Samuel Beckett and the Transcultural Notion of Pain

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953) and Endgame (1957) are two of the most famous works by the Irish author that reflect both ideological and physical pain with the presence of limping, blindness, the authority that never fulfills the promise, and the dreadful isolation caused by an apocalyptic-like condition. This paper explores the notion of pain as a transcultural expression, which would present an anthropocentric aspect of Beckett’s works beyond the western realm with references to adaptations of the plays in non-western cultures. The discussion is inspired by discussions of the Anthropocene within literary criticism (such as The Ecology of Modernism (2015), Green Modernism (2016), and Ecocriticism in the Modernist Imagination (2016), Modernity at Large (1996), The Predicament of Culture (1988), Migrancy, Culture, Identity (1993), and Grenzgänge der Ästhetik (1996), to name a few), and the ways such concepts can add a cultural dimension to any literary discussion. The focus in particular is on the transcultural role of imagination in creating a situation that makes it possible to endure ‘torments’ collectively. It further introduces pain within the discussion of transcultural thought by tackling pain as a form of expression that can be categorized as a socially imposed condition. The dual nature of Beckett’s characters presents a rare opportunity to study the transition of the literary imagery of pain from a western culture to a non-western one with reference to specific adaptations and inspired adaptations of the works