Answer:
Endgame's opening lines repeat the word "finished," and the rest of the play hammers away at the idea that beginnings and endings are intertwined, that existence is cyclical. Whether it is the story about the tailor, which juxtaposes its conceit of creation with never-ending delays, Hamm and Clov's killing the flea from which humanity may be reborn, or the numerous references to Christ, whose death gave birth to a new religion, death-related endings in the play are one and the same with beginnings. While Hamm and Clov are in the "endgame" of their ancient lives, with death lurking around the corner, they are also stuck in a perpetual loop that never allows final closure—Hamm claims he wants to be "finished," but admits that he "hesitate[s]" to do so. Just as death cannot arrive to seal off life, neither can Hamm or Clov escape to close the book on one existence and open another—note Clov's frequent failed attempts to leave the room (and his final return after vowing to leave) and Hamm's insistence on returning to the center of the room. Nell's death may be an aberration in a play where death seems impossible, but since she is the one character who recognizes the absurdity of the situation, perhaps she is rewarded by dying.
The Absurdists took a page from Existentialist philosophy, believing that life was absurd, beyond human rationality, meaningless, a sentiment to which Endgame subscribes, with its conception of circularity and non-meaning. Beckett's own brand of Absurdism melds tragedy and comedy in new ways; Winnie gives a good definition of his tragicomedy when she says, "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness" (Beckett believes this was the most important line of the play). Self-conscious form in the theater was another feature of Absurdism, and there's no shortage in Endgame, from Clov's turning the telescope on the audience to Hamm's showy references to his own acting. But Beckett's self-consciousness is not merely for laughs. Just as the characters cannot escape the room or themselves, trapped in self-conscious cages, neither can the audience escape their lives for a night of theatrical diversion.
Explanation:
