Endgame

Endgame Summary | Detailed Summary

"Endgame" is Samuel Beckett's one-act play about the futility of life, the inevitability of death, and the lack of control each individual has over his or her own existence. The Endgame is the final play to outwit death, which no one ultimately wins.

The play opens on a stark, grey-lit room with two high windows in one wall. Against the wall sit two trashcans, and in the center of the room sits a blind man named Hamm. Another man named Clov moves back and forth in the room looking into the trashcans, pulling back the curtains, and eventually pulling back the white sheet covering Hamm.

Clov, who is Hamm's servant, begins to speak to himself in a measured tone about the end of something and that he cannot be punished anymore. Clov walks toward the kitchen and is interrupted by Hamm's waking and calling out about his misery and the misery of his parents. Hamm calls for Clov to get him ready for bed although it is morning and Hamm has just awakened. Hamm then questions Clov about his curiosity about Hamm's life and whether Clov has ever looked at Hamm's eyes while he is asleep.

Hamm questions Clov about whether he has had enough and when Clov answers affirmatively, Hamm agrees and tells Clov to get the white sheet. Hamm threatens that if Clov does not obey, he will keep him in a semi-starvation mode, near death but not completely finished. Despite Hamm's cruel irritability, Clov remains with Hamm who is afraid to be left alone. Hamm's mood softens and he asks Clov for his pain pill and tells him that Clov is the lucky one to still be able to walk.

Hamm toys with the idea of suicide to end his misery and orders Clov to retrieve two bicycle wheels; but there are no more wheels. As Clov and Hamm discuss bicycles, one of the lids of the trashcans lifts slightly and a hand belonging to a man named Nagg appears, followed shortly by his head. As Hamm and Clov continue their conversation about death outside this room, Nagg interrupts demanding a pap. Hamm instructs Clov to give Nagg a biscuit and Hamm verbally berates Nagg, who is his father.

Hamm and Clov return to their conversation about the ravages of old age and the decline of nature. Hamm asks again for a pain pill and prevents Clov from working in the kitchen so that he will not have to be alone. In the background, Nagg knocks on the lid of the other trashcan and his wife, Nell, rises up. The elderly couple attempts to kiss but cannot due to their positions in the cans.

Nell and Nagg bemoan the loss of their physical beauty and their amputations due to a bicycle accident in the Ardennes. Hamm ignores his parents and they berate him for not changing the sand in their cans or for providing adequate food. In spite of their dire situation, Nagg and Nell reminisce about their young love and Nagg tells jokes, which he knows will humor his wife.

Hamm instructs his parents to speak more quietly because he is experiencing a dripping in his head, and Nell chastises Nagg when he laughs at Hamm. Nell does agree, however, that nothing is truly funnier than unhappiness. Nell is ready to sit back down inside her can and asks Nagg if he could scratch her lower back but he cannot stand to reach her. Hamm wearies of their pointless dialogue and orders Nagg and Nell to be quiet. He then directs Clov to put the lids on the cans to silence the two old people.

Hamm asks again for his pain pill. It is not yet time, so he asks Clov to push him around the room where he demands to be positioned in the exact center of the room when finished. After this exercise, Hamm tells Clov to get the ladder and look out one of the windows to look at the planet Earth. Clov reports that earth's land and waters are dead and the sun is gray. This bleak report confirms Hamm's fears that the world has ended; but Hamm tells Clov that he dreamed of his own heart last night, which must be a positive sign that he and Clov are beginning to mean something.

Hamm hopes that his life has not been lived in vain and Clov interrupts to tell Hamm that he has found a flea in his pants. Hamm is adamant that Clov destroy the flea on the off chance that humanity may spring from it again in some odd way. After shaking flea powder down his pants, Clov is relatively certain that the flea has been annihilated.

Satisfied that the flea has met its demise, Hamm and Clov discuss the option of escape from their predicament and Hamm suggests that Clov could build a raft that could float them away. However the thought of shark-infested water ends that discussion. Hamm again asks for a pain pill and Clov tells him it is still not yet time.

Hamm is envious that Clov can still walk, so he berates Clov for living off Hamm's graciousness for so many years. Hamm tells Clov that one day, he too, will suffer the ravages of old age and will be alone when everyone else has gone. Clov offers to leave if he has become a drain on Hamm's hospitality and Hamm tells him that he cannot leave because there is no one else to finish them. Clov is not capable of finishing Hamm especially when Hamm reminds him of how he had taken him in and cared for him as if Clov had been Hamm's own child.

Hamm offers the idea that it is possible that they are just in a big hole and that there may be evidence of life beyond it. He then quickly demands that Clov bring his toy dog to him. Clov cautions Hamm that the dog is not yet finished and lacks a leg and a bow, but Hamm demands that the dog stand and look admiringly at Hamm as if he is taking him for a walk.

Hamm's mood abruptly changes again and he muses about whether everything has gone on long enough. Clov affirms Hamm's' thoughts. Clov has the advantage of being able to walk away while Hamm is confined to his chair, a fact which brings out Hamm's cruelty saying that the only way Hamm will know if Clov is really gone is if he does not smell Clov's rotting corpse in the kitchen. Clov has another idea. He could set an alarm, and if he does not come when the alarm rings, it means that he has gone. If, however, the alarm does not ring, that will be the signal that Clov is dead.

Hamm dismisses this idea and asks for a painkiller but Clov will not give it to him and threatens to leave again. Hamm hurriedly asks if Clov wants to hear a story. Clov does not, so Hamm tells him to rouse Nagg to listen. Nagg is not interested until Clov promises him a sugarplum. Clov leaves the room to get the sweet and Hamm asks Nagg why he fathered him. Nagg replies that he did not know his progeny would be Hamm.

Hamm begins his monologue about encountering a man and his sick infant escaping from a land that had been destroyed. Hamm remembers being annoyed at the intrusion of this man while hanging his Christmas holly. The man needs food for his hungry child and Hamm chastises him for still believing that there is still evidence that life will continue, but takes pity on the begging man and hires him. That infant grows up to be Clov, a fact that secures Hamm's feelings of superiority over the younger man.

Clov announces the sighting of a rat in the kitchen and Nagg whines for his sugarplum, but Hamm insists that they pray before doing anything else. Hamm worries that God does not exist and Nagg temporarily enjoys his son's personal anguish because of the cruelties Hamm has inflicted on his parents. Nagg taps on the lid of Nell's trashcan, but when she does not respond he sinks back down into his own.

Hamm instructs Clov to look into Nell's can and he can see that Nell has died. Nagg is crying softly in his own can and Hamm knows then that his father is still alive. Clov pushes Hamm around the room in his chair again so that he can be closer to the windows and feel the warmth of the sunlight; but there is no more sun and Hamm returns to his original position. Hamm asks Clov to check once more on Nagg who has died in his trashcan.

Hamm asks for rug to warm him but Clov contends that there are no more. Hamm then asks Clov to kiss him but Clov declines prompting Hamm to understand that all forms of comfort have vanished. Even the toy dog offers no source of consolation, so Hamm changes his mind about playing with it. Clov returns to the kitchen to kill the rat and Hamm launches into a monologue about the guilt he feels for not helping more people while earth was still alive. Hamm wonders about the end and hopes that it will come quietly and quickly.

Clov returns and Hamm once more asks if it is time for his pain pill. This time Clov tells Hamm that it is time, but that there are no more pain pills. Clov threatens to leave again but cannot bring himself to do so. Hamm demands to play with the toy dog again and Clov throws it at him and Hamm's irritation prompts him to throw an axe the next time. Hamm asks Clov to put him in his coffin but Clov replies that there are no more coffins and Hamm declares that he wants everything to end.

Clov is intent on leaving this time and Hamm asks Clov to say something kind that Hamm may remember and Clov makes a brief statement about friendship and love and thanks Hamm for all he has done before he leaves for good. Hamm calls for his father, who of course does not answer, and calls out futilely for Clov who is gone. Hamm accepts his fate, throws away the toy dog, and covers his face with his handkerchief.