Question

What is so different about Beckett's stylistic choices in relation to how he approached Endgame?Please explore the various ways Beckett's play Endgame is different from other, more traditional plays you have read. What point do you think he is trying to make with his stylistic choices?

Accepted Answer

Beckett is famous for the existialistic themes of his most famous work, includeing Endgame and Waiting for Godot.  In other words, his characters' actions demonstrate the belief that human beings create their own fate through their own choices.  Through his works, Beckett shows that he believes that left on their own, human beings often make the wrong choices.  This is most evident in Endgame where the family choose to torment each other.

Answer

I think the question addresses 'choices' stylistically and not philosophically or conceptually as it seems to be from the given answer. The stylistic and structural innovations that make Beckett's Endgame different from conventional theatre are as follows---
 
1. The complete departure from realistic representation. From the vague and unnamed setting of the bare interior to the plot to the action---there is nothing realistic about the play.
 
2. There is very little or nothing as far as characterization is concerned. No back-stories are given apart from Hamm's chronicle which can at best be called a deeply problematic account of Clov's past. All information is withdrawn.
 
3. From the use of ashcans to Hamm's immobility, apart from Clov, there is an unusual rarity of movements in the play. There is minimal stage-props or decor.
 
4. There is very little or nothing that happens. There is hardly a story and in this plotless structure, it is only verbal exchanges in all their day-to-day triviality that keeps the drama going.
 
5. The employment of dramatic metaphors all through the play gives it an experimental metatheatrical reflexivity.
 
6. There is no real climax. Neither is there a real end to the play. It simply comes to a standstill or a collapse on the threshold of the vanishing moment.

Endgame

What is so different about Beckett's stylistic choices in relation to how he approached Endgame? Please explore the various ways Beckett's play Endgame is different from other, more traditional plays you have read. What point do you think he is trying to make with his stylistic choices?

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