An Ecological Reading Of Endgame

As one of the classic Beckettian theatrical work,Endgame was Beckett’s second published play.It was commented by the author as “more inhumane as Godot”and “dislike the least”.It portrays a day of a four-peopled family which lives in a post-apocalyptic world.In his post-war career,though Beckett’s work seem less connected to a recognizable world,I observe that they became more political,and more permeated with critique of exploitative power relations and care for sentient beings.Endgame is the manifestation of Beckett’s indict of wars and its devastating effects on the environment and people’s mind.Notwithstanding that ecocritic reading of Beckett is totally against the grains of Beckettian studies,Endgame shares a lot in common with environmental apocalyptic literature.I intend to examine Samuel Beckett’s Endgame through the green lens of ecocriticism,reading the play as an environmental apocalyptic drama that could function as a wake-up call to raise people’s consciousness of environmental crisis and motivate their actions of environmental protection.This thesis consists of three parts:Part one,the introduction,covers the life of the author,the plot of the play,and the literature review.Part two consists of three body chapters.Chapter one analyses the natural crisis in the play.Beckett has expounded the symbiotic relationship between man and nature through presenting us an earth deprived of nature.Chapter two explores the relationship between nature and mental health,indicating that the modern estrangement from nature is the main cause of our psychological and social ills.Chapter three discusses the roots of the natural and spiritual crisis.Beckett lived through the darkest and most brutal century in recorded history--two world wars,the Holocaust,the threat of atomic annihilation etc.Surely,the destroyed natural and spiritual ecology creep into his mind at some level.Part three,the conclusion,points out that,under the current gloomy environment,reading the play from the perspective of environmental apocalypticism is of great help to arouse people’s consciousness of environmental crisis and protection.Besides,it is innovative in perspective to read the play ecologically.