To class Beckett himself as the simple incarnation of ‘despair’ is a drastic oversimplification. To begin with, the concept of ‘despair’ implies the existence of a related concept ‘hope,’ and ‘hope’ implies a certain predictable continuity in time—which continuity Beckett would seriously question. ‘Despair,’ with all its inherent moral overtones, is a term which is wholly inadequate to describe Beckett’s attitude towards the human condition; nor is this condition, in the most current sense of the definition, ‘absurd.’ It is literally and logically impossible. And in this central concept of ‘impossibility,’ his thought has most of its origins – as does also his art.
— Richard Coe (via A Piece of Monologue)
Notes from a Room 