In the first act, a room with two windows is substituted, in the center of which there is a blind man in a wheelchair covered with a sheet. In the corner are also two trash bins covered with sheets. Clov, the servant of the house, enters the room; he opens the curtains and removes the sheets from both the man and the trash bins. After that, Clov leaves for the kitchen until Hamm, the blind man, awakens. After waking up, Hamm calls Clov and they discuss why the servant would not kill the man or leave him. A short time later, Hamm’s parents, Nagg and Nell, emerge from the trash bins and have a brief interaction between them. Nagg wants to kiss Nell and also cheers her up with a joke, but the woman is unenthusiastic. After that, they both return to the trash bins.
Later, Hamm calls Clov again to give him a ride around the room. Upon returning to the seat in the center, he demands to be placed exactly in his original position. After that, Hamm asks Clov to look out the window and report what he sees there, to which the servant replies that he sees nothing. Clov then discovers a flea on himself and kills it with an insecticide. Hamm then asks Clov to fetch a stuffed dog for him and seat him behind the wheelchair, which the servant does. All this time between the two characters, there are disputes. Clov begins to wonder why he cannot refuse to do Hamm’s orders. Then the servant threatens Hamm to leave him and set an alarm so that Hamm will understand that Clov did not die in the kitchen.
Hamm orders Nagg to be awakened to tell him the story of how he got into Clov’s servant. After the story ends, Nagg returns to his trash bin. Clov then starts to tidy up the room and remarks that order is his dream. Later, the servant checks the trash bins with Hamm’s parents and finds that Nell is dead and Nagg is crying. However, none of the characters show compassion and pity for what happened.
Hamm asks Clov if he was happy, to which he gets a negative response. He then asks the servant to take him under the window to enjoy the light, but there is none. Hamm asks Clov to kiss him, which the servant refuses. Then the blind man tells the story of the end of the world and asks to check the situation outside the window again. These events upset and frustrate Clov and he hits Hamm with the stuffed dog.
Clov looks out the window and it seems to him that he notices a boy whom he decides to go to. Hamm says that he no longer needs the servant but asks him to say a few kind words in the end. Clov goes to the kitchen and no longer answers the blind man’s calls. Hamm calls for his father, but he does not answer either, and Hamm remarks that this is good. The man covers his face with a handkerchief while Clov stands in the doorway all the while, ready to leave, but he stands motionless.
The structure of the play reflects the main events and also introduces the viewer to the conditions of the world of the play and its characters. The first parts of the play make it possible to understand the relationship between the characters, while in the fourth part, the central conflict is already revealed, which is the unwillingness of Clov to be tied to a blind man and legless old people (Beckett 18-21). The last part of the play allows the viewer to uncover the motivations of the characters and understand that their lives as a whole have no connection with the outside world. Thus, the structure allows you to trace the relationship between the characters, as well as their position in the world of the play.
Work Cited
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. 1957. Disciplinas. Web.