Hamm's Ambivalence in Endgame, a Post-catastrophe Play

When Judith Butler refers to Melanie Klein in her essay, `Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect', she contends whether `the question of survival precedes the question of morality; indeed, it would seem that guilt does not index a moral relation to the other, but an unbridled desire for self-preservation'. In Endgame, Hamm, a survivor of an unknown calamity, exposes his feeling of guilt toward the dead, such as Mother Pegg who was not buried properly, and a man who appears in his routine storytelling as a pale and thin stranger who asked him whether he could provide bread for his child and take in the child. Hamm's habit of saying `Forgive me' to Clov, despite its cold offhand tone, also seems to stem from his guilt. However, his remorse towards the dead other does not give him a chance to create `a moral relation to the other', as is shown in his treatment of the co-inhabitants—Nagg, Nell, and Clov. Accompanied with the survivor's strong resistance and denial of what has made him feel guilty, Hamm even gives up his family attachment. He behaves as if he did not care what happened in the past, either obsessed with trivial things at present or with stories that would alleviate his pain. It could be what Adorno calls the `principle of inertia', that is, `the form of consciousness and mind which adapts itself to the world as it is'. This essay, especially focusing on Hamm's ambivalent feelings of guilt, will discuss how Beckett, through his drama, ironizes a survivor's `evil' (again from Adorno).