Restlessness, Wanderlust and Migration in Endgame
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/kis.2020.52.170.4Keywords:
Samuel Beckett, Endgame, Fin de partie, Hamm, Clov, manuscript, migrationAbstract
This paper offers an insight into Samuel Beckett’s Fin de partie /Endgame from the viewpoints of restlessness, wanderlust and migration. The close-reading of unpublished, discarded manuscripts from the early stages of the genesis of the play provides a deeper understanding of the relationship dynamics between Hamm and Clov. Both the preliminary versions of Fin the partie and Beckett’s own directions (1967, 1980) suggest that the characters and their forerunners express a strong desire to leave the premises of Hamm’s shelter and be elsewhere (the kitchen, shopping, the raft), or preferably be nowhere at all. The continuation of life and reproduction are enemies to Hamm. Consequently, he fails to help people who turn to him in mortal danger. The aspect of migration can be best traced in Hamm’s story about a displaced, uprooted man, the sole survivor of a catastrophe who comes to him one Christmas Eve to ask for some bread for his son.
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