Melancholia from Freud to Kristeva, on Beckett's Endgame and All That Fall

In the post-World War I era in Europe, returning soldiers and their relatives experienced loss, mourning and melancholia. In this regard, Sigmund Freud, in his effort to introduce the new science of psychoanalysis, magnifies the question of melancholia with the article “Mourning and Melancholia”. He attempts to clarify symptoms and influences of loss in people who have a traumatic experience of loss in many ways, such as war, death of siblings or parents and even failure in their romantic relationships. Afterwards, Jacques Lacan created innovations and drew an explicit distinction between ego and subject. On the other hand, Julia Kristeva addressed new dimensions of melancholia with a special perusing of both and demonstrated her point of view about the relationship between melancholia and the semiotic, the symbolic, the chora, the abjection, and the differences between objectal and the narcissistic depression. Correspondingly, Samuel Beckett's plays “All That Fall” and its characters Mrs and Mr Rooney, and “Endgame” with Hamm, Clov, Nagg and Nell, contain the problem of loss and its consequences on two distinct levels, respectively with a journey from objectivity to subjectivity, from the person to the world or from the ego to the way it looks at the world. Both plays are written in 1957 and have a common content about loss, depression and melancholia. This essay seeks to introduce the play “All That Fall” through the study of melancholia as a prelude to the Endgame’s atmosphere and to prove that the commonalities of the two justify not only their simultaneous reading but also two different versions of melancholia. Beckett conducts the themes of death, deterioration, and the absurdity at the center of his creative works during which they lead us from the loss to melancholia. In this respect, segmental and delirious language, loss of pity and self-confidence, obliteration of desire, desire to stay in the chora, and hesitation before any action are the implications of melancholia. The analysis of Mrs Rooney requires Freud and his profound insight in order to reveal her pretext of doing nothing and the reason why she shows no respect to others. Clov does not show any proficiency in his actions; accordingly, all characters can represent one of the aspects of melancholia.