"The End Is in the Beginning and yet You Go On”: Circularity and Perpetuity in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame Anonymous College

After its release in 1957, Samuel Beckett’s Endgame has baffled readers and cemented Beckett as one of the most important playwrights of the 20th century. It is commonly ascribed to the “theatre of the absurd”, a term coined by renowned literary critic Martin Esslin (1962) and it has frequently been noted that the play does not easily allow construction of latent meaning (Hasselbach 196). Although the play does not necessarily want to make sense, it continuously invites the reader to search for meaning. Here, I will try to shed light on one particular implicit theme and its potential effects. Ruby Cohn once wrote that "it is a circle rather than a straight line that diagrams Endgame” (184). Note that, if you trace the circumference of a circle with your finger you eventually end up where you began - an idea that plays a big role in this particular drama.The play interestingly starts off with the lines “Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished” (6)[1], signalling that ‘ending’ is part of the beginning of the play. One of our protagonists, Hamm, tells us that although the end is in the beginning, Clov –and, in fact, all the characters-, still “go on” (41). In Endgame, Beckett creates a world of...