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Endgame Isolation Essay

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Recommended: Theme of loneliness in literature

Phillip Pacheco
Lit. Matters Final Paper
5/1/17

Isolation in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame

In terms of bleakness, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is a hard one to surpass. Not limited by its intricacies, Endgame is a one-act play that depicts the wretched and monotonous interactions between figurative characters in a post-apocalyptic world. Beckett uses several powerful themes throughout the play including the true meaning of life and death, but I believe the most important to be the idea of loneliness. This theme plays an omnipresent role throughout the play in terms of the effect it has on each character 's self-recognition as well as their relationships. Through Beckett’s use of dialogue, character elements, and setting, he is able to portray a conflicting …show more content…

The craving for isolation is a temporary phase constructed by the dialogue that portrays a sort of human dynamic. It shows that everyone living in this sort of dreary world can be potentially subjected to the effects of desolation and that perhaps interaction and relationships are things of utmost importance that must be preserved. Despite the fact that isolation is a scary notion, the dialogue in Endgame still indicates that the characters find ways to separate themselves from each other intermittently. Both Nagg and Nell have their trashcans they reside in and Clov isolates himself in the kitchen where no one else can …show more content…

HAMM:

What? A sail? A fin? Smoke?

CLOV:

The light is sunk.

HAMM:

Pah! We all knew that!

CLOV:

There was a bit left.

HAMM:

The base.

CLOV:

Yes.

HAMM:

And now?

CLOV:

All gone. (Beckett, Endgame)

The setting contributes greatly to the theme because of the fact that everything in their world is located within that small, grey, and plain room. There is nothing outside for as far as the eye can see, and since there is nothing, they are metaphorically trapped within the house and are forced to be subjected to its depressive nature. Samuel Beckett’s Endgame touches deeply upon the notion of loneliness and its many diverse variables that can have the greatest effect. This philosophical ideology of isolation on its own creates meaning and complexity that renders Endgame nearly boundless in regards to interpretation. The constant struggle in the dialogue between desire and fear, as well as the effect of the bleak and seemingly lifeless setting, greatly drives the characters into the cyclical nature of what seems to be nothing short of

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