The characters of Beckett's plays, from Waiting for Godot to those in the dramatic pieces comprising Ends and Odds, take their places in a playworld in which the atmosphere is permeated with a sense of the absurd. Invariably, Beckett's characters are metaphors for modern—or universal—man, puzzling over his inability to detect an intelligible pattern and suffering the consequent anguish of a futile search for meaning. The characteristic state of mind of a Beckett character is despair. (p. 53)

By virtue of the self-reflective quality of his theater, virtually every play of Beckett's is populated with metafictional characters. The sole physical presence in Krapp's Last Tape (1958), for example, is simultaneously playwright, performer, and audience…. In Happy Days (1961), Winnie, buried in sand first up to her waist and then up to her neck, is both actor and audience in a world in which one's actions, limited though they may be, must be witnessed in order to be authenticated…. And, perhaps the most pared-down presentation of self and other, the screenplay Film (1964) gives us a clear sense of actor and audience through the unspeaking characters of O and E, observed and observer, who in the end merge into one man's self-perception.

Among the more extended examples of Beckett's sense of the theatricality of life is Waiting for Godot, in which Didi and Gogo, surely the playwright's best-known dramatic creations, function as metafictional characters. As one of Beckett's several dramatic pairs, the tramps have been credited with both psychological and philosophical duality…. Like those of Pirandello and Genet before them, Beckett's characters are double characters as the direct result of the playwright's self-consciousness. Supremely aware of his characters not only as characters but as participants in theater, Beckett endows his tramps with a duality of which the audience is constantly aware. In Didi and Gogo, Beckett purposely and purposefully emphasizes the inherent duality of the dramatic character, so that our vision of them is always double. The tramps are for us, simultaneously, participants in "life" (the playworld) and participants in theater; they are, noticeably and unforgettably, both characters and actors.

Beckett, however, does not achieve this twofoldness by creating an alternate reality for his characters (as Pirandello does in Henry IV through the protagonist's madness or Genet does in The Maids through the sisters' fantasies). Beckett's characters need not take on another identity, shift back and forth between roles, or even break the dramatic illusion in order to be metafictional characters. Rather, they acquire their duality through the use of language which must be constantly interpreted on two levels. When considered in their other dimension, remarks which constitute the philosophical construct of the play become remarks which serve to self-dramatize the tramps as well. (pp. 54-5)

The supreme awareness Didi and Gogo have of themselves (or, rather, their creator has of them) as participants in theater is apparent in their various dramatizations of the processes of theater. Their running commentary on the progress of the play reflects their awareness of the presence of an audience. Some of their comments reflect their consciousness of themselves in relation to that audience: upon Pozzo's and Lucky's second entrance, for example, Vladimir assures anyone who feels the play is dragging, "We were beginning to weaken. Now we're sure to see the evening out."… And as we approach the end of the play, we are again comforted by Vladimir, who assures us, "It is very near the end of its repertory."… Other comments reveal that the tramps at moments actually become the audience…. Insofar as Didi and Gogo are commenting on the emptiness of their existence and on the nearly unendurable task of waiting for Godot, each of these comments has a serious place within the philosophical construct of the play. But when viewed as comments made by the other portion of the double character, that portion which reflects Beckett's awareness of his art, the comments are funny, for they force the audience into experiencing a phenomenon not expected in theater: seeing itself as audience.

While conveying a comic sense of both the theatrical event and man's condition in life is surely part of Beckett's purpose in creating the tramps' duality, it is his vision of the dramatic quality of life which emerges as the significant reason for the double characters' existence. In responding to Pozzo's cry for help, Vladimir points to a fundamental tenet of the dramatic experience:

But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not…. Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us!…

As characters in Beckett's play, Didi and Gogo are universal man (they are "Cain and Abel," "Adam," "all humanity"), but so also are they universal man as actors. Through the sustained double identification of the tramps as both characters and actors, Beckett creates a metaphor not just for universal man but for universal man as actor. (pp. 56-7)

The constant activity of Didi and Gogo is game play. One game involves a routine of silent action in which Vladimir's and Lucky's hats are manipulated from one hand to another; another involves exercises in which the tramps in turn hop from one foot to the next. Most of their games, however, are verbal ones, carefully constructed. (pp. 58-9)

Earlier the tramps had attempted storytelling but were unsuccessful. When Vladimir told the story of the four gospels and the crucifixion of Christ and the two thieves, he had to plead with the unresponsive Estragon to respond: "Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a way?"… When Estragon told the story of the Englishman in the brothel. Vladimir screamed at him to stop. The storytelling forced one of the actors into an unnatural and independent role, which the two, being actors, could not accept. The games, however, are successful because each involves the full participation of both tramps as actors.

Each of their games, however, is short-lived: there are a few lines of dialogue, the game is complete, and then there is silence. Between games Didi and Gogo feel the same desperation as that of the woman in T. S. Eliot's "A Game of Chess" in The Waste Land, who cries, "What shall I do now? What shall I do?… What shall we do to-morrow? What shall we ever do?" While the completion of each game brings self-congratulation, it also brings the awareness that they must find something to do next. Both philosophically and theatrically, the tramps must play, and as actors they are constantly aware that the completion of each acting game (or each scene) brings with it the obligation to play another.

The greatest game the tramps play is waiting. It is certainly true, both theatrically and metaphysically, that "nothing happens," "nobody comes," and "there's nothing to be done." There is no plot progression in Godot, no causal relationship between events, no linear sequence. Time is a confused, timeless "now." (pp. 59-60)

And we ourselves cannot verify anything. The stage directions tell us Act II takes place "Next day. Same time. Same place." But the bare tree has sprouted leaves, and Pozzo and Lucky have gone blind and dumb. According to our logical scheme of time, such drastic changes could not have taken place overnight, and we cannot trust our own conceptions of logical, sequential time. Like Pozzo, we have lost our watches, and with Vladimir we can say, "Time has stopped."… Life in the world of Didi and Gogo is a piling up and repetition of moments, none of which bears any causal relationship to another, none of which is meaningful, but all of which constitute the waiting. And it is the waiting to which Didi and Gogo are committed. Despite the fact that Godot does not come, they insist upon waiting, until the waiting itself becomes an activity which seems to give meaning and pattern to their lives…. The tramps are aware that it is only through action that they—or universal man—can confront the universe, yet all they can offer is activity.

There is one game, however, that Didi and Gogo consider but reject (despite the attractiveness of its side effects), and that is hanging themselves. They do not have the means of hanging both, and they will not consider hanging just one. (pp. 60-1)

But there is another reason why the tramps cannot go through with the hanging: quite simply, it would end their play. As actors, Didi and Gogo are confined to the stage, jointly committed to repeat game after game, night after night. Their bonds are as real as the rope that ties Lucky to Pozzo, and the tramps know this. When Pozzo has a difficult time leaving after bidding the tramps adieu, he remarks, "I don't seem to be able to depart."… At the end of each of the two acts, Didi and Gogo resolve to go, yet they do not:

      ESTRAGON: Well, shall we go?
      VLADIMIR: Yes, let's go.
                                   They do not move….

They must continue to play, but the one game they cannot play is ending their play. Such a game would violate their commitment, burst open the boundaries, and destroy the game. Repeatedly they return to contemplate suicide, but they never consummate that game.

The pathetic heroes of Waiting for Godot may understand that man's alternative to absurdity is action, but they are themselves unable to act. Game play and waiting, activity and nonaction, are the best they can offer, and the illusion of meaning is the most they achieve…. [What] is important is the recognition that man spends his life playing games, games of all kinds, not merely of organized sport, but of life: games of language and activity, the same kind of games Didi and Gogo play. Nevertheless, man wastes and pines. Games can pass the time, they can constitute existence, but they can give life only the illusion of meaning, for, like Beckett's play, they do not constitute (an) action. (pp. 61-2)

In realistic drama we are aware that playing is an imitation of living. In Waiting for Godot we are aware that playing is living or, to reverse the statement, that living is playing, and, consequently, all that is left to modern man is illusion. Didi and Gogo's significance as a philosophical metaphor is extended from universal man hopelessly waiting to universal man needfully playing. And as such, Beckett's self-reflectiveness is inseparable from his philosophical vision, which is that in the absence of meaning, it is only in play and art that universal man can find justification for his existence, for play and art offer him the illusion of meaning.

Endgame (1957) … is similarly informed with the sense of the highly theatrical quality of life which was to characterize all of Beckett's plays. The title itself, Fin de partie in French, refers to the final phase of a chess game…. In terms of their self-consciousness, Endgame and Godot are in many respects complementary.

Like their predecessors the tramps, Hamm and Clov, the couple in Endgame, comment throughout on the progress of the play. Any of their wry remarks … may be attributed to the tramps just as readily as to the strange couple who occupy the dreary room of Endgame. Hamm and Clov know very well that they are actors in a play. Hamm, in fact, has "All kinds of fantasies! That I'm being watched."… And, in the same kind of acknowledgment of audience expressed by Didi and Gogo when they looked out over the stage and joked about the bog out there, Clov peers through his telescope and reports, "I see … a multitude … in transports … of joy."… (pp. 63-4)

The characters of Endgame inhabit a far more claustrophobic and containing world [than those of Godot]. They are in a boxlike room with undersized windows which one can reach only by ladder, and a door so small Beckett calls it an "aperture." Hamm is not only blind, but confined to a wheelchair, and Nagg and Nell live out the remnants of their existences in trash cans. The images of isolation enforce the philosophic vision of this postcataclysmic world, but so also do they underscore the fact that the characters before us are actors, limited to the stage and obligated to stay. While Hamm can turn circles in his wheelchair, only Clov is truly mobile. As if affirming this mobility, he frequently walks backstage to the kitchen, where he stands staring at the wall. But this backstage area is every bit as confining as the room itself; more significant is the greater backstage area, the world which Clov views through the windows and into which he does not venture until, possibly, the end of the play. Clov's inability to leave entirely is not simply because he is not emotionally ready for it, but, as his final gesture of possibly departure shows, his leaving would end the play. As he prepares to don his tweed coat and panama hat, Clov remarks, "This is what we call making an exit."… Hamm too conceives Clov's departure—if indeed Clov does depart—in terms of play. Calling to his charge and receiving no answer, he resolves, "Since that's the way we're playing it … let's play it that way … and speak no more about it … speak no more." (pp. 64-5)

[The] later play is clearly a refinement and further development in terms of theatrical technique. The self-consciousness of Didi and Gogo, while effective in delineating the relationship of self to role, of reality to illusion, only suggests the perfectly realized metafictional characters of Endgame. (p. 65)

Language in Endgame is even more intensely theatrical than in Godot, for in Endgame virtually every line which is spoken is part of the performance which Hamm directs. The yawn which punctuates Hamm's misery plaint intrudes to remind us that Hamm's suffering is his act, just as every display of pain or emotion is rendered inauthentic by the words which follow. (p. 66)

Hamm's chronicle, though clearly a fictional account and as such a theatrical event within the play, is Endgame's only offering of psychological realism, the only means through which we get to know the character, rather than the actor, Hamm. The real subject of Hamm's story is not the cruel master who refuses the child food, but Hamm's own life, and particularly his relationship with Clov. And here, rather than consciously enacted suffering, Hamm seems to experience genuine misery, even the need for Clov's forgiveness…. Hamm appears to be obsessed with the need to tell his tale, and he shows genuine signs of disturbance following the telling, including a prayer to God and a plea to Clov to kiss him. Ironically—though it is surely precisely how a play-within-a-play works—the inner action, the experience of Hamm's chronicle, reflects on the outer action, in this case justifying the patently false outer action, the dialogue of suffering, which now becomes more than just acting for its own sake, but a comment on, and an imitation of, reality.

Perhaps the difference in the metafictional characters of Endgame and Godot is ultimately only a matter of degree. In Godot we are reminded frequently of the dialectic between the character and the actor, the self and the role…. In Endgame, the world of the shelter is created completely by play. In fact, were it not for Hamm's chronicle, we could say of Endgame, self is role, nothing more, and that all is play, nothing less. Surely Beckett attributes validity to the play quality of life, yet even in Endgame he never completely denies the existence of an essential self. The figure of Clov poised for his exit offers a possible, tentative, tenuous hope, which, though not much, does redeem the gloom of the world of Hamm's kingdom. Similarly, Hamm's chronicle, though only obliquely genuine, tentatively affirms the reality of self. (pp. 67-8)

Hamm and Clov …, like Didi and Gogo and so many of Beckett's other creations, are double characters, with identities that exist beyond those of the traditional fictive character. Perhaps more effectively than any modern playwright, Beckett's metafictional characters serve as metaphors for the relationship of life and art, reality and illusion, the self and the role. (pp. 68-9)

June Schlueter, "Beckett's Didi and Gogo, Hamm and Clov," in her Metafictional Characters in Modern Drama (copyright © 1977, 1979 Columbia University Press; reprinted by permission of the publisher), Columbia University Press, 1977, pp. 53-69.