Read this excerpt from Endgame by Samuel Beckett:
HAMM:
We're not beginning to... to... mean something?
CLOV:
Mean something! You and I mean something!
(Brief laugh.)
Ah that's a good one!
HAMM:
I wonder.
(Pause.)
Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn't
he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us
long enough
(Voice of rational being.)
Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now I understand
what they're at!
(Clov starts, drops the telescope and begins to scratch
his belly with both hands. Normal voice.)
And without going so far as that, we ourselves...
(with emotion)
...we ourselves... at certain moments...
(Vehemently.)
To think perhaps it won't all have been for nothing!
What theme does this passage most clearly help develop?