Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett - Essay Example

WAITING FOR GODOT 2006 INTRODUCTION The novels, plays, short stories, essays and poetry of Samuel Barclay Beckett, the famous Irish of the first half of 20th century, reflect the spirit of those storming and violent days he lived in. While Beckett's literary heritage is not rather scarce, the number of works devoted to the author himself and his output is very abundant. Beckett's stage plays drew particular attention of the literary society. The first three plays written by Beckett during the period from 1948 to 1961 are the longest and the best known among his other works. These three plays are En attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot), Fin de partie (Endgame) and Happy Days. Waiting for Godot stands alone among the rest of thirty-two dramatic works produced by the author. Outstanding value of this longest ever written by Beckett play was officially recognized by the Swedish Academy in 1969, when the author was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Waiting for Godot is arguably the most controversial and complex for understanding piece of playwriting produced during the last century. Actually, the whole plot and action of the play is reflected by the title - waiting for Godot. Two homeless and jobless males named Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi) are waiting for someone named Godot on the country road. While waiting for this person, the two tramps talk to each other, discuss different things and meet two other characters of the play: Pozzo and Lucky, the master and servant. This couple and a boy whom informs Gogo and Didi that Godot will not come to meet them are the only characters of the play. The play is far from being intensive at all. The characters discuss various topics, tell jokes and do absolutely meaningless things, but the reader can feel a sort of laziness in absolutely all discussions and actions. As for Godot who is supposed to be the main character of the play, the reader never knows whom he is, what he is and why he has to meet the tramps. Despite countless interpretations and complexity of Waiting for Godot the reader should remember and perceive it as a part of the particular epoch in the world literature. That epoch was characterized by the two World Wars and infinite disappointment in rationality of human existence. Consequently, Beckett and other writers of that epoch tended to put their literary characters in paradoxical and absurd circumstances. From this perspective, Waiting for Godot is a typical absurdist play in which the author reveals isolation of individuals in contemporary world, absence of hopes, absurdity of life and many other universal problems of human existence. MAIN DISCUSSION In order to understand what makes Waiting for Godot an absurdist play and if it is an absurdist play we must reveal the meaning of the term 'absurdist'. The term 'theatre of the absurd' was coined in 1962 by Martin Esslin whom applied it to a group of post-war plays written by different authors. Esslin believed that the philosophical meaning underlying all those plays was common and relied upon the philosophy of Albert Camus (Esslin, 1969:18). Camus' theory of absurd is perfectly illustrated in his well-known work The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a mythological king of the Greek city of Corinth. The gods did not like his cruelty and invented a torture for Sisyphus to suffer until the end of time. He had to roll a heavy stone up a huge hill in the kingdom of Hades, but he never reached the peak: each time Sisyphus was on the verge of rolling the stone over the top, the resistance became overwhelming and the stone rolled downhill, and Sisyphus had to start his toil over and over again (Camus, 1955). Camus thinks that the human life has much in common with the toil of Sisyphus. Men and women of the modern world are doing nearly the same the mythological king did. They try to find some universal meaning and purpose of human existence despite the fact that no universal meaning or purpose really exists. Human life is irrational and absurd, and any attempt to prove the opposite is Sisyphus' toil. When applied to literature, the term 'absurdist' does not mean that the work is silly or does not make any sense. Absurdist works rather reveal uselessness of human efforts to add some rationality to the world. Therefore, theater of the absurd is defined as " kind of drama that presents a view of the absurdity of the human condition by the abandoning of usual or rational devices and by the use of nonrealistic form.Conceived in perplexity and spiritual anguish, the theater of the absurd portrays not a series of connected incidents telling a story but a pattern of images presenting people as bewildered beings in an incomprehensible universe". (Holman, 1986: 2). Esslin reasonably considered Beckett to be among the four defining playwrights of the absurdist movement in literature. Absurdist nature of Waiting for Godot manifests in every single aspect of the play: structure, language, dialogues and actions of the characters. In terms of structure Waiting for Godot is a two-act cyclic play. Its beginning and end are absolutely similar. The play begins with Vladimir and Estragon waiting for someone named Godot. In the end the reader finds them in absolutely similar situation of waiting for the same person. One may even think that the second act is nothing but repetition of the first one because the play lacks any action. Some critics used to say that Waiting for Godot is a play in which nothing happens - twice. Perhaps, Beckett suggests that the tramps may stay at the country road waiting for Godot forever, and the reader will never know if Godot comes or not. The main characters and their symbolic language deserve specific attention. Reading the dialogues of Didi and Gogo the reader discovers that each of them is fully self-absorbed and does not care what the other says. On the one hand, they communicate and share their thoughts, but on the other hand they barely listen to and understand each other. This feeling of the characters' self-absorption and egoism manifests in numerous scenes where the tramps interrupt each other, do not listen to and do not understand each other's thoughts. Throughout the play Didi and Gogo keep thinking about their past and trying to find the sense of their lives. The way Beckett describes appearance is rather interesting: they miss strong defining traits and the reader sometimes has difficulties remembering who is who. Probably, the author does it intentionally to show the reader that the tramps represent the humankind (Astro, 1990: 40). Both Didi and Gogo seem to be extremely bored from the very beginning of the play. Thus, in the opening lines Gogo says "Nothing to be done" (p.2), while Didi instantly responds "I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me And I resumed the struggle" (p.2). However, none of them is ready to recognize that they are simple bored. Instead, they undertake useless, meaningless and sometimes funny attempts to find at least something to prove they are still alive: "We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression that we exist" (p.77). Such attempts demonstrate weakness and lack of determination to really do something that may change their lives. Another method with the help of which Beckett shows the reader that the characters are extremely bored is abundance of questions left without response. Both tramps ask a number of such questions throughout the play. They wonder who Godot is, where he is, will he come or not, where they are, should they separate or not and shall they keep waiting. However, neither Didi nor Gogo do anything to have these questions answered. The reader gets the impression that the tramps do not need a single answer: they ask each other their questions to simply pass the time or show each other that they are still capable of having a conversation. Weakness of Gogo and Didi's personalities coupled with their comic manners sometimes make the reader laugh at potentially tragic situations throughout the play. This effect is best illustrated by the scene when Estragon suggests suicide: ESTRAGON: Wait. VLADIMIR: Yes, but while waiting. ESTRAGON: What about hanging ourselves VLADIMIR: Hmm. It'd give us an erection. ESTRAGON: (highly excited). An erection! VLADIMIR: With all that follows. Where it falls mandrakes grow. That's why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that ESTRAGON: Let's hang ourselves immediately! (p.12) Despite the decision none of the tramps commits suicide. Instead, they start arguing about who must be the first and end up saying "Don't let's do anything. It's safer" (p.13). Although the tramps discuss suicide (death), the reader does not perceive this scene as tragic or really serious. On the contrary, it looks comic and absurd: the reader reads about death but smiles instead of feeling tragic. Didi and Gogo are waiting for Godot together from the opening lines of the play. On the one hand, they seem to help each other pass the time while waiting; on the other hand, they cannot figure out whether they should stay together or separate. When Estragon suggests separating from each other (three times throughout the play) the tramps once again are not able to figure out what is better: ESTRAGON: Wait! I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off alone, each one for himself. We weren't made for the same road. VLADIMIR: It's not certain. ESTRAGON: No, nothing is certain (p.60). Nothing happens at the end: the tramps are simply unable to back up their words with actions. This inability of Didi and Gogo to separate their ways despite being dissatisfied with the company of each other shows once again absurdity of their existence. At the first glance, passing the time is the main task for Didi and Gogo while waiting for Godot. For example, in the beginning of Act 1 Didi offers to tell Estragon the story of Crucifixion saying "It'll pass the time" (p.12). The same situation happens after the tramps first met Pozzo and Lucky: VLADIMIR: That passed the time. ESTRAGON: It would have passed in any case. VLADIMIR: Yes, but not so rapidly ESTRAGON: That's the idea, let's make a little conversation (p.48). On the other hand, the play contains a number of scenes which demonstrate that time is given little significance. Thus, in Act 2 Estragon says to Pozzo that Vladimir is eleven years old (p.26). This silly answer demonstrates how little Estragon cares about time. In another scene Vladimir demonstrates the same attitude toward time saying "Will night never...Time has stopped" (pp.36, 37). The fact that Waiting for Godot ends exactly at the same point where it started (the tramps are waiting for Godot on the road) also shows insignificance of time. Consequently, the reader perceives time as a meaningless illusion rather than something real. Another evidence that time is given no significance in the play is how often the characters forget various things. Didi and Gogo forget their stories midway through them; they repeat the same things twice or thrice and even hardly remember their habits. The attitude toward forgetting and especially numerous repetitions play an important role helping the reader understand Beckett's idea. The only thing that Beckett does not allow the tramps forget about is Godot. On the contrary, as the play progresses the reader notices the growing importance of Godot for Didi and Gogo. This tendency seems rather absurd because the tramps do not even know who Godot is and what his arrival can mean for them. Probably, this mysterious figure may symbolize hope for the tramps. A hope that their boring waiting will be over with his arrival, a hope that they will finally proceed from useless and meaningless conversations to actions and a hope for finally having a goal to achieve. On the other hand, waiting for Godot constitutes the only meaning of Didi and Gogo's life. Arrival of Godot might take this single meaning away from them and make their further life absolutely useless. CONCLUSION Beckett himself denied any serious philosophical background underlying Waiting for Godot and other plays written by him (McMillan and Fehsenfeld, 1988: 13). However, it is difficult to agree that there is no hidden philosophic meaning in his works. Beckett was a product of the historic epoch he lived in and he had to share certain views common to other representatives of that epoch. It may be true that he never meant to fill his plays with any specific philosophic meaning. The spirit and philosophy of his epoch might get in his works without Beckett's intention. As a result, Waiting for Godot should probably be considered an absurdist play typical for the mid-20th century. Each and every part of the play shows its absurdist nature. Structure of the play, absolute irrelevance of time, constant hesitations and indecision of the characters, uncertainty of each statement and extreme complexity and controversy of Waiting for Godot prove that the play can be classified as 'the theater of absurd'. The play perfectly matches the criteria traditionally used in the literature to identify works of this type. Firstly, Beckett tries to show the reader absurdity of human condition using the example of two tramps put in apparently nonrealistic context. This perfectly matches first part of the definition of absurdist literature cited in the beginning of this paper. Secondly, the above analysis of Waiting for Godot demonstrates that Beckett does not use a series of connected incidents to tell his story. Instead, he presents a series of situations with many repetitions thus showing the reader the insignificant of time. As a result, the play looks like one frozen picture consisting of many smaller fragments. If, for example, someone changes position of these fragments or replaces some fragments from Act 1 with fragments from Act 2 the reader may not even notice the change. This is probably the most absurd thing about this play. And finally, the play really shows people as 'bewildered beings in an incomprehensible universe' (Holman, 1986: 2). With the help of his universal characters Beckett provides the reader with his understanding of how people try to find some meaning in their lives and how useless their attempts are. Apparently, Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play written at the time when people lost their faith in rational order of this world. However, one of the problems raised by Beckett in this play remains highly relevant up to now. Moreover, it will remain relevant for centuries to come. The essence of this problem is the following: if people find the way to comprehend the incomprehensible universe and discover the meaning of their life, what will they do then Didi and Gogo are waiting for Godot to come, but neither they nor the reader know what is better for them, to keep waiting for Godot forever without taking care of anything and without attempting to change anything or finally meet Godot. The tramps and the reader may perceive meeting Godot as happiness. However, from another perspective meeting Godot will mean the end of their lives the only sense of which is waiting for that mysterious Godot. WORKS CITED Astro, Alan. Understanding Samuel Beckett. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina, 1990. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, 1954. Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. New York: Vintage, 1955. Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Anchor, 1969. Holman, C., Hugh, and William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. New York: Macmillan, 1986. McMillan, Dougald, and Martha Fehsenfeld. Beckett in the Theater. London: John Calder, 1988. Read More