Dadaist movement Essays

Dadaist movement Essays Dadaist movement Essay Dadaist movement Essay Endgame is the term used to describe the ending of chess match where the outcome is known before the check mate move is made. Beckett recognises the parallel between endgames in chess and the final stages of life; no matter how you live your life, you will die. Endgame by Samuel Beckett has been called a despairing play about despair. Even the title alone, once analysed, gives the whole play deep resonance and meaning. There is plenty of room for argument that if you take the dialogues out of context and analyse them, they are meaningless.Even if ones interpretation of Endgame is that it is meaningless, they can still enjoy it; in that respect Endgame is like a piece of abstract art it moves before it means. The fact that nothing happens in the play is irrelevant. Endgame has been likened to work created in the Dadaist movement. This was a movement that rejected conventionally thinking, writing literature and making art which had no specific meaning but transgressed an impression of travesty or nihilism.However, just the relationships between the four characters, in my mind, immediately inspired inquisition. The two main characters in this play, Hamm and Clov are constantly bickering with each other. Their relationship alternates between master/slave and father/son. Hamm provides the food, by remembering the combination to the lock that seals the food; Clov, in turn, retrieves the food using his legs and eyesight.The relationship is both mutually beneficial and vital, as without one the other would die Beckett makes this point very clear by having Clov say about Hamm If I could kill him Id die happy This is the reason that Clovs continual threats of leaving Hamm do not get trivial. Every time Clov threatens to leave he is questioning his desire to carry on living. Beckett paints the audience of the play a portrait of desolation, lovelessness, boredom, ruthlessness, sorrow and nothingness.The extent of their isolation is made very apparent by Clov when he is reporting what he sees out through the telescope when looking out the window Zero, Zero and Zero. The setting of their house/bunker is not the only thing that is baron and arid about the lives of the four characters. The characters, it seems, go through the same routines day in day out. The opening actions of the play when Clov is moving the ladder to see out the window has a very rehearsed feel.It seems that the characters have said and done everything they do in the same order every day. Hence it is not surprising that both Nell and Clov ask, Why this farce, day after day? The question then immediately arises, why do they carry on? This is the question that Beckett wants the audience to ask themselves why carry on with life? One critic said the characters perform these rituals in order to satisfy their own need to affirm their existence If this is valid it could also provide Becketts answer to the question of why people carry on with life.