Open AccessThe Post-Catastrophe Consciousness
Author(s) -
Brandon Best
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
digital literature review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2692-904X
DOI - 10.33043/dlr.5.0.9-16
Subject(s) - chess endgame , semiotics , consciousness , referent , context (archaeology) , alienation , psychoanalysis , philosophy , epistemology , psychology , history , linguistics , law , political science , computer science , archaeology , artificial intelligence
This essay explores how Samuel Beckett’s Endgame portrays the post-apocalyptic consciousness. Using Walker Percy’s semiotic theory to understand the play, this paper positsthat Endgame shows the struggle for individuals to apprehend themselves amidst catastrophe without objectifying themselves. Unable to find a semiotic referent to identify themselves with, people experience alienation as shown in Endgame through Hamm and Clov. Through their struggle to place themselves in their post-apocalyptic context, Hamm and Clov show the futility f rationally ordering life amidst catastrophe.