The Endgame Comparison

In Stephane Mallarme’s poem, “The Virginal, Vibrant, and Beautiful Dawn”, the author describes the setting as a “hard lake haunted beneath the ice”, establishing a rather gloomy and melancholy mood. The swan depicted in the poem seems to face the same dilemma as Clov and Hamm in The Endgame; it is isolated and surrounded by the frozen lake wondering if it will stay. The frozen lake resembles the bare interior described in The Endgame, and the swan’s feeling of loneliness and emptiness parallels the characters’ mood in the play. Clov and Hamm constantly discuss leaving one another, but somehow staying together seems to ease the pain and monotony of their situation. The swan in the poem “hopelessly struggles to resist” the memories of the better times that it has experienced at the lake, but realizes that even if it leaves “the horror of the earth will remain where it lies.” Although Clov constantly threatens Hamm that he will leave, he seems to be haunted by the hopeless setting that they have both been bound by.

• Zuzanna

A commonality between Sartre’s passage, “The Chestnut Tree” and The Endgame is in the main character’s struggles to find meaning in their lives. In the play, Hamm and Clov are indefinitely stuck inside their bunker. They are forced to repeat each day with the little hope that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel; even though there is no evidence that they will make it out before they die. The audience witnesses through their arguments and constant need to fill time and space with their conversations or their movement that they are doing everything they can to make sure they aren’t left with “nothing.” In the short story, Roquentin explains, “If anyone had asked me what existence was, I would have answered in good faith, that it was nothing, simply an empty form added to things from the outside, without changing any thing in their nature. And then all at once, there it was, clear as day: existence had suddenly unveiled itself.” What comes to mind when I hear this is how people take advantage of the natural business of life and go on with little self or worldly-reflection but once they no longer have that regular schedule and once their life slows down they realize that they have to create their own meaning from what they have or they really are left with nothing. And in response to what Borys and Zuzanna pointed out, how “their repetitive lives give them this feeling of emptiness that gives them no reason to live,” I believe that instead this repetition gives them some meaning. If they gave up, what would be left?

• Emily

In Samuel Beckett’s short film, “Breath,” the audience could observe a depiction of a disorganized basement. In the background we could hear the sounds of water leaking from a faucet and around halfway through the video an alarming noise of someone breathing heavily arises. From the breathing, one could get the sense of illness or the feeling that something is wrong. Each breath sounds very forced and painful, as if whoever is taking it truly doesn’t want to go on. This shortness of breath could be figuratively juxtaposed to the theme of repetitiveness and emptiness in the novel Endgame. Both the characters Hamm and Clov have been following the same mundane routines for the past couple of years without change. This cycle that they live in has taken a toll on them, as symbolized by the heavy/forced breathing in the video. Just like the person in the video, they can not go on for much longer the way they are currently living, they need to change something very soon or else they might not make it. As Zuzanna mentioned before, their repetitive lives give them this feeling of emptiness that gives them no reason to live.

• Borys Shturman