tween the time when these details Qf an external wO'rld existed and the present. In Endgame, there is a sense Qf discO'ntinuity between Qne day and its successO'r similar to' the sense O'f discO'ntinuity in Waiting for Godot. HAMM. Yesterday! What dO'es that mean? Yesterday! CLOV (violently). That means that blO'O'dy awful day, IO'ng agO' befO're this blO'O'dy awful day ... The memO'ries dO' exist-the actiO'n O'f the inspectiO'n O'f the paupers; Qbjects, such as bicycles, rugs, sugar plums; peO'ple, such as the sup· pliant, the madman, and MO'ther Pegg. But these memO'ries dO' nO't exist in relationship to' an Qrdered pattern in time or to' each Qther. Ultimately the cO'ncept Qf time itself dissO'lves, and the actiO'n of Endgame dO'es nO't anticipate the cycle O'f discQnnected days...