They speak in each other’s presence and the words, as in Waiting for Godot, are still absurd. The characters’ speeches are made of sentences that are mostly puns and do not convey any meaning.

Clov accuses Hamm, the wielder of the words: "I use the words you taught me. If they do not mean anything anymore, teach me others." (32); and near the end Clov adds, "they [the remaining words] have nothing to say." (51)

In Endgame, we frequently see that Beckett repeats one word in different sentences through different voices. A good example is found in some dialogues between Hamm and Clov, which are built comically around a few words:

When Hamm says his last lines, he throws away his toy dog and the whistle, and cries out to Clov for the last time but hears no answer; then he prepares for his end:
"Since that's the way we are playing it, let's play it that way, and speak no more about it, speak no more."(52) Although this sentence refers to the blood-stained handkerchief, it reflects ironically upon a game of words, which gives the impression of silence.

Furthermore, the absurdity of this play, to a lesser extent than in Waiting for Godot, comes into the action as well. The futile gesture of the blind Hamm wiping his glasses, when it suggests that the play is unnecessary, conveys Beckett's art to create yet another profound and absurd play after Waiting for Godot. During the whole performance of Endgame, in a heavy pause between the spectator and characters, as we have it in Nagg's and Nell's heartbreakingly funny struggle to talk, the audience is made to experience the gapping distance between the characters and the travesty of their communication.

The play Endgame is a projection of Beckett's deep contemplation over the position in which his characters stand before the goal while stuck in the absurdity of their being. Like the other plays of Beckett, Endgame revels in the atmosphere of absurdity; and from the beginning, it conveys a heavy feeling of despair in the characters whose being resides in a world which is devoid of meaning in such an atmosphere.

Beckett's characters in Waiting for Godot discovered the metaphysical dimension of the goal, the real self. We gradually see that the world loses its value when it cannot offer any way to prepare for that goal. In that play, the definition of the goal was what created the sense of the absurd in both life and in the world. Due to the characters' quest to understand the self, and the realization that the world could not represent it, Beckett's characters in that play strove to go beyond time and space, with the hope of attaining a state of self-possession.

Beckett's world of the explicit Absurd extends to the absurdity in Waiting for Godot, in which everything is presumed to be totally absurd: the characters, their actions, their waiting, their hope, their scenes, and above all, their 'being'. That play was about limitations and the lack of any valuable knowledge, understanding and meaning. Hence, we find no clue and no outcome from self-awareness. What results from Beckett's contemplation over self-awareness, as it was revealed in his play, is nothing but absurdity.

Beckett's tendency toward divinity and metaphysics was evident in Waiting for Godot: we see no progress in his characters' quest, since they merely discover their absurdity while they keep waiting.

However, in Endgame, we see that the characters are better qualified than in Waiting for Godot in regard to their quest for this state. In fact, the characters' efforts in Waiting for Godot to go beyond time and join eternity lead to an outcome in Endgame. In this play the characters are in a quest to go beyond physics, with the hope of realizing their metaphysical.

In the play Waiting for Godot the tramps attempt to create a game to play while they wait for Godot to come, but in Endgame there is no longer any hope that anyone will come; the game is in its final stage.

In other words, the play Endgame is an outcome of the characters' realization within after playing all the games and waiting for some external figure to illuminate the truth.

On the one hand, this play, , projects the characters' yearning to complete the life of the external world, which is a life of ordinary repetition, knowing and suffering; and on the other hand, it is a story about reaching the stepping stone toward salvation that could be one's chance at self-discovery. In fact, Endgame represents a mystical voyage toward the truth of a virgin self. The characters, it seems, are dedicated to such a voyage after experiencing the absurd life depicted in Waiting for Godot.

With the notion of the absurd as portrayed in Endgame, Beckett became more sophisticated in his contemplation of the within, and as a result he got more mature in his approach to self- awareness. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett was about to make the audience wonder whether Godot would ever come. In Endgame, however, through a better mystical vision, he wants his audience to wonder whether Clov will ever leave his master and begin his mystical inward voyage. To answer this question, for viewers familiar with such a voyage, Beckett introduces a sentence spoken by Clove to resolve their sense of wonder where, in one of his last, long speeches, Clov shifts from "they said to me" (50) to "I say to myself" (51). This is more evident in his final long speech at the end of the play, where one can easily get a feeling of a man released after a lifetime of imprisonment:

Later in the same play we have:

Therefore, where one is unable to die, there should be another way out of this life, another salvation:

By the same token, in a later dialogue, Hamm asks Clov about any possible way to reach salvation:

Therefore, the only way to terminate the external life of being is a contemplative, inward journey. Along with this external world, the world of the absurd portrayed in Waiting for Godot gradually loses its value since there would be nothing worthy in such a world for an individual who turns to search within for the real self.
The characters of this play are like mystics who individually look for a way to terminate their illusory life in the external world and gain salvation by approaching the true self.

They are the characters who perform their role in different stages of this voyage and we are shown their different tasks in each of the states they’re settled in.
Beckett, in Endgame insists that the four characters of this play are the only people who could approach the end of their external world. All others died before in the death of their ignorance outside this stage. Hence, Endgame is a play of ending in a stage of initiation, finishing in the beginning and terminating a life of slavery in the world of wrong action, time burden, being cursed and blessed by consciousness and self-decadence. One like Hamm looks inward in order to find an impossible end, a freedom from endless self-consciousness, which differs from self-possession.

To Beckett gaining an insight into the death of consciousness is the only way one can achieve selfhood; even if this selfhood only amounts to an experience of ‘nothingness’. This is the only way one’s real self can approach one’s true 'being'—a way which is sufficiently distinguished from dwelling in a void, as Beckett conveys through Hamm's dialogue: "the end is in the beginning and yet you go on" (44)

After experiencing life and arriving at an understanding that all tricky actions in the world merely mislead one in the process of self-awareness, Samuel Beckett exploits his art and creates a 'mystic-like character' who needs to end his life in the world of divided self. Hamm represents this contemplation of Beckett beautifully by his presence in a scene, which not only reminds us of a skull but also resembles the womb. Like Hamm, the other characters of this play are those who plead their end of birth to the world, since they are familiar with their pain of suffocating in the womb, and want to see everything finished.

The scene of the play is an enclosed space with two windows standing as the eyes of the skull. The characters in this scene are portraits of different generations, and represent different distances from the real self in their voyage.
Hamm, furthest from the walls of restriction, is closer to the real self than the others, as is evident in his words:

Hamm knows that he is exactly at the center of a world in the shape of a circle. A big wall confines everything within that world. Hamm is a 'dot,' which penetrates to the center of this circle, so that all sides around him are at the same distance:

Accordingly, Hamm is the lord of a lifeless earth. He is thoroughly blind to the world of consciousness. He looks solely inward, to the world of self-possession. He is paralyzed, and detached from nearly all deceptive doings in Beckett’s universe, as shown in the play. The scene, the skull, is known as a place for consciousness, knowing, analyzing and learning how to view and live the external life better, how to accept illusory actions more, and consequently, how to forget and lose one’s true self by looking at the world and being a part of it.

In another part of the play, Hamm expresses the absurdity of the external world where they are settled:

Hamm is a character without any eyes in this skull. He denies life and always speaks about the end. He knows his only task is to wait for a perfect freedom of self-possession. Hence, he is the master: he gives orders and he owns the food stored for others.

Opposite Hamm, we have Clov as another 'mystic-like character,' who at first could not depart for a state of self-possession. Yet he has finished all the games shown in Waiting for Godot and is promoted to this stage. He is close to Hamm; he is Hamm’s servant and/or son.

He follows Hamm’s orders. He is active enough to be a qualified mystic, but he is not blind yet. He has the ability to look at the external world and also, he is not yet motionless. Clov, in fact, still lives in a world of consciousness and objects like a telescope, an alarm clock and stools. He still has nothing of his own, and relies only on what Hamm brings him. In other words, he is characterized only by the imagination of others: “I use the words you thought me” (32). However, sometimes he can hear a voice from within which invites him: “They said to me, that's love, yes, yes, not a doubt.” (50) And near the end of this play, we find that Clov is finally equipped with a hat, raincoat, tweed coat, umbrella and bag and ready to embark on a voyage. At the end of the play, we perceive that Clov successfully acquires the capacity to know that the only freedom he can be gifted by his master, father, and creator is self-awareness. He says, “I say to myself sometimes, Clov, you must be there better than that if you want them to let you go - one day”. (51)

He is a character who finally discovers the true approach to self-discovery by terminating his life of being constantly followed. However, in comparison with Hamm, Clov needs some preparation first, and can acquire this capacity only by serving a master who has experienced this state before. In comparison with Clov, Hamm, by becoming blind, achieves a measure of freedom from all deceptive actions in the restricted circle he lives in.

He presumes to be a tiny plenum in the circle, but one which is not defined as a part of that wall. His blindness, which brought him a detachment from all belongings within this circular wall, allows him to progress toward a discovery of the self. If he had the eyes to see, like Clov and others, he would have the chance to be in contact with the outer world, and then he would simply have been defined by the hollow brick wall of his skull. If he could walk like Clov, he would certainly descend to the absurd level of his comings and goings, and so could never reach his dedicated position at the center of the world, detached from the wall. By this contrast between Hamm and Clov in the play, we perceive that Hamm is closer to his goal.

However, the writer does not state that Hamm's voyage of mystical experience is over. In fact, it is worth mentioning that, although he is Beckett's hero in a mystical voyage, approaching his self, he’s not aware of it. Hamm is sightless and motionless, but not yet silent; he is the dot at the center, but not yet the center. And finally, he is free from the wall, yet still imprisoned in the shell of his body.

Nagg and Nell, the two other characters in the play, are together the symbols of another generation. They are characters who also belong inside Hamm’s enclosed space of the skull, but are always imprisoned within two bins.

Nagg and Nell are characters whose external being is about to end in the near future, but since they are now stuck in the attachments of their external world and also because they cannot attain Hamm's level, they cannot contemplate the within, as they seem to wish:

Although both of them are characters who, like Clov, came from the preceding state of mere absurdity in Waiting for Godot, they are not experienced or qualified enough to attain Hamm's level. They never perceive anything through their failing sight and hearing. Hence, they’re unable to lose interest in pap, biscuits and sugar-palms. They’re still worried about deceptive brainstorms like the sawdust that lines their dwellings, and above all they need to share their properties, memories and kisses with each other.

Later, in the same conversation:

That’s the reason they’re still cursed to live in the ignorance of their being in the bin, though they belong to Hamm's world. They need to experience some more burdens to become free from whatever brings them the despair of absurdity, and as a result of this freedom, they may find the capacity to embrace their sacred self.

Therefore, to unveil the profound layers of Beckett's Endgame we can try and trace the origin of his thought, which portrayed the world as absurd and life as meaningless. It was his quest for the state of self-possession that created a goal in his life. Absurdity, for Beckett, is a beginning but it is not everything. It is a state of 'nothingness' by which one can proceed toward one’s goal.

Consequently, as is evident in Endgame, the play, and the nature of Beckett's contemplation, is still absurd, but we can still see some progress toward self discovery after the characters' experience in Waiting for Godot: Clov's voyage at the end of the play and a change in Hamm's attitude. At the end of the play Hamm is not interested in his residual attachments to gaff, dog and whistle. He throws everything away and, like Nagg and Nell who’re much feebler than before, he is, as his last sentences reveal, about to be reconciled with what he was waiting for:

Works Cited

•Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. London: Faber and Faber, 1958.
•…………….... The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, 1986.
•Blocker, H. Gene. The Metaphysics of Absurdity. Ohio University,
 University Press of America, Inc., 1979.
•Calder, John. The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett. London: Calder Publs. 2001.
•Cohn, Ruby, ed. Casebook on Waiting for Godot: The Impact of Beckett's Modern
 Classic: Reviews, Reflections, and Interpretations. New York: Grove Press, 1967.
•Esslin, Martin. Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays. Prentice Hall, Inc.,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1965.
•Robinson, Michael. The Long Sonata of the Dead: A Study of Samuel Beckett. New
York: Grove 1969.
•Woods, Richard, Ed. Understanding Mysticism. O.P. Published by Image Books
  1980.

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