Gál Anna Dóra (OJVEDD), Response paper for 20th century literatures in

English

Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot

In 1906,Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin, Ireland. He received an excellent
education,graduating from Trinity College in Dublin with majors in French and Italian.Based
on this, we can conclude that Samuel Beckett had seen two World Wars. Like thousands of
other people, he was influenced by the postwar period. Pessimism, despair, and helplessness
were all prevalent emotions in the postwar period. People began to doubt God and question
the atrocity. People began to doubt both the existence of God and the existence of humanity.
Why do people suffer if God exists? Why did God create man?Or was it not God who made
us? Who exactly are we? These types of question shifted people’s perspectives. During that
time, new trends emerged in literature and the arts.

Samuel Beckett, an Irish playwright and author, wrote the play Waiting for Godot. In 1948-
1949, Beckett wrote the play originally French( En attendant Godot)and it premiered in Paris
in 1953. Beckett later translated the play himself, and the English version premiered in
London in 1955. Waiting for Godot is regarded as one of the most significant plays of the
twentieth century. Nevertheless, analyzing its symbolic importance is difficult because
Beckett’s play departs from many theatrical conventions and audience expectations. One of
the main reason for writing the play was financial need. He needed money and so decided to
switch from novel writing to stage. Indeed, Beckett considered Waiting for Godot to be a bad
play, but history has proven otherwise, and it is now regarded as possibly the greatest and
most well-known English-language play of the twentieth century. After the short introduction,
I would give a quick summary of its plot, before the analysis of the play’s meaning and
structure.
Waiting for Godot’s plot is simple to summarize. The scene is set on a country road near a
leafless tree, where two men, Vladimir and Estragon, are waiting for a man named Godot to
arrive. In order to pass the time while they are wait for Godot to arrive, the two men talk
about a variety of subjects, including how they spent the previous night, how the Crucifixion
of Jesus Christ is described in the different gospels, and even whether they should hang
themselves from the nearby tree. Vladimir is one of the play’s two main characters. Estragon
adresses him as Didi, and the Boy as Mr.Albert. He appears to be the more mature and
responsible of the two main characters. The second of the two main character is Estragon.
Vladimir refers to him as Gogo. He tended to lose and and helpless,constantly seeking
Vladimir’s protection. He also has a bad memory, as Vladimir has to remind him of the events
of the previous night in the second act. Pozzo is one of the supporting character, he passes by
the location where Vladimir and Estragon are waiting and serves as a distraction. He is blind
in the second act and has no recollection of meeting Vladimir and Estragon the night before.
Pozzo has a slave named Lucky, and he transports Pozzo’s bags and stool. In Act I, he amuses
himself by dancing and thinking. In Act II, however, he is dumb.
Pozzo appears, leading Lucky, his servant, with a rope around his neck like an animal. Pozzo
informs them that he is on his way to the market to sell Lucky. He eats picnic, and Vladimir
asks Lucky to entertain them while they wait for Godot. Lucky is ordered to think after
performing a dance for them; an instruction that leads him to give a long speech that only
ends when he is beaten to the ground. After Lucky and Pozzo break away, the Boy arrives
with a message informing them that Godot will not be arriving today,but rather tomorrow.
Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave, but then return to their original location.
The second act of the play begins the next day, but the tree has grown a number of leaves
overnight, implying that more time has passed. Vladimir and Estragon come across Lucky’s
hat, which he had left behind, and the two men pretend to be Lucky and Pozzo. To pass the
time, they start throwing insult to each other. Lucky and Pozzo return, but they have changed.
Lucky can not speak anymore, and Pozzo is blind. When Lucky and Pozzo fall to the ground,
Vladimir and Estragon attempt to help them but themselves fall. Pozzo has no real memory of
meeting the two men. The Boy comes back, but he denies being the same person who visited
them the day before. Godot will not appear today, but will return tomorrow,he tells them. In
their hopelessness, the two men decide to hang themselves with Estragon’s belt, but all that
happens is that his trousers fall down. They intend to quit, but remain precisely where they
are, probably determined to stay another day and continue waiting for Godot.

Waiting for Godot is frequently referred to as a play in which nothing happens twice. The
intervention of the second act mirrors and repeats what occurs in the first; Vladimir and
Estragon passing the time while waiting for the mysterious Godot, Lucky and Pozzo
appearing and then leaving,and the Boy arriving with his message that Godot will not be
arriving that day. With this structure in mind, it is not unexpected that the play is frequently
interpreted as a depiction of modern life’s pointless, uneventful,and repetitive nature, which is
often lived in expectation of something that never comes true. It is always just over the
horizon,in the future, and will arrive tomorrow.
Nevertheless, despite popular belief, it was not this aspect of Waiting for Godot that made it
such a groundbreaking piece of theater. So, what made Beckett’s play so mindblowing for
audiences in the 1950s? The key is in the how rather than the what. The text never
acknowledges tramps, and Beckett stated clearly that he saw the two characters dressed in
bowler hats hardly the rough looking and unkempt tramps of popular imagination. It is
unknown which social class Vladimir and Estragon belong to. However, based on their
vocabularies and frames of reference, it is clear that they are fairly well-educated.
Nonetheless, their straighforward and simple approach to these topics cuts across their
philosophical and theological debates. Waiting for Godot is a play that cuts through prestense
to reveal both the comedy and tragedy in human existense. Among Beckett’s many
influences, we can see the importance of music-hall theatre and the comic double act in the
relationship and wordplay between Vladimir and Estragon, and cabaret performers would not
last five minutes up on stage if they fully involved in pretentiousness. One of the most
distinguishing features of Waiting for Godot is the imbalance between what the play
addresses, which is frequently deeply philosophical and comlex, and how Beckett’s characters
discuss it.
Given the similarity between God and Godot some critics have interpreted the play as being
fundamentally about religion. Godot is supposed to appear, but his appearance is always
shelved with the promise that he will show up tomorrow. Meanwhile, the play’s two main
characters can only idle away the time, doomed to boredom and monotonous repetition. The
anti-naturalist detail about the tree’s leaves implying that more than a day passed between the
first and second acts supports the idea that we should draw conclusion the action of the play
and consider it to be representative of a longer period of time. However, viewing the play
through closley religious lens ignores Beckett’s larger point. And what is the point; that
everything in life is monotonous,dull, slightly absurd, and, most importantly, meaningless?
Perhaps, but with the big difference that, despite this pointlessness and absurdity, life goes on.
The physical unwillingness of Vladimir and Estragon to move disagrees their decisions to
leave at the end of the play, implying that they have no intention of leaving life. Despite their
agreement to end it all by hanging themselves from the tree, their attempt ends in absurdly
comic farce, with Estragon’s trousers falling down. They may try again the next day, but one
of Waiting for Godot’s key message is the ability to see the comic absurdity amidst the
tragedy of living, and to go on despite everything.

The most important form of repetition in the play is the presentation of essentially the same
action twice in the two acts. More than one act is required to depict the play’s repetition of
actions, but this does not explain why Beckett chooses to use two acts rather than more than
two. The use of two acts may be related to the use of pairs of characters, emphasizing the
significane of characters and actions that occur in pair. Some critics argue that Vladimir and
Estragon stay together due to their complementary personalities, arguing that each fulfills the
qualities that the other lacks, making them dependent on each other. Consider the evidence
available for this type of interpretation.

Waiting for Godot is primarly about hope, despite its existenialist characterizations. The play
is about Vladimir and Estragon and their pitiful wait for hope. Hope is constructed as a form
of salvation, in the personages of Pozzo and Lucky, and even as death the various points
throughout the play. The subject of the play quickly becomes an example of how to pass the
time in a hopeless situation. A daily struggle to pass the time is a direct result of this
hopelessness. As a result, the majority of their time is spent devising games to help them pass
the time. This shared desire also answers the question of why they remain together. Vladimir
and Estragon both admit to being happier apart. One of the main reasons they keep their
relationship going is that they need each other to pass the time. Estragon struggles to find
games to help them achieve their goal because passing the time is their mutual occupation. As
a result, they insult each other and ask each other questions.The concept of time passing
creates a general irony. Each minute spent waiting brings death closer to the characters and
makes Godot’s arrival less likely. The tree has grown leaves, possibly indicating a change of
seasons, indicating the passage of time. Pozzo and Lucky are also affected by time, as Pozzo
becomes blind and Lucky becomes mute. Another reason they are together originated from
the existentialism of their forgetfulness. Estragon needs Vladimir to tell him his history
because he can not remember anything. Vladimir it seems to be establishing Estragon’s
identity by remembering for him. Estragon also serves as a reminder to Vladimir of
everything they have accomplished together. As a consequence, both men serve to remind the
other man of his own existence. The same situation happens later with the Boy who claims he
has never seen them before. This lack of assurance about their existence makes remembering
each other all the more important. Estragon and Vladimir are conversing not only to pass the
time, but also avoid the voices the emerge from the silence.
Beckett overcomes the difficulty of keeping a dialouge going for so long by having his
characters forget everything. Estragon has no memory of anything other than what was said
immediately before his lines. Vladimir, despite having a better memory, doubts what he
remembers, and because Vladimir can not rely on Estragon to remind him of things, he, too, is
forgetful.
According to Beckett, the name Godot comes from the French word „godillot”, which means
military boot. Beckett participated in the war, so spending long periods of time waiting for
messages would have been normal for him. The more popular interpretation, that it could
mean God, is almost certainly incorrect.According to religious interpretations, Vladimir and
Estragon represent humanity waiting for the mysterious return of a savior. Pozzo becomes the
Pope as a result of this, and Lucky becomes a member of the faithful.The faithful are then
seen as a secret key of God whose life was cut short by human intolerance. The twisted tree
can represent the tree of death,the tree of life, Judas’ tree,or the tree of knowledge. However,
as Beckett said, if he had meant God, he would have written God.
Political interpretations abound as well. Some critics believe Pozzo and Lucky have the
relationship of a capitalist to his labor. This Marxist interpretation is understandable given
that Pozzo is blind to what is going on around him in the second act and Lucky is mute to
protest his treatment. The play has also been interpreted as a parable about France-German
relations.
An fascinating interpretation contends that Lucky gets his name because he is fortunate in the
context of the play. Because the majority of the game is spent trying to find things to do to
pass the time, Lucky is fortunate in that his actions are entirely determined by Pozzo. Pozzo
on the other hand, is unlucky because he must not only pass his own time but also find
activities for Lucky to do.

Waiting for Godot incorporates many of Beckett’s previously discussed themes and ideas. The
use of the play format allowed Beckett to dramatize his ideas more forcefully than
before,which contributes to the play’s intesity. Beckett commonly referred to being’s
suffering. The majority of the play is spent with Vladimir and Estragon waiting for something
to occupy their time. Godot can be interpreted as one of the many things in life for which
people wait. The play’s outlook on life has frequently been characterized as fundamentally
existentialist. Because none of the characters have a clear mental history,they are constantly
struggling to prove their existence. As a result, the Boy who steadily forgets either of the two
protagonist casts doubt on their very existence. This is why Vladimir insists on knowing if the
Boy will remember them the next day. The production of Waiting for Godot is part of the
Theater of the Absurd. This suggets that it is intended to be irrational. Drama, chronological
plot, logical language, themes, and recognizable settings are all absent from absurd theater.
Within the work,there is also a divide between the intellect and the body.Thus, Vladimir
represents the intellect and Estragon represents the body,and neither can exist without the
other. Because of the horrifying actions of wars,modern world literature contains many sad
and melancholy works. Following the outbreak of World War II,various reflections in all
areas of art emerged in the field of theater, including absurd theater. The most famous names
in absurd theater are Samuel Beckett and Eugene lonesco.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett depicts Vladimir and Estragon’s world as chaotic,
devoid of any meaningful structure or pattern. Time can not be applied in this world, where a
day can end unusually and no one remembers their actions from the previous day. Time is
essentially meaningless because it is only experienced as a never-ending cycle of waiting with
no end in sight other than death. There are two absolute truths in life; life and death. The
fleeting experience and memories that define what lies between these two truths have been
structured by the human mind into a linear progression into the concept known as time. If this
existentialist view of existence is accepted, the concepts of fate and predestination simply do
not exist. Every moment of life is predetermined by chance and circumstance, bestowing
fortune on some and misery on others.
To understand what a human being is, according to the existentialist, knowing all the truths
that natural science-including the science of psychology-can tell us is incomplete. In this
regard, the dualist who believes that humans are made up of independent substances-mind and
body –is no better off than the physicalist who believes that human existence can be made
clear in terms of the fundamental physical constituents of the universe. Existentialism does
not reject the fundamental categories of physics, biology, psychology, and other sciences. It
only claims that humans can not be fully understood in terms of them. Such comprehension
can not be obtained by supplementing our scientific picture wit a moral one. Intention, blame,
responsibility, character, duty, virtue, and the like are moral theory categories that capture
important aspects of human condition, but neither moral thinking, nor scientific thinking
suffices.

The play Waiting for Godot is an existentialist work. It explores many existentialism
themes,including absurdity, nothingness,uncertainty, nihilism,thoroughness into being,
anxiety, and the disappearance of solutions on the part of human beings, who are then
abused,suffered, and baffled by powerful capitalistic forces prevalent in social formation. As a
result, its central theme is absurdity. The absurdity of existentialist philosophy is depicted in
the play. It has an overall sense of absurdity while also expressing many other existentialism
themes. In fact, absurd is an existentialist term that describes a world without the affected by
the addition of truth.
The meaninglessness of life is major theme. None of the characters have a meaningful life
purpose. God abandoned the human and dumped him into the world. Nothing can be done in
this situation except wait. It is not clear that waiting will solve the problem of finding a
meaning. Gogo and Didi want to end their lives. Because there is no such thing as meaning in
life, but they could not. Again, no one knows for certain what happens after death. This
causes them to suffer from the repetition of moments and a life that is meaningless. This is the
error of looking for meaning.
None of the characters in Waiting for Godot deny that death is unavoidable. In fact, death can
sometimes seen as a solution to the monotony of daily life. The main characters consider
suicide as If it were as trivial as a walk to the grocery store, most likely because there is
nothing in their lives worth staying for. They do not commit suicide because they claim they
do not have the means, but also because they are unsure of the outcome of their attempt. Since
they are unsure what their actions will result in, they decided to take no action at all.

Sources:

SparkNotes. (n.d.). Sparknotes. Retrieved November 13, 2022, from

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/godot/
Mambrol, N. (2021, June 11). Analysis of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Literary

Theory and Criticism. https://literariness.org/2020/07/27/analysis-of-samuel-becketts-Viertel

Viertel, J. (2019, May 26). GRIN - Is Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” a criticism of

Christianity? https://www.grin.com/document/489457

Flood, A. (2020, March 26). “Angry boredom”: early responses to Waiting for Godot

showcased online. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/11/early-responses-to-waiting-for-

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