Niets is leefbaar: Religie, Heroïek en Uitputting

In this thesis I will formulate what finitude means in the work of Kierkegaard, Heidegger and, ultimately and primarily, Beckett. Kierkegaard and Heidegger were the greatest thinkers concerning the notion of death and mortality. However, although Kierkegaard and Heidegger give much attention to despair concerning death in their works and how to overcome this despair, Beckett doesn´t offer the reader a solution. Beckett lets his characters succumb under the pressure of existential despair. All three, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Beckett show us how despair works, in other words: how to put the experience of existential despair in words. Despite the fact they all write on despair and what happens when one despairs, Beckett is transfixed on despair: despairingly the despaired keep on despairing: there is no way out. What would a way out mean? Is a way out something that we could still discursively substantiate? Instead of offering a way out of our existential despair, Beckett exhausts every way out and leaves us, his readers, exhausted.