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The Ideas Of Existentialism In Samuel Beckett's Endgame

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This is an attempt to understand Samuel Beckett’s characterization, use of language and setting in his play 'Endgame' and to explore the manner in which it reveals his tendency to employ some existentialist concepts such as despair and anxiety. Existentialism is a philosophical movement which focuses on an individual's existence rejecting the absolute reason. There are a number of reasons for the concept of 'Existentialism' to come in the history of thought. Firstly, rational sciences could not prove that they were absolute, and thus, existence of absolute truth was put to question. Secondly, and more importantly people had lost their belief in the existence of a divine being, that is God, owing to the wars and losses they faced in these wars. …show more content…

His dramatic creations are haunted by an absence of meaning at the centre. In spite of this meaning-lessness, Beckett’s characters desperately strive to find a meaning for themselves. They are born into an irrational world. They life is wasted waiting for an explanation that never comes, and even the existence of such an explanation might be merely a product of their imagination , founded in their despair. Beckett’s drama is based on his perception of human condition, that is, being born and mostly living in pain, suffering ordeals, a short rough and unpleasant existence. Man’s needs and desires are all reduced. Therefore, “All Beckett’s work comprises a unity in which certain attitudes are expressed in different ways with much force and rare imagination: life is cruel and painful; failure is no worse than success because neither matters; what is important is to avoid giving pain to others and to share misfortune”, there is neither a meaning nor an explanation; there is and there remains only nothingness, thereby putting Beckett closer to existentialist beliefs which puts him close to the Existentialists. Life and its meaning gets reduced to cruelty, frustration and absence of hope revolving around the repetitive themes of birth, death and emo-tions like despair, anxiety and physical limitations. The reader is insistently and rather forcefully reminded that his existence is

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