“Outside of here, It’s Death or Hope?!”: Exploring despair and Hope in T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ and Samuel Beckett’s ‘Endgame’

Abstract

T.S Eliot’s masterpiece poem, The Waste Land, and Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play, Endgame were both written in the shadow of great disasters. The Waste Land has tones of desolation and despair and humanity is shown at the brink of extinction. Beckett is known for his association with the Theatre of the Absurd where suffering and the meaninglessness of life were stressed on. Endgame presents the disillusionment of man in a decayed and meaningless modern world. Written after World War I, Eliot shows a bleak world in the wasteland of Europe. Beckett published Endgame fifty-five years after The Waste Land and had the dubious benefit of having witnessed the second World War. Living under post-atomic threat, Beckett’s vision appears conspicuously darker than Eliot’s. The purpose of this paper is to explore despair and dejection in both the works; the isolation of modern man; the meaninglessness of relationships; and the spiritual barrenness in a post-war world. At the same time, the study attempts to look for glimpses of hope and redemption in the barren lands. Through the utter despair that makes up both works, they paradoxically promote an acceptance of our fate and teach us to value life in all its imperfections