Waiting For An Endgame

Endgame is one of the most difficult plays written by Samuel Beckett, the unquestionable leader of the Theatre of the Absurd. Its breakup in meaning, disorder in plot, uncertainty in theme, indeterminacy in language and absurdity on stage confront the reader with great difficulty in interpreting the play. Beckett's earnest exploration and innovation of the artistic form of anti-interpretation is the main focus of this thesis. Like other Beckettian plays, Endgame is full of symbols and signifiers but Beckett resists all attempts made to decipher them or to provide a coherent interpretation. In this short play language and stage become devaluated and simplified media that afford him great freedom to use silence and space to directly affect readers. Different from the common approach, the thesis is designed to discuss the dramatic form of Endgame from the perspective of readers'aesthetic responses illustrated in Wolfgang Iser's theory. Readers of different cultural and educational backgrounds will experience an aesthetic process that simultaneously stimulates and frustrates their desire to construct the meaning of the text and locate the disposition of themselves. It is the interaction between allusions in the play and illusions made by readers that produces a unique aesthetic effect which makes Endgame both time-honored and far-reaching.