Beckett, Brecht and Endgame
Irish playwright Samuel Beckett is often classified amongst Absurdist Theatre contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Jean Genet, and Eugene Ionesco (Brockett 392-395). However, Endgame, Beckett's second play, relates more closely to the theatrical ideology of German playwright Bertolt Brecht, father of epic theatre and the alienation effect. Through the use of formal stage conventions, theatrical terminology, and allusions to Shakespearean texts within Endgame, Beckett employs Brecht's alienation concept, distancing the audience empathetically from players of the game and instead focusing attention upon the game itself.
Bertolt Brecht, whose final work, Galileo, was last revised three years before Beckett published Endgame, was personally and professionally influenced by Marxist theory and the political events which plagued the middle of this century. According to drama anthologist Oscar G. Brockett, Brecht asserted that theatre must do more than simply entertain the passive spectator; theatre must recognize and incite change. Brecht suggested a system of "productive participation, in which the spectator actively judges and applies what he sees on stage to conditions outside the theatre" (365-366). Brecht's alienation effect was a direct means of evoking this participation-the audience is emotionally distanced from characters to allow objective observation. "The audience should never be allowed to confuse what it sees on the stage with reality. Rather the play must always be thought of as a comment upon life- something to be watched and judged critically" (Brockett 366).
Samuel Beckett distances the audience from his comment on life throug...
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...tieth Century Interpretations of Endgame: A Collection of Critical Essays.
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Easthope, Antony. "Hamm, Clov, and Dramatic Method in Endgame." Chivgny 61-70.
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The puritans were very religious. They wanted to show everyone what happens if you are good and believe in god and the heavens. If you do bad things you would be punished or be killed. If you do good things you can be hand chosen to go to heaven.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare). Simon & Schuster; New Folger Edition, 2003.
The Puritans were English Protestants, mostly Protestant extremists, who fled England to escape religious persecution. Most were raised with extremely strict morals and values. Puritans were also known as “Precisionists” for being precise in their sermons and studies. The process in which Puritanism developed was primarily caused by King Henry VIII; he transformed the Church of Rome into a state of The Church of England. In outrage, angered English men and women were determined to continue their faith and way of life; this just so happened in the New World. Across the pond, this region became commonly known as “New England”. The puritan people were distinguished by the clothes they wore and their opposition the episcopal system. Now-a-days most people would think the Puritan way of life would be radical by any sorts. What the Puritans did in their era was completely and utterly wrong, as we now know. As we look back on their way of life, most come to not respect the people as a whole.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.
...amining the masterpiece that is Hamlet, it becomes clear that Shakespeare was a successful playwright because he understood his audience and knew how to connect with them through his work. Even four hundred years after Shakespeare, this is still undeniably a crucial quality in anyone who is required to interact with an audience. Hence, much can be learned from Hamlet and from Shakespeare’s other works of art; the context of his plays may no longer resonate in today’s world, but the methods he used to engage and target the audience are timeless guidelines.
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During the post Civil War time period, 1865 to 1945, the United States of America was a rapidly changing country. There were many different reforms taking place in the economic, political, and urban systems. The American industry was rising. New inventions, westward expansion, and new federal laws were making the country a melting pot of cultures from around the world. Also during this time period the nation experienced the progressive movement, economic collapse, the great depression, and President Roosevelt’s New Deal. This paper will discuss the evolution of the United States in westward expansion, urbanization, and politics, as well as the rise of American industry, the economic collapse of 1873, and the causes of the great depression.
Shakespeare, William. Richard III. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), 515-600.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.
Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is a complex analysis of politics in a seemingly apolitical and empty world. As Hamm and Clov inhabit the aftermath of Marxism, they display characteristics of the bourgeoisie and proletariat respectively, but only retain them so they can define themselves as something. The work implicitly argues- through the setting, and by defining Hamm and Clov as the bourgeoisie and proletariat- that political platforms are simply human rationalizations in futile opposition to a meaningless world, pointing towards Beckett’s ideological message of existential nihilism.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html
For being considered one of the greatest English plays ever written, very little action actually occurs in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The play is, instead, more focused on the progressing psychological state of its protagonist, after whom the play is name, and his consequent inaction. It is because of this masterpiece of a character that this play is so widely discussed and debated. Hamlet’s generality, his vagueness, his supposed madness, his passion, his hesitation, and his contradictions have puzzled readers, scholars, and actors for centuries. In this paper I will attempt to dissect this beautiful enigma of a character to show that Hamlet is much more self-aware than many people give him credit for and that he recognizes that he is an actor in the theatre of life. He understands and accepts the role he is given, he studies it carefully and thoughtfully, he rehearses and even converses with fellow actors, and he gives one final performance.