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Control, Creation of Location, and Feminism in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and William

Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”

Amanda Jensen

At first glance there do not appear to be many similarities between Samuel Beckett’s

Endgame, and William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, but upon further inspection, it becomes

clear that there are many comparisons to be drawn. Beckett openly invites comparison between

his play and “The Tempest” by including the line, “Our revels now are ended,” (Beckett) a quote

taken directly from one of Prospero’s most well-known monologues in “The Tempest” (4.1.147-

149). When Beckett translated Endgame from it’s original French Fin de Partie, the French line

“finie la rigolade” was translated into the famous Shakespearean line, rather than its more direct

translation, “no more fun.” Here Beckett was clearly paying homage to the Bard, and this line

refers to times of laughter and blissful ignorance coming to an end. Despite the many obvious

distinctions between the plays, identifying the similarities was much more personally intriguing.

Both Endgame and “The Tempest” deal with the search for control and power (and ultimately

accepting the loss of control), both are set in a unique world crafted by the author which is

essential for the plays to have their intended impact, and both texts do not give their limited casts

of female characters any true agency, which will be compared with the strong female energy that

runs through Safiya Sinclair’s Cannibal.

Two of the major players in both Endgame and “The Tempest” struggle with their desire

for power and control over their surroundings, and both ultimately accept their loss of control

and willingly give it up. In Endgame Hamm comes to accept his impending death in a post-

apocalyptic world, and in “The Tempest” Prospero renounces his power by giving up his magical

abilities. Throughout Endgame Hamm seeks control over Clov, whistling for him whenever he
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needs him, seemingly for no real reason. This is his attempt at retaining some semblancy of

agency in a world where he has little to no real power left. There is nearly nothing left to eat, he

has lost the ability to see or stand, and “nature has abandoned [him]” (Beckett). He also seeks

control over his mother and father, Nagg and Nell, consistently cutting off Nagg in the middle of

a story, (Beckett) and forcing him back into the garbage bin in which he lives, at one point even

demanding that Clov sit on the lid of the bin to keep him enclosed (Beckett). In a similar aspect,

in “The Tempest” Prospero seeks control using magic to craft a storm that strands his former

enemies on his island, in order to place his daughter, Miranda, in a position of power by

orchestrating a marriage between her and Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples (3.1.81-91). Prospero

reveals to Miranda that he was once the Duke of Milan, before his brother conspired with the

King of Naples to usurp his title (1.2.52-54). This provides some insight into his motives and his

desperate need for total control over all who inhabit the island. Two such unlucky souls are

Caliban and Ariel, who he treats disrespectfully, constantly reminding both of the power he holds

over them. Prospero evidently freed Ariel from a curse placed upon him by Sycorax, Caliban’s

mother, which trapped Ariel within a tree. After forcefully reminding Ariel of this, (1.2.250-

260), Ariel concedes, through this manipulation, to once again do Prospero’s bidding. The lust

for power is more prominently displayed through Prospero’s treatment of Caliban, whom he

generally treats as a slave and forces to learn a new language. Caliban does manage to find some

humor in this, throwing it in Prospero’s face by explaining that Prospero “taught [him] language,

and [his] profit [ … ] is, [he knows] how to curse” (1.2.364-366). However, at the end of the

play, Prospero accepts a loss of control by giving up his magic (5.1.50-57), proving that even the

most power-hungry characters can come to terms with their fate as it is laid out for them by the

universe. Similarly, at the end of Endgame, Hamm allows Clov to leave him, seeming to accept
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that his life is coming to an end, stating, “Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never

and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended” (Beckett). As the play comes to a close,

Hamm says, “…there we are, there I am, that’s enough” (Beckett) before dropping his whistle,

which is quite symbolic as this was previously used as his instrument of control over Clov, much

like how Prospero’s magic was the vessel of his power. Hamm then covers his face with a

handkerchief, lowers his arms, and remains motionless. This signifies his acceptance that he no

longer has power over his surroundings, and the time has to come to allow fate to take control.

Shakespeare gives Prospero his own moment of this acceptance when he says, “But this rough

magic/ I here adjure […] I’ll break my staff,/ bury it certain fathoms into the earth,/ and deeper

than did ever plummet sound/ I’ll drown my book” (5.1.50-57). Here is Prospero’s moment of

resolution, he is finally free from the curse of the search for control.

Both Beckett and Shakespeare create a world in which their stories can play themselves

out, as, especially in the reality of the era they were written, neither of these plays could have

had their intended impact if they were set in a place or time reminiscent of reality. Both

Endgame and “The Tempest” also have metafictive aspects to them, which is what tethers the

settings and situations found within the plays to the reader’s reality. The dry humor found in

Endgame could not have existed if Beckett had not set the play in a dark, almost hopeless

situation. These moments of dark comedy are hardly entertaining if not for the fact that the

reader is instinctively searching for some sort of relief from the overall depressing tone of the

play. As was mentioned in a class discussion about Endgame, sometimes humor is not a ray of

light in a dark room, but merely more darkness within the dark. At the very beginning of

Endgame Clov is moving about the room, opening all the windows to let in some light, and the

lighting of the scene barely seems to change. On its own, this scene would not seem very
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entertaining, but set within the post-apocalyptic world of the play, it comes across quite

humorously. Doubtlessly, Beckett set the play in such conditions to create the context to allow

him to explore his dry, absurdist humor in a manner where it could be appreciated. The

metafictive elements of Endgame can be seen when Clov comments, “I’ll go now to my kitchen,

ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, and wait for him to whistle me,” (Beckett) and then pauses in

contemplation before adding, “Nice dimensions, nice proportions.” Here Beckett is calling

attention to the obvious constructed nature of the play, and intentionally highlighting how it is all

simply made up, perhaps merely for his own enjoyment. In a similar sense, an Elizabethan

audience would not have been able to accept Prospero’s magic in “The Tempest”, and total

power over his environment, unless the play was set exactly as it is, on a nearly deserted island,

far displaced from the everyday reality of the audience. This setting allowed Shakespeare to

explore supernatural elements in a time when this would have been almost taboo to even discuss.

Towards the end of Miranda and Ferdinand’s wedding, Prospero suddenly remembers that there

is a plot against his life underway, and cuts the festivities short, causing the nymphs he had

summoned to disappear. Here the metafictive aspects of “The Tempest” are revealed in

Prospero’s most memorable monologue, in which he states, “Our revels now are ended./ These

our actors,/ as I foretold you, were all spirits and/ are melted into air, into thin air;/ And - like the

baseless fabric of this vison -/, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,/ The solemn

temples, the great globe itself/ Yea, all which it inherit- shall dissolve,/ And all this insubstantial

pageant faded,/ Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff/ as dreams are made on, and our little

life/ is rounded with sleep” (4.1.147-158). Here he is basically explaining to Ferdinand that just

as the spirits were actors who have disappeared, all life is merely a dream-like vision, which will

eventually vanish as well. The reference to actors within the play is metafictive itself, and this
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statement in its entirety calls attention to the constructed nature of the play as much of the setting

is merely a mirage created by Prospero. Experts in the art of theatre, both Beckett and

Shakespeare created the context that allowed them to explore absurdist humor and supernatural

elements, all while keeping their plays tied loosely to reality through the metafictive elements.

Both Endgame and “The Tempest” are severely lacking in powerful female characters.

Neither of the plays pass the Bechdel test, which is used to measure the representation of women

in fiction. It requires the work to feature at least two named female characters who talk to each

other about something other than a man. In “The Tempest”, Miranda is the only female character

who physically appears in the play, with her father being the only human she has had any contact

with since she was a child, and therefore depends on Prospero for her identity, as evidenced

when she claims “you have often begun to tell me what I am but stopped and left me in bootless

inquisition” (1.2.33-35). Here she is referencing her personal history, but the way that

Shakespeare chooses to phrase her statement makes it clear that it has a deeper meaning than

that, and without Prospero to inform her, Miranda does not even know who she is. Although,

after all of Prospero’s meddling, Miranda is the one to propose marriage to Ferdinand (3.1.81-

91), this does nothing to give her character any true agency, as the entire situation has been

manipulated by Prospero. One of the only other female characters even mentioned in “The

Tempest” is Sycorax, Caliban’s mother, who is an evil sorceress who controlled the island before

Prospero arrived and banished her. She is the “delinquent double to Miranda's deceased and

virtuous mother” (Chin 96). Here is an allusion to a powerful female character, but she is

described as essentially the epitome of evil, thereby reducing her to a mere plot device. Even the

“etymology of her name, [serves] to animalize her (and Caliban). The name Sycorax, possibly a

composite from the Greek sys or sow, and korax for raven, aligns the character with low or
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predatory creatures of the animal kingdom” (Chin 96). In Endgame, there is only one female

character who speaks throughout the entire play, Nell, Hamm’s mother. Her death is the only one

witnessed during the play, and occurs fairly early on in the text. The only other female character

mentioned in Endgame is Mother Pegg, who has died before the beginning of the play, and it

seems as though Hamm is somewhat to blame for her death, as Clov says that when Mother Pegg

asked Hamm for some oil for her lamp, he “told her to get out to hell” and then claims that she

“died [ … ] of darkness” (Beckett). This implies that the male characters in the play are

somehow stronger than the women, and able to survive longer in the harsh circumstances they

find themselves in, reinforcing the heteronormative stereotype in which men are the stronger and

more dominant of the human species. It is also worth noting that there is a lack of nurturing

mother figures in both plays, in Endgame Hamm’s mother Nell is a feeble old woman who, as

previously mentioned, dies very early on in the text. In “The Tempest” Miranda’s mother is

absent, with Miranda having no memory of her. The only time she is even mentioned is when

Prospero refers to her as “a piece of virtue” (1.2.56). Both Miranda’s mother and Sycorax in

“The Tempest,” and Nell in Endgame, then “represent the vanished or repressed maternal Other.

[They] are rendered ineffective as parental influences by their deaths, but remain, through

association and memory, shadowy presences in the play - not there, but there” (Chin 96). This

absence of loving, caring, motherly figures directly contrasts the undertones of Safiya Sinclair’s

collection of poetry, Cannibal. Throughout several of her poems she describes a strong,

supportive mother, who helped form her into the woman she is today. In her poem “Pocomania”

she paints a picture of a fiercely protective mother willing to do anything for her daughter.

Sinclair writes, “Mother her red bones come knocking at the floorboards, my mother knock-

knocking at his skull when he dreams. [ … ] Father Let me in. [ … ] Mother jangling the ribcage:
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I am here” (Sinclair 5). Sinclair again describes a mother who has sacrificed so much for her

family in “Hands,” when she says, “Today my mother’s words sound final. And perhaps this is

her first true thing. Her hands have not been her hands since she was twelve, motherless…”

(Sinclair 10). Here the depiction of a mother who has been on her own since she was a child, left

without her own mother to turn to for help, is almost heartbreaking, if not for the iron-clad

determination that shines through Sinclair’s poetry. The reader can tell that this mother would

keep her family safe by any means necessary, and she takes no shame or pity in that. As “The

Tempest” was first performed in 1623, and Endgame was first performed in 1957, as readers and

consumers of culture, we can only hope that Sinclair’s 2016 collection of poetry is a more

revealing look at what life is like for modern women.

After close examination between Beckett’s Endgame and Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”

the similarities are clear. Both plays have main characters who struggle with a need for complete

control and power, and eventually both come to accept the loss of that power, the two works also

are set in fascinating worlds created by the authors to allow the plays to have the impact

intended, and neither text passes the Bechdel test, not giving and real agency to their minimal

casts of female characters, which was contrasted with the powerful mother figure hinted at in

Sinclair’s Cannibal. Both playwrights chose to draw particular attention to the line “Our revels

now are ended,” as it appears in Endgame (Beckett) and “The Tempest” (4.1.147-149). Both

Beckett and Shakespeare seem to be reminding their audiences that sometimes the time for

laughter is over, and one needs to focus on more serious matters. However, it is important to

remember that these are two men who did not seem to take themselves too seriously, so we

shouldn’t be surprised if this is just another example of their absurdist sense of humor and their

passion for pushing the boundaries of their eras.

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Works Cited

Beckett, Samuel. Endgame. Michigan State University.

https://msu.edu/user/sullivan/BeckettEndgame.html. Accessed 26 Apr. 2019.

Chin, Woon Ping. “Sycorax Revisited: Exile and Absence in Performance.” Modern Drama, vol.

46, no. 1, 2003, pp. 94-107. EBSCOhost, https://resolver-ebscohost-

com.ezproxy.okanagan.bc.ca/openurl?sid=EBSCO%3amlf&genre=article&issn=1712528

6&ISBN=&volume=46&issue=1&date=20030301&spage=94&pages=94-

107&title=Modern+Drama&atitle=Sycorax+Revisited%3a+Exile+and+Absence+in+Perf

ormance&aulast=Chin%2c+Woon+Ping&id=DOI%3a&site=ftf-live. Accessed 26 Apr.

2019.

Shakespeare, William. “The Tempest.” 1623. The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works. Edited

by Richard Proudfoot, et al., 3rd ed., A & C Black Publishers Ltd, 1998, pp. 1071-95.

Sinclair, Safiya. Cannibal. U of Nebraska P, 2016.