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THE IDEA OF ABSURDITY REFLECTED IN THE

CHARACTERIZATION OF CHARACTERS IN SAMUEL

BECKETT’S ENDGAME

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

  

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

  

By

ARMANDO SORIANO

  

Student Number: 034214123

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

  

2009

  

THE IDEA OF ABSURDITY REFLECTED IN THE

CHARACTERIZATION OF CHARACTERS IN SAMUEL

BECKETT’S ENDGAME

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

  

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

  

By

ARMANDO SORIANO

  

Student Number: 034214123

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

  

2009

  For my beloved Grandfathers,

Armando Soriano and Semuel Laikopan

.

  

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This Undergraduate Thesis had been improved by the help, support, and assistance of some people, who with their kindness, have been generous enough to be involved during the process of writing this thesis.

  In this opportunity, I must thank Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M.Hum.,my advisor, for his patience in guiding me writing this thesis, and for the suggestions that are really valuable. I thank Dewi Widyastuti, S.Pd.,M.Hum. ,my co-advisor, for the consultation, and Dr. Harry Susanto, S.J. for providing me the discussion and a lot of second opinions.

  I thank God for His blessing and guidance. My sincere gratitude goes to my family, Bapa, Mama, IyOo, and the big family of Soriano and Laikopan, for the endless praying and support. I also thank my colleagues in KKN-XXXII- Kelompok 21 for the friendship, my companions in Media Sastra Community, and Sastra Mungil for the process, discussion, and help. I thank the buddies, Anton “ktx”, Vino Alberto, Nicodemus and Jonathan Martumpal for the different but inspirational perspective. A special thank goes to Guruh ‘Iyan-ahong’ and Fr. Evencio, OFM for providing me those rare books and also to all compatriots in those melanesian students communities for the solidarity.

  Armando Soriano

  TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ……………………………………………………………………. i APPROVAL PAGE

  …………………………………………………….……….. ii

  ACCEPTANCE PAGE

  …………………………………………………………….. iii

  

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN ……………………………………………………….. iv

MOTTO PAGE

  ……………………………………………………………………. v

  

DEDICATION PAGE ……………………………………………………………. vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  …………………………………………………….. vii

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………… viii

ABSTRACT

  ………………………………………………………………………. ix

  ABSTRAK

  ……………………………………………………………………….. x

  CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

  …………………………………………….... 1

  A. Background of the Study ……………………………………………... 1

  B. Problem Formulation ………………………………………………… 4

  C. Objectives of the Study ……………………………………………….. 4

  D. Definition of Terms …………………………………………………… 4

  CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ……………………………………... 6 A. Review of Related Studies……………………………………………… 6 B. Review of Related Theories……………………………………………. 17 C. Theoretical Framework…………………………………………………. 24 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

  ……………………………………………. 26

  A. Object of the Study …………………………………………………… 26

  B. Approach of the Study …………………………………………………. 27

  C. Method of the Study …………………………………………………… 27

  CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ……………………………………………………..

  30 A. Characterization of Characters in Endgame …….……………………... 31

  B. The Idea of Absurdity Reflected in the Characterization of Characters in Endgame …………................................................................................

  48

  1. The Routine ……………………………………………………

  49 2. Meaningless Condition ………………………………………..

  53 3. The End ……………………………………………………......

  57 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ………………………………………………….

  61 BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………... 65

  ABSTRACT

  ARMANDO SORIANO. The Idea of Absurdity Reflected in the Characterization of Characters in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame.

  Yogyakarta: Departement of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2009.

  Endgame is a play with the theme of a criticism on human’s existence.

  The author, Samuel Beckett, is known as a dramatist who brings a new atmosphere to the field of theatre. The characters can be analyzed in their characterization to find a condition that criticizes the existence of human. The criticism can be seen in the idea of absurdity about human life that is reflected on the characters. The analysis on the characterization of the characters and its reflection of the idea of absurdity is the main goal to discuss in this study.

  This study firstly tries to find out the characterization of the Clov, Hamm, Nagg, and Nell and the way it reflected the idea of absurdity. The play is containing a criticism or moreover can be said as an idea which is aimed to a reader. For this reason the writer choose to apply moral- philosophical approach in the study. The writer used the method of library research in collecting data and several processes that can be classified as reading data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusion.

  Absurdity is philosophical idea raised by Albert Camus. It is a study that explores the reality of human life. One of the conclusions on this idea is that absurdity is the ultimate truth. Absurdity, according to Camus, cannot be explored thoroughly. It can only be identified by using the scheme of the explanation of idea of absurdity. The characters in the play trough their actions, speeches, and thinking, reflect some themes. These themes are the routine, meaningless condition, and the end. These themes, based on the Camus’ philosophy of absurdity, can be categorized as the reflection of the idea of absurdity. The criticism on the human existence that is raised by the author through the play can be seen by using the scope of Camus’ idea of absurdity as the characterization of characters shows the reflection of the idea of absurdity.

  .

  ABSTRAK The Idea of Absurdity Reflected in the ARMANDO SORIANO. Characterization of Characters in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame.

  Yogyakarta: Departement of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2009.

  Endgame

  adalah naskah drama dengan tema mengenai kritik atas keberadaan manusia. Penulisnya Samuel Beckett, dikenal sebagai dramawan yang membawa nuansa baru dalam dunia teater. Tokoh-tokoh dalam drama ini dapat dianalisa berdasarkan penokohan mereka untuk menemukan kondisi yang mengkritik keberadaan manusia. Kritik ini dapat dilihat pada ide mengenai absurditas kehidupan manusia yang terefleksi oleh tokoh- tokoh dalam drama ini. Analisa mengenai penokohan tokoh Clov, Hamm, Nagg, dan Nell dan cara penokohan tersebut merefleksikan ide absurditas merupakan tujuan utama untuk dibahas di dalam studi ini.

  Studi ini pertama-tama akan mencoba memaparkan penokohan dari Clov,Hamm,Nagg dan Nell dan cara penokohan tersebut merefleksikan ide absurditas.

  Drama ini berisikan kritik yang dapat dikatakan sebagai ide yang diarahkan kepada pembaca. Berdasarkan alasan ini penulis memilih untuk menerapkan pendekatan moral-filosofis di dalam studi ini. Penulis menggunakan metode studi pustaka dalam mengumpulkan data dan beberapa proses yang dapat dijabarkan seperti membaca data, menganalisa data, dan menarik kesimpulan.

  Absurditas adalah ide filosofis yang diungkapkan oleh Albert Camus. Ide ini adalah studi yang menjelajahi kenyataan dalam kehidupan manusia. Salah satu kesimpulan mengenai ide ini adalah bahwa absurditas adalah kebenaran mutlak. Absurditas menurut Camus tidak dapat dijelajahi secara tuntas. Ide ini hanya dapat dipelajari dengan menggunakan skema penjelasan tentang ide absurditas. Tokoh-tokoh di dalam Endgame melalui tindakannya, perkataannya, dan pemikirannya merefleksikan tema-tema tertentu. Tema-tema itu adalah rutinitas, kondisi ketiadaan makna, dan akhir. Tema-tema tersebut berdasarkan filsafat absurditas menurut Albert Camus dapat di kategorikan sebagai refleksi dari absurditas. Kritik atas keberadaan manusia yang diungkapkan oleh penulis naskah di dalam drama tersebut dapat dilihat dengan menggunakan pemahaman filsafat dari Camus di mana penokohan dari para tokohnya menunjukan refleksi dari ide tentang absurditas.

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study The routine of human life has been an object of analysis and discussion by

  

many of the existentialism thinkers or philosophers. One among others is Albert

Camus who uses this routine as an element in his work. Another person, Samuel

Beckett, who is known more as a dramatist, also has used the theme of the routine

of human life. He stated that habit and routine were the "cancer of time”

(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1969/press.html, accessed

th

on October 11 , 2007). This theme can be said as a point where the discussion of

the absurdity can be started.

  In Endgame, the habit or the routine that the character has can be said as

one of the themes of the play. The use of this theme can be seen in the way the

character elaborated it in the play. In Beckett’s another work, Waiting for Godot,

the theme is about the act of waiting that became the main routine of the

characters. Waiting for Godot goes by showing the way the characters interact one

with another in their endless act of waiting. These characters find the fact that they

are in such condition where they are unable to run away from. This condition is

formed in the shape of the daily routine which is seemed like a trap for them.

  Albert Camus in his essay, Myth of Sisyphus, said that the absurdity of

human condition is that the situation of man who are full of the desire to explain

  

anything in his life and the world. He faced the reality that nothing can be

explained from life and the world.

  

But what is absurd is the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for

clarity whose calls echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on

man as on the world. (Camus,1955:16).

  The moment of absurdity appears when man realized about his condition

of being. It is the time when he is aware about his existence. This awareness

raised a basic question about man’s existence. This awareness also leads mean to

a feeling of alienation between him and the world. Camus describes this situation

by using the example of people with their routine.

  Rising, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm-this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. In another words, absurdity arises from moments when all the acts of life that flow mechanically

stop, and when consciousness starts to wake up and move (Camus, 1955:15).

  Martin Esslin in The Theatre of the Absurd, a book that introduced the

term of The Theater of The Absurd in the field of theatre, analyzed Beckett and

his work using the theme of The Search for The Self. Endgame is discussed in

many aspects, such as the symbolism, the relation to other works of Beckett, and

also the bibliographical aspect of the author. Beckett, as said in The Theater of the

, is influenced by James Joyce, the writer who is a friend and literary Absurd master of Beckett.

  Endgame then becomes an allegory of the relationship between the domineering, nearly blind Joyce and his adoring disciple, who felt himself crushed by his master’s overpowering literary influence…Yet Endgame undoubtedly, has a very large number of human beings. The problems of the relationship between a literary master and his pupil would be very unlikely

  As we can see in many of Beckett’s work, Endgame is full with the tone of

pessimistic, and the pathetic of life. Characters appear in their physical boundary

and their inability to reach the reason or the meaning of their lives. Everything

seems nothing. It will be like what Beckett said that “nothing is more real than

th

nothing” (http://samuel-beckett.net/godot_greg html, accessed on October 11 ,

2007). also shows Beckett’s contemplation about the contradiction

  Endgame

between man’s personality and the world outside. The setting of the play is an

inside part the room of a house that said as the building for the last human beings

on earth. There is little description about the outside part of the room. Hamm, one

of the characters, always said that outside the room is “a death” (Beckett,

1986:96). The only thing that seemed clear for the characters is the death, the

natural end of their life that exactly will happen. Esslin showed this as the symbol

of the personality of man and the power outside him.

  In Endgame we are also certainly confronted with a very powerful expression of the sense of deadness, of leaden heaviness and hopelessness, that is the experienced in the states of deep depression: the world outside goes for the victim of such states, but inside his mind there is ceaseless argument between parts of his personality that have become autonomous entities (Esslin, 1969:48).

  The characterization of characters in Endgame leads to Camus ‘idea of

absurdity. Their failure to communicate with each other and the condition and all

the contradiction that appear between them and the world are the points that will

guide the study to find a reflection of the idea of absurdity. This thesis will

analyze the characterization of the four characters, Clov, Hamm, Nagg, and Nell

B. Problems Formulation

  In the relation with the explanation above, the writer raises two problems formulation that will be discussed further in the thesis.

1. How are Clov, Hamm, Nagg, and Nell characterized in Samuel Beckett’s

  Endgame ?

  

2. How does the characterization of characters in Endgame reflect the idea of

absurdity? C. Objectives of the Study

  Concerning the problems formulation that have been stated previously, the objectives of the study are represented as follows.

  The first objective is to find out how Clov, Hamm, Nagg, and Nell are characterized in Endgame.

  The second objective is to identify how characterization of characters in Endgame reflects the idea of absurdity.

  D. Definition of Term As stated in the title and explored in the above explanation, the writer

define the key concept of this study namely absurdity. In this Thesis the writer

applied Albert Camus’ concept of the idea of absurdity for the discussion.

  1. Absurdity The term of absurdity is defined into two major meanings. Firstly, one

refers to the general term of absurdity as described in dictionary. According to the

  

New Oxford American Dictionary Second Edition (2005), absurdity is the quality

or state of being ridiculous or wildly unreasonable.

  Another meaning of absurdity is rather specific to a philosophical term.

According to Albert Camus, absurdity can be said as the feeling, or situation

which is born of a confrontation between the human need of meaning and the

unreasonable silence of the world. In The Myth of Sisyphus Camus said as

follows.

  A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity (Camus, 1955:5).

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies In the English Department of Sanata Dharma University, the studies on

  

absurdity had been conducted before. One of them is an undergraduate thesis by

Dicky Christanto entitled “Humanity, Absurdity, and Atheism Found in Albert

Camus’ The Plague in Relation with Karl Marx’ Criticism Toward Religion”.

This thesis analyzed the relation of Camus’ theory with Marx’ criticsm toward

religion. The analysis was aimed to find the answer for the philosophical

explanation of the main character believe on the atheism, the implication of the

main character atheism understanding toward the other character in the story in

relation to their atheism, the similarity and the difference of the atheism and it’s

application showed by the main character and the message from discussion over

the discourse of atheism on the story (Christanto, 1998:6).

  The other study is F.X. Lilik Dwi Mardjianto’s “The Significance of the

Characterization of the Minor characters to the Elaboration of the Theme in Albert

Camus’ The Stranger”. This study tries to find the characterization of the minor

character and then explores the significance of the characterization as the

antithesis of absurdity to the development of the theme of the story (Mardjianto,

2005:6).

  One of the studies on absurdity that analyzed Beckett’s works of drama is

done by Martin Esslin in his book The Theatre of the Absurd that the title became

  

Beckett and his works as The search for the self. The analysis on Beckett’s works

in this book was done in numbers of aspects.

  In The Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin said about the earlier works of

Samuel Beckett. One example of the works is Beckett’s poem Whoroscope which

presenting the philoshoper Descartes’ meditation. Another Beckett’s works is his

study on Proust, the French novelist, essayist, and critic. In this study, the theme

of Beckett’s later works can be seen such as his disbelief in communication. This

theme is inspired by Proust whose idea is that the art is the apotheosis of solitude.

  

On the communication, Proust said that there is no communication because there

are no vehicles of communication (Esslin, 1969:13).

  On the characters of Endgame, Esslin has done numbers of analysis in his

book that the writer will not state it entirely in here. The points that will be

reviewed are those that have been considered as having a significant issue to the

analysis. In his book, Esslin pointed out that Endgame can be seen as a

monodrama. This is a psychological view on the play. Endgame is seen as a

structure of a psychological part of a man. Esslin said that in the play the character

of Clov is performing the function of the senses for his senile master Hamm. This

idea is about the representation of different aspects of single personality.

  Hamm, Blind and emotional; Clov, performing the function of the senses for him- all these might well represent different aspects of a single personality, repressed memories in the subconscious mind, the emotional and the intellectual selves (Esslin,1969 : 44).

  Another psychological view on characters in Beckett’s work, in The

Theatre of the Absurd , is the characteristic that the characters of Beckett’s

different works have in common. It is about idea that the characters in most of

  

Beckett’s drama are all often been noticed for their peculiar psychological reality.

The characters from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Vladimir and Estragon, have

been seen as so complementary that they might be the two halves of a single

personality, the conscious and the subconscious mind. Each of these three pairs

Pozzo-Lucky, Vladimir-Estragon, Hamm-Clov is linked by a relationship of

mutual independence, wanting to leave each other, at war with each other, and yet

dependent on each other. It is also an image of the interrelatedness of the elements

within a single personality, particularly if the personality is in conflict with itself

(Esslin, 1969:45).

  Esslin’s study also said about Beckett’s using the idea of disbelief on

communication. It is said as an original experience of Beckett himself which is

more profound and fundamental nature than mere autobiography. Endgame is said

as a revelation of Beckett’s experience of temporarily and evanescence; his sense

of the difficulty of communication between human beings (Esslin, 1969:48).

Beckett is said as a writer who success in depicting the inner side of a person. His

creative intuition explores the elements of experience and shows to what extent all

human beings carry the seeds of such depression and disintegration within the

deeper layers of their personality (Esslin, 1969:48).

  Esslin also reviewed the atmosphere that Beckett used in writing his

works. Esslin said that in Endgame we are confronted with a great expression of

pathetic and pessimism of life. The indications for this expression are the sense of

deadness, leaden heaviness, and hopelessness. This idea drawn a scheme about the

  

situation between an argument in man’s mind and the depression condition

surround him.

  In Endgame we are also certainly confronted with a very powerful expression of the sense of deadness, of leaden heaviness and hopelessness, that is experienced in states of deep depression: the world outside goes dead for the victim of such states, but inside his mind there is ceaseless argument between part of his personality that have become autonomous entities (Esslin, 1969:48).

  On the other hand, Esslin also criticized Endgame. He said that Endgame

is lacking of characters and plot. Characters in Endgame, Hamm and Clov, Nagg

and Nell, are not characters but the embodiments of basic human attitudes. He

stated that these characters are rather like the personified virtues and vices in

medieval mystery plays or Spanish autos sacramentales (Esslin, 1969:53).

Moreover, Esslin made a conclusion on the feature that he thought as the main

factor of success of Beckett’s Plays.

  This is also the key to the wide success of Beckett’s plays: to be confronted with concrete projections of the deepest fears and anxieties, which have been only vaguely experienced at a half-concious level, constitutes a process of catharsis and liberation analogous to the therapeutic effect in psychoanalysis of confronting the subconscious content of mind (Esslin, 1969:48).

  The most dominated analysis in The Theatre of the Absurd is about the

biography of Beckett and his exploration about the elusiveness of human

personality in his works. The theme, the search for the self, is deeply explored in

Esslin’s study on Beckett’s work. As we can see in his opinion in Beckett’s other

play, Krapp’s last Tape, Esslin said that Beckett has found graphic expression for

the problem of the human ever-changing identity (Esslin, 1969:55).

  Through the brilliant device of the autobiographical library of annual recorded statements, Beckett has found a graphic expression for the problem of the ever-changing identity of the self, which already described in his essay on proust. In Krapp’s Last Tape, the self at one moment in time is confronted

with its earlier incarnation only to find it utterly strange (Esslin,1969:56).

  Another study on Beckett is Alan Astro’s Understanding Samuel Beckett.

This book provides an analysis on Beckett’s works such as his early writings,

major novels, and major theatrical works. The analysis on the character can be

seen in several parts. Astro analyzed on Beckett’s drama in a complex way. The

analysis is dominated with Astro’s opinion on the way Beckett used the theme of

pessimism and the chaotic atmosphere in most of his play.

  In his analysis on Endgame, Astro focused on the relation between two

major characters in it, Hamm and Clov. Their physical description is the object

that Astro used for his analysis. The relation between Hamm and Clov is said as

the pseudocouple in the way they are complementing each other.

  Later we learn he is Hamm, Clov’s blind and paralyzed master. He cannot stand, and Clov cannot sit. They complement each other’s infirmities, as befits a pseudocouple (Astro, 1990:132).

  The catastrophe that is used as the setting of Endgame is one of the objects

of Astro’s analysis. The setting of Endgame is described as a painful place. A

great holocaust has happened in the world. This condition has affected the

characters. They live a sorrowful life. Astro gives a philosophical opinion about

Hamm. He said that Hamm’s need of pain-killer can be interpreted as his sickness

of his existence.

  Life in this postholocaust world is quite painful. Hamm repeatedly asks Clov for a pain-killer, and Clov always answers that the time for it has not yet to come. Until the end when he informs him,”There’s no more pain-killer” (E 71). These words apply to the audience as well: we share the characters’ pain as spectators of the terribly laborious dialogue and action. We cannot escape from the fact that existence is painful, and that world is bent on destruction. (Astro, 1990:132).

  Astro’s book provided opinion from other philosopher about the

significant of holocaust setting that is used in Endgame. It posted the Theodore

Adorno’s opinion about the using of symbols in Endgame. It is an argument about

the significant of Ardens mountains that has been used as the setting for the place

where Nagg and Nell, two of four characters in the play, having an accident and

lost their legs.

  Theodore Adorno, the social theoretician of the Frankfurt school, argues in an article on Endgame that the reference to the Ardennes Mountains is significant, for they were the site of one of the first modern mass destruction, the battlegrounds of World-War I (Astro, 1990:132).

  The idea of denying the existence of God appears as one of objects that

can be seen in the character. God, according to Astro’s analysis, is said as the

nonexistent creator for characters in Endgame. This can be seen in the part where

Astro discussed about they way Beckett use Antonin Artaud’s perception about

the modern theatre.

  Beckett follows the precepts of Antonin Artaud, who urged that modern theater leave realism behind and look toward classical Greek theater and its origin in ritual. Sacrifice is the most dramatic of rituals, and it is an important part of Endgame, where all humankind is offered up in an empty holocaust to

a God of whom Hamm says “the bastard! He doesn’t exist”(Astro,1990:133).

  The names of the four characters, Clov, Hamm, Nagg, and Nell, are

analyzed in the relation of their position, and condition on the play and as a

system of symbolism. These names said as having symbolical relation of the

significant of one characters towards the others.

  Hamm would be the hammer, merciless against all humanity, who bears down on several nails: his slave Clov (Clou in French means Nail), his father Nagg ( Nagel is german for Nail)and his mother Nell(who name sounds like Nail)(Astro,1990:134).

  The study on Endgame in Understanding Samuel Beckett also analyzed the

concept of time that is used in Endgame. To reach this, Astro analyzed the way

the character said about time. There is a significant relationship between the

character and time. On the idea of time, which is a complex one, Astro drew a

conclusion about the eternity of time as the time setting of the play.

  Hamm then says that “time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended”(E 83). That time should be both over and never have been is contradictory but not illogical; if time has ended, we are in a timeless dimension; therefore it is impossible for time to have existed before, for there could be no “before” (Astro, 1990:135).

  In Endgame, Hamm has knowledge about a paradox of the end of time that

leads him to doubt that anything can end. The characters will not reach the end

since they will not feel or aware of it because they already end or death when the

end appears. As Astro stated that death is something that, in a sense, never comes.

  

Wait for it as we like, when it arrives we have died and cannot know it has arrived

(Astro, 1990:135).

  The idea of end that never arrives in Endgame is related to Sartre’s

concept of existentialism. This opinion about an end in Endgame is only can be

understood by using Sartre idea about being. This concept will help in

understanding the idea that it is impossible to say that anything could reach finish

in Endgame. It will be related to what professor Astro said as the “Non-

dimensional world”.

  It seems impossible for anything to finish in Endgame, for if all human life ceased, there would be nothingness, not and an “end”. In order that there be an end, a subjectivity is required to notice the ending; ends do not exist in themselves (Astro, 1990:137).

  Endgame has been an object of numbers of analyses. Most of them

  

characters are characterized. Others focused on the fact that the play could be

analyzed on its use of symbolism, the way it criticizing something, the value of

philosophical ideas in it, and its relation with Beckett’s life.

  In the relation to the school of philosophical thoughts Endgame is said as

having a critique toward several philosophical and aesthetic movements. Endgame

implies a critique of several philosophical and aesthetic movements: Naturalism,

Realism, Romanticism, Classicism, Enlightenment progress, Empiricism, and

Rationalism (http://www.msb27@u.washington.edu .accessed on October, 2007).

  Many studies on Beckett’s dramas are made by the comparison between

them. Beckett’s most known play, Waiting for Godot, is the one that is mostly

used to be compared with others. As we can see in Wallace Fowlie’s Dionysus in

, it said that Endgame is having much features than Waiting for Godot. The Paris

analysis about this features concern on the style of acting and performances that is

used in Endgame ( http:// www.theatrehistory.com/irish/beckett/endgame. html.

  Accessed on October, 2007).

  Beckett’s style of writing in Endgame is said as indicates with great

precision, as if he was writing a musical score, the pauses between speeches. This

is unusual for the French style of acting. If observed in the performance of the

play, the effect may well enhance the painfulness of waiting, the emptiness of

existence, the expectancy of collapse, of a manifestation of total despair. The

innumerable pauses between speeches when the stage is silent underscore the

anguish in each of the four characters and the nudity of the words themselves

when they are spoken (http:// www.theatrehistory.com/irish/beckett/endgame.

  Beckett is said as a play writer that allows total freedom to directors,

actors and critics, but then wishes to correct their interpretations. Worton in his

essay said that, Beckett does not want his actors to act. He wants them to do only

what he tells them. When they try to act, he becomes very angry.

  

What is most interesting is that whenever he directed or was closely involved in

the production of his plays, he focused on different aspects

(http://web.archive.org/web/20010128075500/http://www.cyberuni.vu/wormi001.

html. Accessed on October, 2007).

  Worton in his review of Endgame is comparing the theme that is used in

the play with the later works of Beckett’s novels. It cannot be denied, of course,

that Waiting for Godot and Endgame present many of the themes already explored

in the novels, all of which centre on the complex problem of how we can cope

with being-in-time. There is the abiding concern with death and dying, but death

as an event (i.e., actually becoming “a little heap of bones”) is presented as desired

but ultimately impossible, whereas dying as a process is shown to be our only

sure reality. Beckett's characters are haunted by “the sin of having been born”, a

sin which they can never expiate. Pozzo remarks that, one day we were born, one

day we shall die, the same day, the same second

(http://web.archive.org/web/20010128075500/http://www.cyberuni.vu/wormi001.

html. Accessed on October, 2007).

  As we have already seen in Astro’s analysis on Beckett’s play, the concept

of time is one of the analyzed objects. Worton also put this as one of the topic in

his analysis, Waiting for Godot and Endgame: Theatre as Text. The concept of

  

continuity. In other words, time indubitably exists as a force of which the

characters are aware in that they become increasingly decrepit, but they have no

sense of its continuity. If each day is like all the others, how can they then know

that time is really passing and that an end is night. Waitng for Godot is grounded

in the promise of an arrival that never occurs, and Endgame is the promise of a

departure that never happens. This would seem to imply that the characters look

forward to the future, yet if there is no past, there can be neither present nor

future. So in order to be able to project onto an unlocatable, and perhaps non-

existent future, the characters need to invent a past for themselves

(http://web.archive.org/web/20010128075500/http://www.cyberuni.vu/wormi001.

html. Accessed on October, 2007).

  Samuel Beckett was known with his inspirable works that open a new

  

chapter in the world of Theatre. We can see this in an article on New York Times

which said about Beckett’s influence to the traditional character. It said that,

Beckett's great innovation in Waiting for Godot and Endgame is both to question

the formal structure that playwrights of previous traditions have felt obliged to

respect, and to offer a mimesis or representation of reality that recognizes and

inscribes the formlessness of existence without attempting to make it 'fit' any

model.” ''(http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/reviews/20046.html.

Accessed on October, 2007 ).

  Beckett himself gives an opinion about the new form that he brings in the What I am saying does not mean that there will henceforth be no form in art. It only means that there will be a new form, and that this form will be of such a type that it admits the chaos, and does not try to say that the chaos is really something else. The form and the chaos remain separate. The latter is not reduced to the former. That is why the form itself becomes a preoccupation, because it exists as a problem separate from the material it accommodates. To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist (http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/reviews/20046.html. Accessed on ). October, 2007 Beckett’s work is mostly considered as a work which has an element of

bleakness. This consideration might comes from the use of pathetic, and