Waiting and Ending

Waiting and Ending - An Exploration of Samuel Beckett’s Use of Language

Samuel Beckett’s Endgame or Fin De Partie (1957) can be thought of as the sequel to Waiting for Godot (1952), in that Vladimir and Estragon and ‘waiting’ and Hamm and Clov are ‘ending’ (according to the titles of the plays.) Yet, when the subject matter of Endgame is considered Hamm and Clov too are waiting, as the end that they anticipate fails to occur. The conclusion that Hamm and Clov are waiting for is the end we are all hurtling towards from the moment we are born; death. Instead of the anticipated end, we are presented with a potentially eternal cycle of discourse and events in the play. I intend to explore how the cyclic, endless character of the fictional world Beckett has created in Endgame is reflected in Beckett’s use of ‘the echo principle,’ (Cohn, 1973: 42) the repetitious and cyclic nature of discourse and action. I will also be concerned with the concept that nothing new will ever exist in this fictional world. In addition, I plan to demonstrate how through analysis of diexis we can determine character relationships without needing to refer to the content of discourse. Similarly, such deductions about the fictional world can be made from analysis of the stage directions. In addition to Endgame, I will examine the fictional world created in Act Without Words II or Acts Sans Paroles II (1956) purely in what Michael Issacharoff terms the Didascalia, (Issacharoff, 1989) and in the performative sense mime. I refer to stage directions as a use of language because expression of mime in script form is linguistic, and it is this that is translated into performance, and therefore language is the determinant for the world created in mime.


Hamm and Clov are regarded as master and servant, due to such references as: ‘HAMM: And your rounds? When you inspected my paupers.’ (Beckett, 2006: 96) There are also suggestions in the text that their relationship resembles that of father and son, and the struggle Clov faces in leaving Hamm could arguably show care and even friendship between them (although their ‘parting’ is business like.) We can definitively discern the nature of Hamm and Clov’s relationship if we look at the diexis of their speech. Hamm’s centrality is key to understanding this, he is positioned centrally on stage as the play opens, and subsequently due to his repeated request that he be in the centre of his world; ‘HAMM: Am I right in the centre?’ (Beckett, 2006: 129) Hamm’s speech also demonstrates his centrality, as he only refers to other characters in relation to himself: ‘HAMM: My father? [Pause] My mother? [Pause] MY…dog?’ (Beckett, 2006: 93) This sense of ownership not only reflects Hamm’s own ideas about his centrality but furthermore a position of power, of master. Further to this, in analysis of Hamm’s language use we can observe his frequent use of directives and perlocutionary speech acts:

‘HAMM: Kiss me. [Pause] Will you not kiss me?
CLOV: No. HAMM: On the forehead.
CLOV: I won’t kiss you anywhere.
[Pause]
HAMM: [Holding out his hand] Give me you hand at least.’ (Beckett, 2006: 125)

He constantly gives Clov orders, and unless some kind of social hierarchy were in place (with Hamm at its head), Clov would not obey him. After all, he is there to help and sustain Hamm’s life, his own ends and desires lie outside of (what I shall refer to as) the shelter in which the play takes place. Conversely, Clov’s speech is for the most part filled with declarations that are primarily locutionary, and he mostly questions only when incited in some way by Hamm:

‘HAMM: Have you not had enough?
CLOV: Yes! [Pause] Of what?’ (Beckett, 2006: 94)

The conclusion from analysis of the diexis therefore is that Hamm gives orders and Clov obeys - the fundamental basis of a master/servant relationship.

The world Beckett has created in Endgame is very contained. Apart from the ‘diegetic’ (Issacharoff, 1989) space of Clov’s kitchen, there is nowhere habitable outside of the shelter. According to Hamm: ‘Outside of here is death,’ (Beckett, 2006: 96) he calls his turn of the room: ‘HAMM: Right around the world,’ (Beckett, 2006: 104) and even nature is ‘no more’. (Beckett, 2006: 97) This idea of containment is present in diexis, like the master/servant relationship of Hamm and Clov. There is little anaphora in the text because reference is made primarily to the characters that appear on stage, with the exceptions of the small boy, the flea, Mother Pegg and the rat. A lack of referents follows this. The emphasis on the world we can see and lack of reference to anything outside of it (primarily anything living), makes the world of Endgame claustrophobic and contained.
This claustrophobia also exists in the discourse and actions or mimetic elements of the play, in that their repetitive and cyclic character also contribute to the feeling of containment in the world Beckett has created. We are immediately introduced to the idea of repetition, in Clov’s opening mime he laughs five times and in Hamm’s opening monologue he yawns six times, all of which occur in the first two pages of the text. Clov has other sections of mime that include motif action, he repeatedly moves the ladder from one window to another and looks out of it at varying points in the play. Apart from those in his opening mime, (which contains six movements between the two windows), all are ordered by Hamm, once again stressing his centrality, as does the fact that Hamm’s yawns outnumber Clov’s laughs.
As immediately as we are introduced to repetition of action, we are also introduced to repetition in discourse. Four of Clov’s opening ten words are the word ‘finished’: ‘CLOV: Finished, it’s finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished.’ (Beckett, 2006: 93) This phrase is later echoed by Hamm: ‘It’s finished, we’re finished.’ (Beckett, 2006: 116) Further and more frequently repeated phrases include Clov’s informing of Hamm that: ‘CLOV: There are no more…’ (Beckett, 2006: 96 (for the first time) and when Clov returns from his kitchen with whatever Hamm has requested: ‘CLOV: I’m back again with the…’ (Beckett, 2006: 97 (for the first time) Throughout the course of the play we learn that there are no more bicycle wheels, pap, nature, sugar plums, tide, navigators, rugs, pain-killers, and coffins. A sense of claustrophobia is established from these repeated phrases and actions because nothing new is occurring, everything is a copy or imitation of something already said or done. There is further significance to the repetition of these two phrases in particular beyond how they make the play cyclical when their content is considered. The repetition of the phrase: ‘CLOV: There are no more…’ (Beckett 2006: 96) is a further reminder that there is nothing else left and certainly nothing new, and the fact that from the first instance Clov is back ‘again,’ is a further suggestion of the cyclical and endless character of Endgame.
Beckett gave further emphasis to repeated phrases by requesting that they all be spoken identically in performance, even when uttered by a different character. (Cohn 1973: 154) As I have shown earlier with Hamm’s repetition of Clov’s opening line, the characters in Endgame frequently borrow each others phrases. This is a further implication of the claustrophobia of Endgame, as phrase and even mode of delivery are shared.
But the participants in Endgame do not just recycle each other’s language; Hamm in particular directly quotes and alludes to other texts, namely two plays by William Shakespeare and The Bible. Hamm alludes to Richard III with: ‘HAMM: My kingdom for a nightman,’ (Beckett, 2006: 103) and borrows from Prospero in The Tempest: ‘HAMM: Our revels now are ended.’ (Beckett, 2006: 120) Hamm and Clov also make a further reference to The Tempest in Clov’s implication that Hamm taught him language, as Prospero taught the creature Caliban: ‘CLOV: I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others.’ (Beckett, 2006:113) Recycled phrases from the Bible come in the form of; ‘HAMM: Lick your neighbour as yourself!’ (Beckett, 2006: 125) and the opening word of the play, ‘Finished,’ (Beckett, 2006: 93) is perhaps an allusion to Christ’s last words on the cross.

The repetition, recycling of phrase and therefore lack of anything ‘new’ in discourse furthermore reflects that nature is no more in Endgame and subsequently the idea that the world will never produce anything new, not if Hamm and Clov can help it anyway:

‘CLOV: [Anguished, scratching himself.] I have a flea!
…HAMM: [Very perturbed.] But humanity might start from there all over again! Catch him, for the love of God!’ (Beckett, 2006: 108)

Yet Hamm, Clov, Nagg and Nell live on. This endlessness also reflects the chess game that is implied in the title. Just as Endgame is seemingly infinite, in chess even with check-mate the King is not dead; merely the possibility is presented but never literally comes to fruition. The King does not die yet the game is over the pieces reset, just as the ‘pieces’ of Beckett’s drama reset at the end of the play, ready to start the cycle again. Endgame begins and ends with the characters in the same positions on stage, Hamm repeats his gesture of folding or unfolding his handkerchief, and says: ‘HAMM: Old stancher!’ (Beckett, 2006: 93 and 134) at both points. The identical beginning and end brings the action of the play full circle, albeit as the play closes Nell is assumed dead, and the relationship between Hamm and Clov has shifted - Clov has taken steps towards leaving even though he is yet to do so, therefore the world in Endgame ‘is both changing and changeless.’ (Pattie, 2000: 77)

Another reiteration of the idea that there is nothing new in the shelter can be seen in how Beckett does not even give his characters distinct and individual names. The characters names are all allusions to the word nail, Nell referring to the English ‘nail’, Clov to the French ‘clou’, Nagg to the German ‘naggel’ Hamm to the Latin ‘hamus’. (The other character that is given a name, Mother Pegg, is also an allusion to the word nail.) It is interesting to note that Hamm’s name resembles the Latin word for nail, considering that Latin is the stem and basis for all European languages, thus reinforcing his centrality, now physically, socially and linguistically. Another analogy can be deducted from the nail-names – if we take Hamm to resemble the word ‘hammer,’ we have three nails and a hammer, biblical iconography for the crucifixion of Christ (religion being one of the themes of the play.)
Just as Nell and Nagg have recycled names, so to is their relationship a recycled version of Hamm and Clov, and they talk mostly of the past, another indication of nothing new in the fictional world Beckett has created. Nell makes Clov’s constant threat: ‘NELL: I’ll leave you,’ (Beckett, 2006: 101) and echoes Clov in her tendency to answer questions in the negative before they are fully asked:

‘HAMM: Do you ever think of one thing?
CLOV: Never.
HAMM: That we’re down in a hole.’ (Beckett, 2006: 111)

and the corresponding:

‘NAGG: Do you remember-
NELL: No.
NAGG: When we crashed our tandem and lost our shanks.’ (Beckett, 2006: 99-100)

Thus, Nell cements herself in Clov’s role in her relationship with Nagg.
Nagg therefore takes the role of Hamm, and like him tells a story that no-one wants to hear. Indeed, Nagg’s joke about the tailor echoes Hamm’s story about Christmas Eve and the little boy, both tales have three voices; the narrator, first person and a ‘beggar alternate.’ (Gontarski, 1992: 54) The parallel is emphasised further by the repeated phraseology that dominates the structure of the stories, and that both are separated into four sections. For Hamm, each section begins with variations of the phrase: ‘HAMM: It was an extra-ordinarily bitter day, I remember, zero by the thermometer. But considering it was Christmas Eve there was nothing…extra-ordinary about it.’ (Beckett, 2006: 117) The four sections of Nagg’s joke are three sections of instruction to come back to the tailor again, and the punch line. He also has a stock phrase, variations of: ‘NAGG: [Tailor’s Voice.] ‘So sorry, come back in a week, I’ve made a mess of the seat.’ Good, that’s all right, a neat seat can be very ticklish. A week later.’ (Beckett, 2006: 102)

Endgame opens with the word ‘Finished,’ (Beckett, 2006: 92) and closes with the word ‘…remain.’ (Beckett, 2006: 134) The beginning of the play emphasises how the characters are hurtling towards the end with repetition of the word ‘finished,’ the nearly it is followed by reflecting how they never quite get there: ‘HAMM: The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.’ (Beckett, 2006: 126) The ‘remain’ the play closes with indicates to us that the action of Endgame is not over, the cycle of events will occur again. In essence therefore, the play opens in action and word with repetition, and closes with a promise of the cyclical, outlining the two main components of Beckett’s fictional world. This fictional world is one that will never contain anything new, even the relationships between the characters are recycled as are their names, words, phrases and gestures – as shown. There is nothing left but the suspended death sentence that they share as they share language. This suspended moment of waiting for an inevitable end has a parallel in literature that is alluded to in the unconsummated kiss of Nagg and Nell, an unintentional (Gontarski, 1992: 54) reference to John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn. The unconsummated kiss and therefore suspended nature of the lovers depicted on the urn is echoed in the suspended death sentence Hamm and Clov are suffering.


Like Endgame, Act Without Words II is full of cyclic repetition. Both have repeated series of action (and in Endgame language,) yet the action of Act Without Words II travels from stage right to left and therefore progresses, despite the fact that the actions of the two characters are changeless. Also unlike Endgame, Act Without Words II is purely mimetic. However the action in Act Without Words II is not abstract, Beckett once again creates a complex fictional world that is discernable through the Didascalia. (Issacahroff, 1989)
Act Without Words II has two characters, the non-descriptly named A and B (for sake of ease, I shall refer to both as ‘he.’). Both characters complete a cycle of actions, A followed by B followed by A (and presumably so-on) coming out of their respective sacks, both dressing and undressing from a pile of clothes that are on the stage (to the right of the two sacks). Each of the characters’ cycle of action is different, and despite their varying paces last the same amount of time. The two characters are never out of their sacks together and are spurred into action by a mechanical ‘goad.’ A and B have distinct personalities that are evident not only in characteristic action but the few ‘autonomous’ (Issacharoff, 1989) stage directions in the text. (The majority of the stage directions in the text are ‘normal’ (Issacharoff, 1989) and have a primarily ‘locative’ (Issacharoff, 1989) function, which are essentially non-descript in terms of describing the fictional world.)
A is: ‘slow, awkward…absent,’ (Beckett, 2006: 209) according to Beckett’s initial ‘autonomous’ (Issacharoff, 1989) description of the characters, and his characteristic actions are to brood, swallow pills and reject food. Unlike B who only requires one poke from the goad to come out of his sack and resume his cycle of action, A requires to be poked twice. We can conclude that A is depressive, his slow and absent nature are common traits among those suffering from depression, (McAllister-Williams, 2006) as is his lack of interest in participating in the world (he needs to be convinced and not just prompted by the goad to act,) and his disinterest in food. A therefore lacks the wish to take care of himself. His characteristic swallowing of pills could therefore be interpreted as the taking of anti-depressants, which would also explain an absent nature. Anti-depressants have a numbing effect on the brain and emotions. (McAllister-Williams, 2006)
B however is ‘brisk, rapid, precise,’ (Beckett, 2006: 209) he is the healthier version of A. His characteristic actions are to check the time, exercise and groom himself. Unlike A, who spits out food ‘with disgust,’ (Beckett: 209) B ‘swallows with appetite.’ (Beckett: 210) B is taking care of his appearance and his body, and in checking the time is arguably keeping busy and getting on with life. He also shows some pride in folding the clothes he discards neatly, whereas A; ‘lets them fall in an untidy heap.’ (Beckett, 2006: 210)
The two characters are opposites, and there are a number of interpretations to be made of their relationship to each other, although they never meet and may not even be aware of each others existence. Firstly we could conclude that they are two parts of the same person as they never appear together and share similar actions, in that they both dress and undress, both eat (although A spits his food out,) and both stagger towards the left wing. (Beckett, 2006: 210) Also, they do not move out of line with one another for long, when A moves his sack forward along a horizontal line, B follows so that their sacks are once more side by side, hinting possibly at their unity as one person. We could also argue that A is trying to get away from B. Another debateable reading of their relationship is that they represent two approaches to the harshness of life and reality (after all the stage is ‘violently lit’ (Beckett, 2006: 209) – getting on with life and brooding about it.

In both Endgame and Act Without Words II, the Didascalia does not merely have a ‘role …of glossing and clarifying the delivery intended,’ as Issacharoff has claimed (Issacharoff, 1989: 18), but as I have demonstrated it is world creating. In Act Without Words II the Didascalia expels dialogue, and Beckett demonstrates that dialogue is not necessary in theatre to create a fictional world. In Endgame the Didascalia contributes to the themes of repetition and the cyclical in discourse and the fictional world, and in Act Without Words II the autonomous direction is character creating (and subsequently world creating) and from this information that we can begin to perceive meaning in the actions of A and B.


The primary conclusion I have reached in my exploration of Beckett’s use of language in Endgame and Act Without Words II (in relation to the fictional worlds created) is based on the idea of repeated and recycled action and language. The ‘echo principle’ (Cohn, 1973: 42) that is evident in the repetition of the play and mime studied is not only an example of Beckett’s predilection for pattern (Gontarski, 1992: xx), but of his profound understanding of the exchanges, linguistic and physical, that take place between human beings. All language and action is learnt from other people. When we are children, we observe others walking and, from observation and a great deal of trial and error, imitate this ourselves. Language has the same growth in us, we hear others speak and we imitate them, gradually coming to understand meaning. As adults, we pick up the gestures, accents, intonations, phrases, words and even languages of other people; Beckett exaggerates this truth in his request that all repeated phrases have an identical mode of delivery. Therefore nothing is new, all language and action is recycled or borrowed from somebody else. Both Endgame and Act Without Words II reflect this, in their language structure, phrasing, diexis and Didascalia respectively.
Bibliography

ADORNO, THEODOR W. (1961) ‘Trying to Understand Endgame’ In: BIRKETT, JENNIFER and INCE, KATE eds. (2000) Samuel Beckett Essex: Pearson Education
BECKETT, SAMUEL (2006) Samuel Beckett The Complete Dramatic Works London: Faber and Faber
COHN, RUBY (1973) Back to Beckett New Jersey: Princeton University Press
COHN, RUBY (2004) A Beckett Canon Michigan: University of Michigan Press
ELAM, KEIR (1997) The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama London: Routledge
GONTARSKI, S.E ed. (1992) The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett: Endgame London: Faber and Faber
ISSACHAROFF, MICHAEL (1989) Discourse As Performance California: Stanford University Press
KEATS, JOHN (1996) Keats Selected Poems and Letters Oxford: Heinemann
PATTIE, DAVID (2000) The Complete Guide to Samuel Beckett London: Routledge

Videos

‘Endgame’ Literature In the Modern World (1991) A Film by TONY COE Open University
‘Ohio Impromptu; Act Without Words II’ Beckett on Film (2002) Films by CHARLES STURRIDGE and EDNA HUGHES Channel 4

Websites

McAllister-Williams, Dr. Hamish (1998) ‘Health and Nutrition: Depression’ <http://www.tiscali.co.uk/lifestyle/healthfitness/health_advice/netdoctor/archive/000040.html> (accessed 16/12/06)