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Hamm: We're not beginning to ... to ... mean something?
Clov:
Mean something! You and I mean something! Ah, that's a good one!
–
Endgame
Beckett's characteristic response to the question of what his work
meant was: 'It means what it says.' He is trying to represent, not
explain, the human condition. 'What are we doing here, that is the
question,' says Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, but the answer
is only another riddle. They are waiting for Godot, who, according
to Vladimir, will let them know how they stand. But who is Godot,
and what can he tell them? We never find out.
The plays characterise life as insignificant and without purpose.
An individual, Hamm says in Endgame, is just 'a little bit
of grit in the middle of the steppe'. Clov is nostalgic for the
days when they 'weren't in the land of the living', rather than
having to endure 'all life long the same inanities'. And there seems
no possibility of useful action. 'Nothing to be done' is Estragon's
refrain. Vladimir says he's beginning to come round to the same
opinion. And yet, despite repeated disappointments, Vladimir has
allowed himself to hope:
All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying, Vladimir, be reasonable,
you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. [He
broods, musing on the struggle.]
We allow ourselves to be tantalised, as Beckett put it. There's something
pathetic about this, but also perhaps something admirable. In Happy
Days, Winnie remains cheerful despite being buried in a mound
of sand. She does what she can:
Winnie: My hair! [Pause.] Did I brush and comb my hair? [Pause.]
I may have done. [Pause.] Normally I do. [Pause.] There is so little
one can do. [Pause.] One does it all. [Pause.] All one can. [Pause.]
Tis only human. [Pause.] Human nature.
This is not a happy way of looking at the world. But all the same
Beckett could see the funny side. The very meaninglessness of life
becomes a joke. 'This is becoming really insignificant,' Vladimir
says in Waiting for Godot. There is a good deal of verbal humour,
as well as elements of circus fun, vaudeville, music-hall and silent-film
comedy: mannerisms and misunderstandings, knockabout slapstick clowning,
swapping hats and falling trousers.
The American critic Martin Esslin coined the description 'Theatre
of the Absurd' for this kind of drama, explaining:
The human condition being what it is, with man small, helpless, insecure,
and unable ever to fathom the world in all its hopelessness, death,
and absurdity, the theatre has to confront him with the bitter truth
that most human endeavour is irrational and senseless, that communication
between human beings is well-nigh impossible, and that the world will
forever remain an impenetrable mystery. At the same time, the recognition
of all these bitter truths will have a liberating effect: if we realise
the basic absurdity of most of our objectives we are freed from being
obsessed with them and this release expresses itself in laughter.
–
Theatre of the Absurd (Penguin 1961)
But even this release seems to have a catch. As time goes on, Nell
points out in Endgame, the fun may go out of the joke a little.
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. But ... Yes,
yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we
laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing.
Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still
find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.
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