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   kc4u Teacher
   College - Senior

   eNotes Editor

   This is a somewhat vague question, I would have to say. Here is something on the game metaphor as worked out in the play. Beckett's play develops the game-metaphor as a parallel to the theatrical metaphor. Hamm begins by saying--"Me? To play?" this is both play-acting and the game of chess. Hamm is the King while Clov, Nell and Nagg are mere pawns in this game while Clov's offstage kitchen, as described, is like a Chess-block off the surface where the game is played. You can look into Beckett's novel Murphy for a detailed description of the game between Endon and Murphy.

   The chess represents the game of being and existence in Beckett's play. The impossibility of closure in reality as well as the impossibility of writing the closure or the endgame of human life i.e. death is what concerns him. The 'bare interior' or the chess-board in the play is like a Dantean Inferno, surrouned by death and only death and the infinity or eternity within is like a curse like the horrendously unending circles in Dante's hell. Both Clov and Hamm want to end their vigil, but there is a tireless desire deep within which leads to a hesitation in them. That is their tragic predicament in a deathless void. Beckett de-romanticizes the idea of eternal life as he presents to us the foul nature of it. The Endgame-turn in the game of chess remains an impossibility due to the almost absolute stasis (barring Hamm's tour) of the king-figure. The allusion to the Millet seeds of Zeno clarifies the idea of a horrific life sans closure...sans the final endgame which can give some meaning to human life.

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   Posted by kc4u on Sunday October 25, 2009 at 9:48 AM