Seite 42 [42]
THE THEATRICALIZATION OF ENDGAME...
constellation of objects as they appeared before him. As a conseguence, his
whole perception of this view starts to shift; the background of previously
well-measured and fixed objects disintegrates, as the distance between this
man and his environment enfolds outside of him.
Nevertheless this new relation of the object-man to the object-lawn has a particular
character; it is simultaneously given to me as a whole, since it is there in the world
as an object which I can know [...] and at the same time it entirely escapes me. [...]
The distance appears as a pure disintegration of the relations which I apprehend
between the objects of my universe. It is not I who realize this disintegration; it
appears to me as a relation which I aim at emptily across the distances which
I originally established between things. It stands as a background of things,
a background which on principle escapes me and which is conferred on them from
without. Thus the appearance among the objects of my universe of an element
of disintegration in that universe is what I mean by the appearance of a man in
my universe. [...] The appearance of the Other in the world corresponds therefore
to a fixed sliding of the whole universe, to a decentralization of the world which
undermines the centralization which I am simultaneously effecting.”
The world as it appears to one’s consciousness may all of a sudden become
disrupted because a man crosses one’s sight, and re-divides the space from a
completely different perspective. He literally cuts through one’s environment
and rearranges the lines, distances and areas that have composed one’s space.
In the gaze of the other, one is confronted with the realization that the world
is arranged from a position and perspective that is impossible for one to
occupy, that is, in other words, entirely other or alien. In this awkward and
threatening confrontation, one feels reduced to nothing more than an object.
For Sartre, the loss of his self as a result of the look of the other pushes him into
the position of object, thus turning him into a passive victim. The hierarchy
of foreground and background is unsettled. Or, more precisely, subjectivity
undergoes a process of disintegration due to the changed perspective as the
subject all of a sudden becomes the object of someone else’s gaze. In Endgame,
this interference by the gaze of the other comes from some small creatures,
be it a boy or a flea. Both threaten to destabilize and redefine Hamm’s space.
One of the most vehement critics of the impact of the gaze, Sartre felt
intimidated by the awareness of being watched. The gaze of the other is
considered an intrusion into his personal world. In fact, no less than his self
is being threatened under the other’s gaze. His phenomenological world is
decentralized as it shifts due to the alternating perspective of the other that
literally comes into the field and turns him into an object. Sartre understood
27 Tbid., 254-255.
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