Companionship, Dependency, and Compassion Theme Analysis

Unlike the contextual and plot-related details of Endgame, the relational dynamics between the characters are fairly self-evident, even if they’re still complicated and strange. This is because the play is largely about companionship and the limits of empathy or compassion. At first glance, it seems as if each character exists in his or her own little world, since they rarely converse with one another in ways that give viewers the impression that they’re connecting on a meaningful level. In fact, Nell and Nagg even live in separate trash cans, suggesting that they’re isolated from each other even though they’re married. As the play progresses, though, a network of dependency slowly emerges. First, the audience begins to understand that Hamm relies upon Clov as his caretaker, since he is unwell and needs quite a bit of assistance. Then, later in the play, Hamm reveals—or rather insinuates—that he took Clov in as a boy, when Clov was ill, starving, and in need of Hamm’s help. It’s also evident that Nagg and Nell depend upon both Hamm and Clov to feed them, since Hamm decides when they can eat and Clov is the one to actually bring them food. At the same time, though, none of this codependency contains much in the way of true empathy, as the characters yell, insult, vow to leave, and even threaten to kill one another. By the end of the play, then, what may have seemed at one point like compassionate companionship seems more like begrudging reliance, suggesting that depending on another person as a caretaker doesn’t always guarantee an empathic, mutually beneficial relationship.

Hamm and Clov’s relationship quickly reveals itself to be one of interdependence and not much more. Hamm, for his part, demands things from Clov at a rapid pace, often contradicting himself and making it difficult for Clov to complete what he’s already been told to do. In a moment of frustration that takes place early in the play, Hamm threatens to starve Clov, and Clov’s response provides valuable insight into their relational dynamic. “Then we’ll die,” he says, thereby implying that Hamm would also die if Clov starved to death, since Clov is the one who helps Hamm survive. In response, Hamm says that, in that case, he’ll give Clov just one biscuit per day, keeping him alive but ensuring that he remains hungry. This interaction—and the mere fact that Hamm threatens Clov in the first place—is a perfect representation not only of the lack of genuine compassion in Hamm and Clov’s relationship, but also of the odd power dynamic that exists between them. Although Hamm plays the role of the dominant, merciless master (an archetype that surfaces time and again in Beckett’s work), he doesn’t actually hold all of the power in their relationship, since he himself depends upon Clov’s wellbeing, meaning that anything he does to harm Clov will vicariously harm him, too—thereby granting Clov a certain amount of power.

It is possibly because Hamm so thoroughly depends upon Clov that he sometimes exhibits something that almost seems like fondness for the young man. “Why do you stay with me?” he asks immediately after threatening Clov, a question that gives one the impression that Hamm is cognizant of the ways in which he mistreats Clov. Clov returns this fleeting affection by asking, “Why do you keep me?” This question gets at the heart of the relational dynamics at play in Endgame, since it’s not particularly clear why any of these characters have holed up with one another—except, that is, for the allusions that Hamm and Clov make about human life having vanished or ended in the outside world. “There’s no one else,” Hamm says, answering Clov’s question about why he “keeps” him. “There’s nowhere else,” Clov adds. In this moment, the audience sees that these two men have been thrown together by little more than simple necessity, since extenuating circumstances that are never made clear have forced them into a strangely symbiotic relationship. As a result, their bond has nothing to do with emotion or empathy, even if compassion sometimes creeps into their conversations.

Indeed, instead of compassion, Hamm and Clov’s relationship is predicated on necessity and survival. At the same time, though, it’s worth noting that Hamm doesn’t actually physically do anything to sustain Clov. In fact, Clov could simply stop caring for Hamm and let him die, and he himself would—or should—be able to survive just fine. Yet, he clearly sees his own fate as tied to Hamm’s, as evidenced by the fact that he agrees when Hamm says, “Gone from me you’d be dead.” In a strange way, then, there possibly is something about their relationship that isn’t merely tied to survival—it’s not compassion or empathy, necessarily, but a simple form of companionship, as if Clov needs Hamm only to have another human presence in his life. In this regard, Beckett presents a portrait of a relationship that, though it’s full of bitterness and utterly lacks any kind of true compassion, buoys two people who know that to be alone would be worse than to be together.