Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is a highly significant playwright of the 20th century Absurd Drama. Beckett is mostly celebrated for reflecting the spirit of his time in his works in terms of the individual’s reaction to overwhelming social and political changes of the 20th century. As Yüksel points out, “Beckett’s works are the productions of an ironic golden age [20th century], in which the developing technological and economic power was used as a means of oppression on man, the balance on earth was subverted, two World Wars and many local wars, where all facilities were mobilized for the mass extermination of human beings, took place, religion and philosophy failed to explain the meaning in human life” (14). Beckett explores the destructive effects of these circumstances which include the loss of meaning, the feeling of isolation and alienation, the uncertainty of identity and existence.

Beckett depicts the characters of his plays as they are in constant search for meaning in a meaningless universe, uncertain of their identities and existence, and feeling isolated and alienated in an insecure world. All of them cause painful anxieties in the characters. L.A.C Dobrez explains the anxieties in Beckett’s characters through Heidegger’s concept of angst (anxiety or uneasiness) as: “Living in anxiety is experiencing the sorrow that the Conscious, which is imprisoned within boundaries of human Existence, suffer…Beckett’s characters are confined to such an action which is “to be conscious of the self” (as cited in Yüksel 29). Beckett’s Endgame can be given as a good example for reflecting that the characters are burdened with the anxieties of isolation, uncertainty, and ending. Each of these anxieties is reflected overlapping each other in the play.

Anxiety of isolation is mainly reflected through the main characters, Clov and Hamm. Between them, there is a master-servant relationship which has been going on for many years. Clov is the servant to Hamm and Hamm is the master to Clov. Each one of them hangs on to the role he adopts for the sake of having a role because in that way each asserts a kind of identity by acting upon one another. Hamm and Clov depend on each other because they both have physical disabilities; Hamm is crippled and blind hence Clov wheels him around the room, and reports on the outside by looking out of the window. Clov can see and walk but he cannot sit. Clov’s inability to sit is compensated with the fact that Hamm is confined to sitting on a wheelchair. Their co-dependency is expressed in the scene where Clov wants to leave but at the same time feels the obligation to stay with Hamm:

HAMM: I’m obliged to you, Clov. For your services.
CLOV: Ah pardon, it’s I am obliged to you
HAMM: It’s we are obliged to each other. (56)

They both agree that they are obliged to each other. Hamm is obliged to Clov for his services; Clov is obliged to Hamm for food and shelter. Another reason for their obligation is that they have anxiety of isolation in a world to which they feel alienated. They feel that they are the only human beings in the whole universe, and their small room is the only place left. Thus, they prefer staying together rather than being on their own in an insecure world. These ideas are also pointed out by them:

HAMM: Why do you stay with me?
CLOV: Why do you keep me?
HAMM: There is no one else.
CLOV: There is nowhere else. (5)

The assertion that there is nowhere else to go is supported by Hamm as he defines the outside world as dead and hell: “Outside of here it’s death” (7). Although they regard their small room as some kind of a hell, beyond the walls of their room is “the other hell” as Hamm claims (18). Clov echoes what Hamm asserts by describing the nature as dead, earth as extinguished and outside world as zero on his repetitive action of looking outside from the window with his telescope. Towards the end of the play, Clov decides that he will not be able to leave and delivers this powerful speech as one of his reasons for not leaving: “I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit”(56). Clov thinks that there is nothing waiting for him outside except for the same old extinguished universe without the Sun to provide an animated nature.

Clov and Hamm hold on to each other in order to survive, and not to feel isolated in a deserted universe. They create a small world to feel safe since there is no better solution for them, as Hamm points out: “You’re on earth, there’s no cure for that” (37). Whether they are in their room or out, they are confined to suffer. However, both of them are in conflict within themselves. Clov wishes to leave Hamm, or Hamm wants to be left alone sometimes:
HAMM: You’re leaving me all the same.
CLOV: I’m trying. (5)

Although Clov claims that he is trying to leave Hamm, he cannot actually make it. One of the reasons for Clov’s inability to bring himself to it is that he is too numb to start for a new beginning, as he himself concludes: “ I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good it’ll never end, I’ll never go” (55). Another reason is the fact that however irritated they feel due to other’s presence, which can be deduced from their attempts to degrade each other, they think that having someone around eases their pain and makes them feel secure. Hamm repeatedly states that they are getting on, which is not completely true for their relationship, in order to convince himself and Clov that having each other is better than nothing.

Anxiety of isolation is triggered with the characters’ obsession with proving their existence as well. The characters depend on each other since they need another person to define them, and be a witness to their existence of which they otherwise are uncertain. This idea can be explained through the idea of being for the other in which reactions from the other to one’s actions define that person’s existence. Conversation is an action which requires a second person to react by giving feedback. In spite of their dismal situation, Clov and Hamm refrain from separation; otherwise, there will be no one to talk to, and accordingly nothing to prove their existence with. When Clov tells Hamm once again that he will leave Hamm, this significant dialogue takes place:

CLOV: What is there to keep me here?
HAMM: The dialogue. (40)

Ham argues that the dialogue is one of the necessities for proving existence. Hamm’s answer signifies another reason for their staying together which is to have someone to converse with. In that sense, storytelling is significant since it is an indication of being dependent on each other. The characters insist that the others should listen to their stories and let them tell these stories repeatedly because they need another person to give feedback while telling. Hamm is dependent on any other character in order to tell his story so that he can receive reaction and prove that he exists. He even bribes his father Nagg with sugar plums to make him listen. Nagg listens to his story and asks for the sugar plums that he is promised with. When Hamm says there is no more sugar plums, Nagg reminds Hamm that he used to wake up Nagg in the middle of the night in order to be listened by his father. Nagg complains by stating: “It wasn’t indispensable, you didn’t really need to !
have me listen to you … I hope the day will come when you’ll really need to have me listen to you, and need to hear my voice, any voice” (39). Nagg puts forth that telling a story to someone is an indication of being dependent on that person. He wishes that Hamm will be completely alone someday, and really depend on him.

Another anxiety that the characters feel is the anxiety of uncertainty. They are uncertain about their existence and the time. Since Beckett’s view of existence is circular, there is no motive, no progress, and no resolution to feel that they exist. Clov expresses this circular nature of their existence as: “ It may end…All life long the same questions, the same answers” (4), but towards the end of the play he is resigned that their existence will go on in a vicious circle without any final ending except for death: “Good, it’ll never end”(55). Uncertainty of existence makes the characters burdened with so much anxiety that they are in an unending struggle to feel and prove that they exist.

The fundamental instrument for proving their existence is language. The use of language in Endgame suggests that language does not have communicative purposes or meaning. Language is not used for the resolution of a discussion or the expression of an idea. It has the purposes of filling the time and enabling one to feel that he/she exists. Questions are never answered but they are responded with other questions, and the characters are constantly interrupting each other. The dialogue between Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, is a good example:

NELL: Have you anything else to say to me?
NAGG: Do you remember-
NELL: No. (11)

Nell doesn’t have any idea what Nagg is going to ask, but still responds since she thinks that anything Nagg says does not make any sense. Time is a vacuum to be filled with meaningless dialogues. Silence is equal to death so the characters cannot keep silent for a long time. The fact that their remarks are meaningless signifies that the life and the nature of their existence are also meaningless. However, at one point, Hamm suggests Clov that their existence may mean something:

HAMM: We’re not beginning to…to…mean something?
CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something! (Brief laugh.)Ah that’s a good one!
HAMM: I wonder. Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn’t he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long enough. (23)

They are conscious of the fact that it is a futile activity to search for a meaning in a meaningless universe. Also, they know that their existence doesn’t mean anything as well but they cannot refrain themselves from asserting and finding a meaning. Nagg and Nell are more conscious of the meaninglessness of their lives and remarks:

NAGG: Are you crying again?
NELL: I was trying.
(Pause)
HAMM: Perhaps it’s a little vein.
…
NAGG: What does that mean?
(Pause)
That means nothing.
(Pause)
Shall I tell you the story of the tailor? (14-5)

The remarks are uttered just in order to fill the time, and not to let silence to endanger their existence. Nagg wants to tell the story of the tailor with no rational motive because storytelling is important in proving his existence. Nagg argues that it is the story he told to Nell on the day they went to Lake Como that made her get the fits:

NELL: It was because I felt happy.
NAGG: It was not, it was not, it was my STORY and nothing else. Happy! Don’t you laugh at it still? Every time I tell it. Happy! (15)

Nagg insists that his story made Nell happy, which indicates that he tries to prove his existence. Through telling the story, he receives reaction from another person, in that play, laughter or happiness. When Hamm is telling his father the story, he stops without completing the story and points out: “I’ll soon have finished with this story. Unless I bring in other characters. But where would I find them? Where would I look for them?” (37-8). These statements suggest that Hamm does not want to finish the story so that he can keep on feeling that he exists.

The characters are also uncertain whether others exist or not, and they need some proof to feel certain of that. For example, when Clov informs Hamm that Nagg is crying, Hamm answers: “Then he is living” (43). The fact that Nagg cries is regarded as the proof of his existence for Hamm. When Clov looks outside and assumingly sees a boy, Hamm suspects of his existence as well: “If he exists he’ll die there or he’ll come here” (54). The reason behind Hamm’s disbelief about the boy’s existence may be explained by the fact that they believe that not a single person exists in the universe other than themselves. Clov decides to go outside and kill the boy whom he refers to as “a potential procreator” (54), lest a new generation emerges because of the boy. Additionally, when Clov realizes that he has a flea on him, Hamm orders him to kill it immediately because he fears of the possibility that “humanity might start all over again” (24). Hamm and Clov don’t want the humanity to start again because they don’t want a new generation to suffer the same sorrows as they themselves do.

Uncertainty of time causes anxiety as well. During the play, there is not any certain reference to time, day, year or hour. The view of time is circular. When Hamm asks the time, Clov answers: “The same as usual” (3). Clov’s answer shows that they feel uncertain about the time, and for them time barely exists since it has not a linear but circular nature. Images of past, present, and future are certain as well. Time references seem to have lost their meaning:

HAMM: Yesterday! What does that mean? Yesterday!
CLOV: That means that bloody awful day, long ago, before this bloody awful day. (31)

Clov asserts that each day is as awful as the previous one because the time is in circularity. Time does not and will not make any difference in their desperate situation as Hamm suggests: “Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended” (57). His statements reflect the circularity of their existence and time’s lost significance in that circularity.

Anxiety of ending is also prevalent in the characters. Circularity of time and existence makes them anxious; however, they shy away from any kind of ending which will stop the circularity. The characters avoid finishing metaphorically; any possibility of ending leaves them in anxiety. The play chess is used as a symbol to reflect this idea. In Endgame, there is neither stalemate nor checkmate to end the game. Considering the fact that the characters are depicted as game-playing creatures, Hamm’s these statements on Clov’s attempt to leave are significant: “Since that’s the way we’re playing it…let’s play it that way” (58). Hamm contends that they should go on playing the game without finishing it. The characters do not move to put an end to their goings on; Hamm is dependent on Clov to wheel his chair, Nell and Nagg do not move at all since they are tucked in the rubbish bins, Clov moves in a staggering way, restricted by four walls around him. Thus, game ca!
nnot be finished and it is played continuously.

The famous first lines which are delivered by Clov “Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished” (1) indicate that Clov is after a kind of ending to their goings on. However, Hamm tries to convince Clov that it’s not necessary for them to put an end to it:

HAMM: Have you not had enough?
CLOV: Yes! …Of what?
HAMM: Of this…this…thing
CLOV: I always had.
HAMM: Then there is no reason for it to change. (4)

Hamm’s assertion is agreed by Clov towards the end of the play when he tells Hamm that he feels too old and too far to form new habits. They both feel too numb and drained to make changes about their repetitive, painful lives. Additionally, anxiety of ending is suggested through the anxiety of isolation. Hamm feels anxious when he learns that Clov is trying to leave him:

HAMM: I’ve made you suffer too much. Haven’t I?
CLOV: It’s not that.
HAMM: I haven’t made you suffer too much?
CLOV: Yes!
HAMM: (relieved) Ah, you gave me a fright! (5)

Clov’s answer to the second question makes Hamm relieved because Clov hasn’t suffered enough to be unable to stand hence leave. They shy away from ending in any part of their lives such as their stories. Clov inquires about Hamm’s chronicle that he is telling himself all the time:

CLOV: Will it not soon be the end?
HAMM: I’m afraid it will.
CLOV: Pah! You’ll make another.
HAMM: I don’t know. I feel rather drained. (43)

Hamm abstains from ending his story since he feels too drained to make a new one just as Clov feels old and tired to form new habits. Sometimes, the characters have paradoxical attitudes towards an ending too. When Clov starts to sing without any reason, Hamm tells him not to, and the dialogue goes on as:

CLOV: Then how can it end?
HAMM: You want it to end?
CLOV: I want to sing. (50)

Clov first implies that he is singing in order to pass the time faster, but then he does not concede that he wants it to end. Similarly, Hamm behaves in a conflicting way when he tells to himself: “Enough, it’s time it ended, in the shelter, too. (Pause) And yet I hesitate, I hesitate to … to end” (2). They both feel anxious of an ending, but at the same time think that there must be an ending to their situation.

Death is the only possible ending in Endgame, but the characters shy away from death as well. They know that death will stop their circular and painful existence, but also they feel anxious that through death they will cease to exist forever. Hamm and Clov cannot risk not existing:

HAMM: I’ll give you nothing more to eat.
CLOV: Then we’ll die
HAMM: I‘ll give you just enough to keep you from dying. You’ll be hungry all the time.
CLOV: Then, we won’t die. (4)

They do not care about living in the lowest level of existence as long as they survive. However they suffer, they try to hang on to life with nearly no possession or food, which reminds a diseased state of living conditions. In that sense, their existence can be defined as the interim between being born and die. During this interim, they escape into a small world where they have each other and nothing else:

HAMM: Gone from me you’d be dead.
CLOV: And vice versa.
HAMM: Outside of here it’s death. (49)

The characters confine themselves in a claustrophobic environment, and they never go outside since there is no more nature but only a horrifying and deadly universe. They can risk neither being separated from each other nor death; so, they are trapped in their petty environment.

In conclusion, the anxieties of the characters in Endgame display Beckett’s concern with reflecting the spirit of 20th century in terms of the anxieties than the men experienced. These anxieties signify the absurdity of the life in which the individual feels isolated in an alienated world, uncertain about his/her existence and meaning of the life, and hesitated to finish due to the basic human instinct of surviving despite of all the pain. Through their anxious characters, Beckett’s plays not only reflect the spirit of the 20th century but also they touch on universal and stable conditions of human beings; thus, they provide a really realistic aspect of the life itself.

REFERENCES
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame.
Yüksel, Ayşegül. Samuel Beckett Tiyatrosu. Yapı Kredi Yayınları: İstanbul. 1992. (Eng. Trans. for quotations: A. Merve Çavuş)