Waiting For Godot

Waiting for Godot – As an Absurd Play

Beckett is considered to be an important figure among the French Absurdists. “Waiting for Godot” is one of the masterpieces of Absurdist literature. Elements of Absurdity incorporated in the play are so engaging and lively. It is quite clear from the very word “Absurd” that it means nonsensical, opposed to reason, something silly, foolish, senseless, ridiculous and topsy-turvy, therefore, a play having loosely constructed plot, unrecognizable characters, metaphysical angst is called an absurd play. Actually the ‘Absurd Theatre’ believes that humanity’s plight is purposeless in an existence, which is out of harmony with its surroundings. The awareness about the lack of purpose produces a state of metaphysical anguish which is the central theme of the Absurd Theatre. On an absurd play logical construction, rational ideas and intellectually viable arguments are abandoned and the irrationality for experience is acted out on the stage instead.

It is quite safe to label “Waiting for Godot” an absurd play for not only its plot is loose but its characters are also just mechanical puppets with their incoherent colloquy. And above all, its theme is unexplained. “Waiting for Godot” is an absurd play for it is devoid of conventional characterization and motivation. Though characters are present but are not recognizable for whatever they do and whatever they present is purposeless. So far as its dialogue technique is concerned, it is purely absurd as there is no witty repartee and pointed dialogues. What a reader or spectator hears is simply the incoherent babbling which does not have any clear and meaningful ideas. As far as the action and theme is concerned, it touches the level of Absurd Theatre. It does not give any comprehensive idea of time and place. Beckett combats the traditional notions of Time by attacking its two main traditional ingredients habit and memory. We find Estragon in the main story and Pozzo in the episode, combating the conventional notions of time and memory. The study of the play reveals that nothing special happens in the play nor any significant change in setting is observed. Though a change occurs but it is only that now the tree has sprouted out four or five leaves. “Nothing happens, nobody comes … nobody goes, it’s awful!” The beginning, middle and end of the play do not rise up to the level of a good play, so is absurd. Though its theme is logical and rational yet it lies in umbrage.

Moreover, “Waiting for Godot” can also be regarded as an absurd play because it is different from “poetic theatre”. Neither it makes a considerable use of dream and fantasy nor does it employ conscious poetic language. The situation almost remains unchanged and an enigmatic vein runs throughout the play. The mixture of comedy and near tragedy proves baffling. In Act-I, the audience is not sure as to what attitude they should adopt towards the different phases of its non-action. The ways, in which the two tramps pass their time, seem as if they were passing their lives in a transparent deception. Godot remains a mystery and curiosity still holds a sway. Hence, the audience knows that their endless waiting seems to be absurd. Though, the fact is that they are conscious of this absurdity, yet is seems to imply that the rest of the world is waiting for the things, which are more absurd and also uncertain.

“Waiting for Godot” is an absurd play for there is no female character. Characters are there but they are devoid of identity. Estragon and Vladimir are old acquaintances, but they are not sure of their identity. Though they breathe, their life is an endless series of blows. The two main characters in the play are also anti-heroes, as they are devoid of any conventional traits and disposition of a conventional hero. Hence, they add to the atmosphere of absurdity of the play. They wait for the ultimate extinction, but in a frustrated way. This thing produces meaninglessness making the play absurd.

Moreover, the ending of the play is also absurd as it is not conclusive in the usual sense. The wait continues; the human contacts remain unsolved; the problem of existence remains meaningless, futile and purposeless. The conversation between the two tramps remain a jargon, really a humbug and bunkum speech. So all this makes the play an absurd play.

Waiting for Godot as an Existentialist Play

“Waiting for Godot” is an existentialist play as it has clear tints of existentialism. Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the existence with its concrete experience. Moreover, it focalizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any other transcendental force, the only way to counter this nothingness, and hence to find meaning in life, is by embracing existence. Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must take personal responsibility themselves, although with this responsibility comes angst, a profound anguish or dread. It, therefore, emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and holds that the only way to rise above the essentially absurd condition of humanity characterized by suffering and inevitable death is by exercising our personal freedom and choice.

 “Waiting for Godot”, however, is a Christian existentialist play for it embodies Christian existentialism. Christian existentialism stresses the idea “In God only, man may find freedom from tension.” For Christian existentialism, religion leads to God, whereas Atheistic Existentialism believes that “Man is alone in a godless universe.” Moreover, they equip that “if there is any God, it is very difficult to locate Him.”

The word “Existentialism” stands for one’s “awareness” of one’s “beingness.  There are multiple existentialist strands in “Waiting for Godot” because it deals not only with existence or identity but also with the momentary and the internal time. The time mentioned in “Waiting for Godot” is related to man’s mental condition that is subjective. For instance, the major problem for the tramps is to make time pass in such a way that they are least bothered by it. Vladimir and Estragon constantly complain of the slowness of time and do their best to hurry it with their futile diversions. Estragon says: “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.” It is clear that objective time flows conventionally as compared with the subjective time that is rather slow for the tramps. They take the impression of their existence from the changes taking place around them. For example, the tree has grown five or six leaves. Pozzo has grown blind and Lucky dumb. Here Estragon remarks: “They all change, only we not.” They often claim to do something but do nothing in order to save themselves from labour of effort.

There is a distinction between the momentary and eternal time for this concept deals with the question of existence and identity. In “Waiting for Godot” physical time is sometimes taken seriously and sometimes it is ridiculed or condemned. Estragon once succeeds in confusing Vladimir about the passage of time as well as about the day of week. In the same sentence the tramps speak of a million years ago and in the nineties. Both these constructions are deceptive.

Doubts about time make the tramps doubtful about their existence and identity. They are always uncertain of the time spent together in the past. If one tramp claims an event, it is doubted by the other. Their own identity and existence in time is also questionable. One day seems to have elapsed between the first act and the second, yet it becomes extremely difficult to differentiate this day from the previous by any important physical evidence.

The play “Waiting for Godot” is a critique of absurd existence faced by man represented by both Vladimir and Estragon. “Man is condemned to be free” in the meaningless world of nothingness where “nothing happens twice” and it offers “nothing to be done”. Man is so miserable in this wretched world where he is thrown with without any essence and is prevented from giving meaning to his existence. Both the tramps are interdependent like all other men. Hope for salvation is one of themes of the play and is the problem faced by the whole human race. The two tramps, being “all humanity” realize the futility of their exercise and are merely filling up the hours with the pointless activity. Hence their ‘waiting’ is mechanical and deals with problem of existentialism.

To conclude we say that the whole picture shows utter hopelessness. Neither time nor existence; neither reality nor memory; neither past nor present have any meaning or significance. Acts are meaningless, time does not flow consecutively, memory seems deceptive, existence is an impression or perhaps a dream and happiness is extremely and affliction is crystal clear through the situation of two tramps. They are drifting all the time towards nothingness.  Therefore, the painful existence, freedom of choice and futility of actions make this play an existentialist critique.

Who is ‘Godot’ in ‘Waiting for Godot’

Godot’s identity is the most intruding riddle in ‘Waiting for Godot’. Godot is a mysterious personality, and it is nowhere made clear who or what he is. Even at the end of the play we are left guessing or speculating as to who he is and what exactly he represents. On being asked about the identity of Godot, Beckett’s reply was equally puzzling. “If I knew,” he said, “I would have said so in the play.”  Moreover, many critics have offered many interpretations of the identity of Godot. Therefore, Godot might be perceived in numerous ways like a rescuer, God, Christ, vision, master, a promise or a false hope etc. Since its publication, Godot remains an unsolved puzzle.

Much ingenuity has been shown in establishing at least the origin for Godot’s name. Some of the critics view Godot as a diminutive form of the word ‘God’. It has also been noted that the French title of the play, En Attendant Godot, seems to contain an allusion to a book titled Attente de Dieu, which would furnish further evidence that “Godot” stands for “God”. Hence, the name “Godot” either suggests intervention of a supernatural agency, or stands for a mythical human being whose arrival is expected to change the situation.

In ‘Waiting for Godot’, to the two tramps, Godot represents peace, rest from waiting, a sense of arrival, shelter and comfort. They have a vague notion of their salvation if Godot comes. His coming means that they will no longer be tramps, homeless wanderers, but will be ‘saved’. They wait for him even though his coming is by no means certain. But Godot never comes rather seems to be a kind of distant mirage. Although Godot fails to appear in the play, he is as real a character as any of those whom we actually see. Godot very much exists for the tramps, and he directs the course of the evening for them.

From the conversation of the tramps, we learn that he lives in the capitalistic world of “family”, “agents”, “correspondents”, and a “bank account”. The tramps identify him with power and authority. They worry that, if angered, he might "punish" them. They’ve made a "prayer" to him in the past. They can’t be sure if he exists. He’s perpetually absent, but human representatives speak of him in veiled terms.  At the end of each day, a messenger-boy arrives extending the promise that Godot will come tomorrow. On hearing that Godot beats the messenger’s brother, the tramps feel uneasy and think that if they stopped waiting for him he would punish them. Hence they realize that are tied to waiting. The other boy-messenger reveals that Godot does nothing and that his beard is probably white. The information gathered from the messenger-boy vividly alludes to the biblical description of God.  The boy-messenger further tells the tramps that Godot does “nothing’, which draws our attention to the barrenness of a mind that expects and waits for the old activity of God or gods. The play does not deal with God but merely with the concept of God. No wonder therefore that God’s image is left vague. The theological passages in the play tell us that what God does is unknown. It appears that he does nothing at all; and the only information conveyed by the messenger-boy is that, alas, Godot will not be coming today but tomorrow. Beckett clearly indicates that it is precisely Godot’s non-arrival which keeps the two tramps waiting for him, and their faith in him alive. “Let’s go.”—We can’t.”—”Why not?”—”We’re waiting for Godot.”—“Ah!” According to some philosophers, the proof of God’s existence lies in His very absence.

It is observed that once Vladimir and Estragon had seen Godot. But they do not remember him quite clearly, and his vague promises are treated light-heartedly. Godot is explicitly vague, merely an empty promise, corresponding to luke-warm piety and absence of suffering in the tramps. Waiting for Godot has become a habit with them, a habit which is an adaptation to the meaninglessness of life. Godot’s function in the play seems to keep his dependents unconscious. The uncertainty and unreliability with which Godot surrounds himself reveal him as highly ambivalent. The unconsciousness and ambivalence appear in his promise to rescue the tramps and in his preventing them from becoming conscious.

It has been suggested that Godot is the earthly ideal of a better social order. It has also been suggested that Godot is death and that the tramps will hang themselves the next day. Another view is that Godot represents silence. The tramps have to speak while waiting in order to achieve stillness and silence at last. Or Godot may be the inaccessible self that Beckett pursues through all his work, always with the ultimate hope that “This time, perhaps at last it will be I.” Pozzo was taken as Godot when he appears on the scene as he clearly has divine attributes and there’s the phonetic confusion of his name (POT-so) with that of GOD-oh. Some  critics opine that one should not bother too much to know who or what Godot is. This advice is based on the view that the play is not about “Godot” but about “waiting”. If it is true, one naturally asks waiting for what? If the tramps are waiting for Godot, we should know what or who Godot is, especially because Godot seems to be a descriptive name. One of the critics emphasises the foolishness of identifying Godot too closely said: “Godot is that character for whom two tramps are waiting at the edge of a road, and who does not come.” Perhaps Godot means only something for which one waits vainly; some promise that remains unfulfilled; some development that does not occur; some hope that does not materialise. Godot represents the object of waiting. And the object of waiting is highly subjective. In other words, waiting for Godot means waiting for something to turn up which does not really turn up.

Significance of the Title of the Play

         A lot of controversy has risen since the publication of ‘waiting for Godot’. Critics have not been able to reach any kind of agreement about this play. Even Beckett himself did not offer much help to interpret the play. The chief concern of this absurd drama is ‘waiting’ and ‘Godot’ which are ever puzzling. Throughout their lives, human beings always wait for something, and Godot simply represents the objective of their waiting — an event, a thing, a person, death. Beckett has thus depicted in this play a situation which has a general human application.

         The source of the title of the play has aroused a greater controversy than anything else connected with it. An earlier version of the play was simply called ‘waiting’. Martin Esslin holds the view that the subject of the play is not Godot but waiting. There is a general agreement that Godot is of less importance in the play than waiting, but the source of the word Godot has excited much curiosity. Beckett himself was of little help and, when asked about the meaning of Godot he replied, “If I knew I would have said so in the play.” One of the critics, wishing to pinpoint the foolishness of trying to identify Godot too closely, said, “Godot is that character for whom two tramps are waiting at the edge of a road and who does not come.” Yet those hunting for the meaning of ‘Godot’ have ignored the advice offered by this critic and by Beckett himself and have displayed much ingenuity in interpreting the word ‘Godot’. It has been said, for instance, that the word has been formed from the English ‘God’ and French ‘eau’ (water). It has also been said that ‘Godo’ is spoken Irish for God. Hugh Kenner has connected the name with his famous theory of the ‘cartesian centaur’ by mentioning the name of a French racing cyclist whose last name was godean.

         The source for the full title of the play caused similar anxiety. The most convincing suggestion in this case comes from Eric Bentley who traces the title to Balzac’s play ‘Marcadet’. In Balzac’s play, the return of a person named Godean is anxiously awaited, the frustration of waiting is an much a part of Balzac’s play as it is of Beckett’s. Martin Esslin has heartily endorsed another suggestion and so have several commentators. According to another suggestion, the title of Beckett’s play comes from simone will’s play ‘waiting for God’. It has been pointed out that Beckett and simone knew each other well and that Beckett’s play appeared a year after the publication of simone’s. The influence of will on Beckett is thus a distinct possibility. If this view be accepted, then ‘waiting for Godot’ can be understood as a religious allegory. According to yet another view, the source of the title for the play was odets’s ‘waiting for lefty’. It is believed that the name “odets” might have itself have suggested to Beckett the name ‘Godot’. There is still another possibility beckett’s title may have its source in Tom Kromer’s book called ‘waiting for Nothing?’

         The play is a direct presentation of waiting, ignorance, impotence, boredom. We all are impotent and suffering from boredom, loneliness and alienation. We have no sons, no daughters, and no women with us, we are all alone like Estragon and Vladimir. There is no one to accompany is, no one to relieve us of our misery, pain and suffering. There is indeed, no system, no philosophy, person or even God that can deliver no free. We wait and wait, that finale, our relief or freedom does not come, probably Godot would never come whether we wait hopefully or not.

         ‘Waiting for Godot’ is a dramatization of the themes of habit and ‘The sufferings of being’. Habit is a great deadener, says Vladimir’, and by the time he says so, he and Estragon have had about ninety minutes on the stage to prove it. It is the sound of their own voices that re-assumes the two tramps of their own existence, of which they are not otherwise always certain because the evidence of their senses is so dubious. The tramps have another reason also to keep talking. They are drawing out those voices that assail them in the silence, just as they assailed nearly all Beckett’s heroes.

         Vladimir and Estragon have traveled towards total nihilism, but they have not fully achieved it. They still retain enough remnants of hope to be fermented by despair. And in place of hope as a dynamic, they have expectancy. This is the main motif of the play. The two tramps are in a place and in a mental state in which nothing happened and time stands still. Their main preoccupation is to pass time as well as they until might come. They realize the futility of their exercises and they are merely filling up the hours. In this sense their waiting in mechanical; it is the same thing as not moving. In another sense it is an obligation. They have to remain where they are, though they resent doing so and would like to leave. This mood of expectancy has also a universal validity, because whenever we wait we are expectant even though we are almost certain that our waiting will be rewarded.

         The title of the play thus brings into our mind about the meaningless waiting and it is the waiting for Godot who may stand for God, or for a mythical human being, or for the meaning of life, or for death or for something else.

Waiting for Godot as a Tragi-Comedy

Tragic-comedy is a play which claims a plot apt for tragedy but which ends happily like a comedy. The action is serious in theme and subject matter and tone also sometimes but it seems to be a tragic catastrophe until an unexpected turn in events brings out the happy ending. The characters of a tragic-comedy are noble but they are involved in improbabilities. In such a play tragic and comic elements are mixed up together

The English edition of “Waiting for Godot”, published in 1956 describes the play as a “tragic-comedy” in two acts. There are many dialogues, gestures, situations and actions that are stuffed of pure comedy. The total atmosphere of the play is very akin to dark-comedy. For example, Vladimir is determined not to hear Estragon’s nightmare. The latter pleads with him in vain to hear him, saying that there is nobody else to whom he may communicate his private nightmares.

The audience burst into laughter when they see Estragon putting off and on his boots. Vladimir’s game with his hat appears as if this is happening in a circus. Vladimir is suffering from prostrate problem. Vladimir's way of walking with stiff and short strides is as funny as Estragon’s limping on the stage. Estragon’s gestures of encouraging Vladimir to urinate off-stage are farcical. There are many dialogues:

Estragon: Let’s go.

Vlsadimir: We can not.

Estragon: Why not?

Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot.

(They do not move.)

Estragon and Vladimir put on and take off each other’s hat as well as that of lucky again and again. It shows that in the world of tramps, there is no place for significant actions. The most farcical situation in the play is the one where the tramps are testing the strength of the cord with which they wish to hang themselves. The cord breaks under the strain. One cannot have an uninhabited laugh at the situation for there is also something deeply uncomfortable.

“Waiting for Godot” has several moments of anguish and despair. Someone beats Estragon daily. As Estragon says agitatedly, “Beat me? Certainly they beat me.” The tramps resent that they should be asked whether it still hurts. It goes without saying that it hurts all the time. When Vladimir asks Estragon whether his boots are hurting him, he responds: “Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!” A little later Estragon asks Vladimir about his kidney trouble and the latter replies in the same words: “Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!” In fact his trouble is so bad that it does not even permit him to laugh. Life lies all bleak and barren before them and that only valid comment on it is the one with which the play opens,“Nothing to be done”. There is a world of negation in which inactivity is the safest course; as Estragon says: “Do not let us do anything, it’s safer”.  The tramps are living at the barest level of existence. Carrot, turnips and radishes are all they have to eat. Estragon’s remarks show tragedy and helplessness: “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.”

The situation of Lucky is quite pathetic, especially in view of his glorious past, as Pozzo describes it. His speech tells us that in his sonar moments Lucky must have brooded deeply over the anguish of the human situation. The anguish breaks in his incoherent harangue: “in spite of the tennis the labours abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished”. The comedy in “Waiting for Godot” at once turns into tragedy when the audience thinks about the helplessness of tramps. Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for someone who never comes. In order to pass time, they indulge in irrelevant, meaningless activity. Their life can be compared with that of a prisoner for whom there is no escape, even suicide is impossible. Every activity is a mockery of human existence.

The changing of farce into absurdity brings a lot of tragic sentiment in the play. Estragon’s nakedness is a picture of ‘man’s miserable condition’. The absurd living is a major source of tragedy. The source is the situation of pointless waiting of Estragon and Vladimir. They do not know who Godot is. They are sure neither about the time nor about the place of their appointment. They even do not know what will happen if they stop waiting? Lack of essential knowledge makes them totally impotent and powerless. They are tied to the situation. Nothing is certain all they can say is “Nothing to be done”. 

The form of tragic-comedy is highly suitable to Becket’s vision of life. The climax of Beckett’s tragic-comedy is the role of Lucky. He is burdened with his master’s luggage and his neck is tied with one end of the rope. His appearance is not only fantastic but grotesque also. The moment we realize that Pozzo has learnt all the beautiful things of life from lucky, a half-witted slave who becomes an image of man’s misery.  Lucky has lost his worth for Pozzo who tends to sell him now and Lucky’s miserable clinging to his master is pathetic and speaks of merciless exploitation.

Comedy has been checked by tragic element or sentiments, while the effect of tragedy has been mitigated by farce created through characters, dialogues, gestures and actions. We can sum up with the remarks of Sean O’ Casey, “Beckett is a clever writer, for within him there is no hazard of hope; no desire for it; nothing in it but a lust for despair and a crying of woe, not in a wilderness, but in a garden.”

Circular Structure of the Play

Beckett's plays were among the earliest and, therefore, created a great deal of confusion among the early critics. No definite conclusion or resolution can ever be offered to ‘Waiting for Godot’ because the play is essentially circular and repetitive in nature. Once again, turn to the Dramatic Divisions section in these Notes and observe that the structure of each act is exactly alike. A traditional play, in contrast, has an introduction of' the characters and the exposition; then, there is a statement of the problem of the play in relationship to its settings and characters. In Waiting for Godot’ , we never know where the play takes place, except that it is set on "a country road." Furthermore, in a traditional play, the characters are developed, and gradually we come to see the dramatist's world view; the play then rises to a climax, and there is a conclusion. This type of development is called a linear development. In the plays of the Theater of the Absurd, the structure is often exactly the opposite. We have, instead, a circular structure, and most aspects of this drama support this circular structure in one way or another.

The setting is the same, and the time is the same in both acts. Each act begins early in the morning, just as the tramps are awakening, and both acts close with the moon having risen. The action takes place in exactly the same landscape — a lonely, isolated road with one single tree. We are never told where this road is located; all we know is that the action of the play unfolds on this lonely road. Thus, from Act I to Act II, there is no difference in either the setting or in the time and, thus, instead of a progression of time within an identifiable setting, we have a repetition in the second act of the same things that we saw and heard in the first act.

More important than the repetition of setting and time, however, is the repetition of the actions. To repeat, in addition to the basic structure of actions indicated earlier — that is:

Vladimir and Estragon Alone

Arrival of Pozzo and Lucky

Vladimir and Estragon Alone

Arrival of Boy Messenger

Vladimir and Estragon Alone

there are many lesser actions that are repeated in both acts. At the beginning of each act, for example, several identical concerns should be noted. Among these is the emphasis on Estragon's boots. Also, too, Vladimir, when first noticing Estragon, uses virtually the same words: "So there you are again" in Act I and "There you are again" in Act II. At the beginning of both acts, the first discussion concerns a beating that Estragon received just prior to their meeting. At the beginning of both acts, Vladimir and Estragon emphasize repeatedly that they are there to wait for Godot. In the endings of both acts, Vladimir and Estragon discuss the possibility of hanging themselves, and in both endings they decide to bring some good strong rope with them the next day so that they can indeed hang themselves. In addition, both acts end with the same words, voiced differently:

ACT 1:

ESTRAGON: Well, shall we go?

VLADIMIR: Yes, let's go.

ACT II:

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?

ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.

And the stage directions following these lines are exactly the same in each case: "They do not move."

With the arrival of Pozzo and Lucky in each act, we notice that even though their physical appearance has theoretically changed, outwardly they seem the same; they are still tied together on an endless journey to an unknown place to rendezvous with a nameless person.

Likewise, the Boy Messenger, while theoretically different, brings the exact same message: Mr. Godot will not come today, but he will surely come tomorrow.

Vladimir's difficulties with urination and his suffering are discussed in each act as a contrast to the suffering of Estragon because of' his boots. In addition, the subject of eating, involving carrots, radishes, and turnips, becomes a central image in each act, and the tramps' involvement with hats, their multiple insults, and their reconciling embraces — these and many more lesser matters are found repeatedly in both acts.

Finally, and most important, there are the larger concepts: first, the suffering of the tramps; second, their attempts, however futile, to pass time; third, their attempts to part, and, ultimately, their incessant waiting for Godot — all these make the two acts clearly repetitive, circular in structure, and the fact that these repetitions are so obvious in the play is Beckett's manner of breaking away from the traditional play and of asserting the uniqueness of his own circular structure.

The Breakdown of Language in Waiting for Godot

Beckett’s plays are highly concerned with expressing the difficulty of finding meaning in a world subject to change. His use of language probes the limitations of language both as a means of communication and as a vehicle for the expression of valid statements, an instrument of thought.

His use of the dramatic medium shows that he has tried to find means of expression beyond language. On the stage one can dispense with words altogether or at least one can reveal the reality behind the words, as when the actions of the characters contradict their verbal expression. “Let’s go”, say the two tramps at the end of each Act of Waiting for Godot, but the stage directions inform us that “they don’t move”. On the stage language can be put into such a relationship with action that facts behind the language can be revealed. Hence the importance of mine, knockabout comedy, and silence in Beckett’s plays—Krapp’s eating of bananas, the pratfalls of Vladimir and Estragon, the variety turn with Lucky’s hat, Clov’s immobility at the close of Endgame, which puts his verbally expressed desire to leave in question. Beckett’s use of the stage is an attempt to reduce the gap between the limitations of language and the sense of the human situation he seeks to express in spite of his strong feeling that words are inadequate to formulate it. The concreteness and three dimensional nature of the stage can be used to add new resources to language as an instrument of thought and exploration of being. Language in Beckett’s plays serves to express the break-down of language. Where there is no certainty, there can be no definite meanings—and the impossibility of ever attaining certainty is one of the main themes of Beckett’s plays. Godot’s promises are vague and uncertain. In Endgame, Hamm asks, “We’re not beginning to mean something?” Clov merely laughs and says: “Mean something! You and I mean something!”

Ten different modes of the breakdown of language have been noted in Waiting for Godot. They range from simple misunderstandings and double-entendres to monologues: as signs of inability to communicate, clichés, repetitions of synonyms, inability to find the right words, and telegraphic style (loss of grammatical structure, communication by shouted commands) to Lucky’s farrago of chaotic nonsense and the dropping of punctuation marks, such as question marks, as an indication that language has lost its function as a means of communication, that questions have turned into statements not really requiring an answer. A whole list of passages drawn up by a critic from Waiting for Godot shows that the assertions made by one of the characters are gradually qualified, weakened, and hedged in with reservations until they are completely taken back. In a meaningless universe, it is always foolhardy to make a positive statement.

But more important than any merely formal signs of the disintegration of language and meaning in Beckett’s plays is the nature of the dialogue itself, which again and again breaks down because no truly logical discussion or exchange of thoughts occurs in it either through loss of meaning of single words or through the inability of characters to remember what has just been said. In a purposeless world that has lost its ultimate objectives, dialogue, like all action, becomes a mere game to pass the time.

Beckett’s use of language is thus designed to devalue language as a vehicle of conceptual thought or as an instrument for the communication of ready-made answers to the problems of the human condition. And yet his continued use of language must, paradoxically, be regarded as an attempt to communicate the incommunicable. Such an undertaking attacks the cheap, and facile complacency of the view that to name a problem is to solve it or that the world can be mastered by neat classification and formulations.

Beckett’s entire work can be seen as a search for the reality that lies behind mere reasoning in conceptual terms. He may have devalued language as an instrument for the communication of ultimate truths, but he has shown himself a great master of language as an artistic medium. He has moulded words into a superb instrument for his purpose. In the theatre he has been able to add a new dimension to language—the counterpoint of action, concrete,  many-faceted, not to be explained away, but making a direct impact on an audience. In Beckett’s theatre it is possible to bypass the stage of conceptual thinking altogether, as an abstract painting by passes the stage of the recognition of natural objects. In ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgam’e, plays drained of character, plot, and meaningful dialogue, Beckett has shown that such a seemingly impossible feat can in fact be accomplished.

“Waiting for Godot is not about Godot or even about waiting. It is waiting.”

"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful."

The two key words in the title are “waiting” and “Godot”. What Godot exactly means has been the subject of much controversy. It has been suggested that Godot is a weakened form of the word “God.” Godot may therefore suggest the intervention of a supernatural agency. Or perhaps Godot stands for a mythical human being whose arrival is expected to change the situation. We may presume, too, that both these possibilities (a supernatural agency and a supposed human being) may be implied through the use of the name “Godot”. Furthermore, although Godot fails to appear in the play, he is as real a character as any of those whom we actually see. However, the subject of the play is not Godot; the subject is “waiting”, the act of waiting as an essential characteristic aspect of the human condition. Throughout their lives, human beings always wait for something; and Godot simply represents the objective of their waiting—an event, a thing, a person, death. Beckett has thus depicted in this play a situation which has a general human application.

At first sight this play does not appear to have any particular relationship with the human predicament. For instance, we feel hardly any inclination to identify ourselves with the two tramps who are indifferent to all the concerns of civilized life. Godot sounds as if he might have some significance; but he does not even appear on the stage. However, soon we are made to realize that Vladimir and Estragon are waiting and that their waiting is of a particular kind. Although they may say that they are waiting for Godot, they cannot say who or what Godot is, nor can they be sure that they are waiting at the right place or on the right day, or what would happen when Godot comes, or what would happen if they stopped waiting. They have no watches, no time-tables, and there is no one from whom they can get much information. They cannot get the essential knowledge, and they are ignorant.

They tell stories, sing songs, play verbal games, pretend to be Pozzo and Lucky, do physical exercises. But all these activities are mere stop-gaps serving only to pass the time. They understand this perfectly. “Come on, Gogo,” pleads Didi,  “return the ball, can’t you, once in a way?” and Estragon does. As Estragon says later, “We don’t manage too badly, eh Didi, between, the two of us.......We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist”

Here we have the very essence of boredom—actions repeated long after the reason for them has been forgotten, and talk purposeless in itself but valuable as a way to kill time. We could appropriately say that the play is not about Godot or even about waiting; the play puts “waiting” on the stage. The play is about waiting, ignorance, impotence, boredom, all these having been made visible on the stage before us. As a critic says, Beckett in his dramas does not write about things but presents the things themselves. In other words, a play by Beckett is a direct expression or presentation of the thing itself as distinct from any description of it or statement about it. In the waiting of the two tramps, we, the audience, recognize our own experience. We may never have waited by a tree on a deserted country road for a distant acquaintance to keep his appointment, but we have certainly experienced other situations in which we have waited and waited.  

 When Pozzo and Lucky first appear, neither Vladimir nor Estragon seems to recognize them; Estragon even takes Pozzo for Godot. But after they have gone, Vladimir comments that they have changed since their last appearance. Estragon insists that he did not know them while Vladimir insists: “We know them, I tell you. You forget everything.” In Act II, when Pozzo and Lucky re-appear, cruelly deformed by the action of time, the tramps again have their doubts whether these are the same people whom they met on the previous day. Nor does Pozzo remember them. To wait means to experience the action of time, which is constantly changing. And yet, as nothing real ever happens, that change is in itself an illusion. “The tears of the world are a constant quantity,” says Pozzo, “For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops.”

The tramps are waiting for nothing in particular. They even have to remind each other of the very fact that they are waiting and of what they are waiting for. Thus, actually they are not waiting for anything. But, exposed as they are to the daily continuation of their existence, they cannot help concluding that they must be waiting.

Human Relationships in Waiting for Godot

In ‘Waiting for Godot’ we have the two major relationships which mainly constitute the central theme of the drama. Inspite of Vladimir-Estragon relationship and Puzzo-Lucky relationship we have in this play the absent Godot’s relationship with these characters and with his servant boy. We have to judge how these relationships form the fabric of the drama.

Vladimir and Estragon are the two main figures of the play. Estragon seems to be a cowardly person who suffers from nightmarish visions. So he needs the care and guardianship of his friend and really cannot do anything without him. Vladimir on the other hand is certainly more intelligent and more alert than Estragon. But inspite of that he is more or less a pathetic character finding himself quite himself and feeling compelled indefinitely to wait for Godot who is likely to bring about a change in the present situation but whose arrival seems to be very doubtful. Both Estragon and Vladimir represent the ordeal of waiting. They also represent ignorance, helplessness, impotence and boredom. They do not have the essential knowledge; they do not know who exactly Godot is; they do not know what Godot will do for them; they do not know what would happen if they stopped waiting for Godot. They are forced to resort to various devices to pass time but each attempt sizzles out. This passing of the time is a mutual obsession with the two men. Nothingness is what these tramps are fighting against, and nothingness is the reason why they keep talking. The condition of the two helpless individuals is the condition of everyman.

Vladimir-Estragon relationship symbolizes a relationship of naturalistic. Occasionally the two tramps talk of parting but never take the suggestion seriously. They illustrate the bond of understanding. They are full of frustration and resentment, but they cling to each other with a mixture of interdependence and affection deriving comfort from calling each other by the childish names ‘Gogo’ and ‘Didi’. Again they are incapable of anything more than mere beginnings of impulse, desires, thoughts, moods, memories and impressions. Vladimir compares their proud past with their gloomy present now and then.

Vladimir and Estragon are the distinct individuals and Estragon are the distinct individuals having different characters, attitudes and temperaments. They are alive in a non-world. In spite of their inaction and pointlessness of their existence these two men still want to go on like millions of people who want to go even when their life becomes pointless.

The theme of the disintegration and regression is mainly symbolized by Puzzo-Lucky relationship. Puzzo and Lucky symbolize the relationship between capital and labour or between wealth and the artist. Some critics tell us that Puzzo is no other than Godot himself. According to this view Godot is God and Puzzo is, therefore, God. Some critics also are of the view that while Puzzo and Lucky may be body and intellect, master and slave, capitalist and proletariat, colonizer and colonized, cain and Abel, sadist and masochist, Joyce and Beckett, they represent essentially and more simply one way of getting through life with someone else. Just as Vladimir and Estragon, more sympathetically another way of doing so.

The relationship between Pozzo and Lucky is reflected in the physical bond that holds them together—the link of the rope. The relationship between them is that of dominant and the dominating, though in the second act it takes on the aspect that of the dumb leading the blind. The relationship also represents the exploitation of the social life where Pozzo is one of the haves, dinning on chicken and wine, while Lucky is the have-not to whom he throws the gnawed bones. The drudgery and inhuman treatment have reduced Lucky to the level of an animal. Lucky has to bear all sorts of bags and baggage. But he is not treated as a man. So he is below the level of animals, rather a mere machine in some respect.

Lucky and Puzzo create a metaphor of society. Although Pozzo and Lucky present an obvious and sharp contrast to each other. They have one thing in common—They are both driven by a desperate attempt to avoid panic which would ruin them if they lost their belief. It becomes more and more evident in the course of the play that Lucky believes that his safety his only with the pattern of a mutual sadomasochistic relationship between them. Moreover, Pozzo-Lucky pair may be compared to the collective pseudo-ego.

One critic is of the view that Pozzo represents mankind and Lucky represents Christ. If this view is accepted what takes place before the tramps is the reacting of the Redemption. Another possible interpretation is that Pozzo represents the psychological aspect of human personality and Lucky the spiritual which is in time brutalized by the treatment.

Moreover, Godot seems to be some sort of medieval land-lord. He has agents and correspondents working for him; he has a shepherd who rears the sheep and a goatherd who rears the goats. Actually Godot is capricious in his relationship, he beats the one but loves the other. The tramps are afraid of Godot, so is the boy. Thus Godot rules through fear.

Thus, these three inter-relationships are very much significant from the dramatic point of view. The tramps’ waiting symbolizes humanity’s vain hope of salvation. Moreover, the meaninglessness and the helplessness which are the main issues of the drama are focused by these relations.

Theme of Nothingness in Waiting for Godot

Jean-Paul Sartre asserts that at the root of our being there is nothingness. Samuel Becket also asserts in the play that nothingness is at the root of our existence, especially in the life of the modern people. Whereas in the traditional play we see a concentrated single action motivates the whole play, here in the case of Waiting for Godot everything is fueled by the sense of ‘nothingness’. In fact, here nothing creates everything.

Whether we look at or look into the play, the sense of nothingness determines the course of the whole play. In the play, both the form and the content are structured by an encircling sense of nothingness. Apart from form and content every outer and inner component of the play serves complementary role to establish the idea of ‘nothingness’. Every aspect of the play - structure, theme, setting, character, dialogue or some other behavioral silent activities- is motivated by one thing that is nothingness—the nothingness of the human life. But here ‘nothingness’ points its finger toward ‘everything’ –everything that modern people face physically and psychologically after two World Wars.

After two World Wars almost all literary activities were predetermined by a sense of nothingness in the early 20th century. The theatre of the absurd describes a mood, a tone towards life, where man's existence is a dilemma of purposeless, meaningless, and pointless activity. It is complete denial of age-old values. It has no plot, no characterization, no logical sequence, and no culmination. Samuel Becket introduced the concept of absurdity, nothingness and meaninglessness of life in his play Waiting for Godot.

The setting of the play is influenced by a mode of nothingness. A desolate country road, a ditch, and a leafless tree make up the barren, otherworldly landscape, which bears a surplus of symbolism. The landscape is a symbol of a barren and fruitless civilization or life. There is nothing to be done and there appears to be no place better to depart. The tree, usually a symbol of life with its blossoms and fruit or its suggestion of spring, is apparently dead and lifeless. But it is also the place to which they believe this Godot has asked them to come. The setting of the play reminds us the post-war condition of the world which brought about uncertainties, despair, and new challenges to the all of mankind.

Next comes the plot. The beginning and the end of Waiting for Godot, in which "Nothing happens, nobody comes ... nobody goes, " are also determined by a sense of nothingness. The play is without the traditional, Aristotelian structure where there is a beginning, a middle and a perfect ending. Waiting for Godot does not tell a story; it explores a static situation. On a country road, by a tree, two old tramps, Vladimir and Estrangon , are waiting. That is the opening situation at the beginning of act I. At the end of act I they are informed that Mr. Godot, with whom they believe they have an appointment, cannot come, but that he will surely come tomorrow. Act-II repeats precisely the same pattern. The same boy arrives and delivers the same message. So, the play ends exactly where it started. In this way, a sense of nothingness or purposelessness acts as a driving force in the play.

As per as the portrayal of characters is concerned the play also uplifts the sense of nothingness. A well-made play is expected to present characters that are well-observed and convincingly motivated. But in the play we have characters who are not very recognizable human beings and don’t engage themselves in a motivated action. Two tramps, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), are waiting by a tree on a country road for Godot, whom they have never met and who may not even exist. They argue, make up, contemplate suicide, and discuss passages from the Bible. The play concludes with a famous exchange:

Vladimir: Well, shall we go?

Estragon: Yes, let’s go.

They do not move.

A play is expected to entertain the audience with logically built, witty dialogue. But in this play, like any other absurd play, the dialogue seems to have degenerated into meaningless babble. ‘Nothing to be done’ are the words that are repeated frequently. The dialogues the characters exchange are meaningless banalities. They use language to feel the emptiness between them, to conceal the fact that they have 'nothing' to talk about to each other.

In the play we come across some behavioural attitudes that are more important than dialogues as they reflect the frustration, hesitation and psychological complexities of modern people. The opening lines of play are the superb example of it. When the curtain opens we find Estragon is engaging in his another vain attempt to take off his boots. His repeated failure attempt symbolizes the meaninglessness of everyday life activities and more symbolically the meaninglessness of life itself. Throughout the play there are so many behavioural attitudes that reflect the nothingness of human life.

To conclude, in order to better understand how nothingness creates everything in the play. In Waiting for Godot, where there is no motivated action, the sense of nothingness plays the pivotal role in determining every aspect of the play. So, nothingness creates everything in Waiting for Godot.

Hope for Salvation, An Evasion / Religious Play

One of the approaches to “Waiting for Godot” labels it a religious play because there are ample references to God, Christ and hope of salvation. The two tramps are waiting for Godot who is variously interpreted by the critics. Some critics opine that it is a religious drama and the tramps are waiting for salvation. They hope that one day Godot will come and they will be ‘saved’. But this period of waiting is full of sufferings and torments. Man wants to escape from these sufferings and the only rescue which he finds in the panorama of this world is the hope of salvation.

The play “Waiting for Godot” has a universal appeal. The tramps represent all humanity. Their sufferings are the sufferings of all human beings, no matter in which country they live in or what religious beliefs they have. They reflect modern man’s loneliness, absurdity, forgetfulness, illusions, deferred hope, meaninglessness, inaction, physical suffering and mental anguish, death-wish and isolation. Estragon and Vladimir are the diseased inhabitants of this new wasteland. They suffer from inward and outward ailments. The only remedy from all these afflictions is in the shape of Godot.

But problem is that salvation is also not certain. The uncertainty of the hope of salvation and the chance bestowed of divine grace pervade the whole play. Vladimir states it right in the beginning when he says: “One of the thieves was saved. It’s a remarkable percentage.” He furthers remarks that one of the two thieves is supposed to have been saved and the other damned. But he asks why only one of the four evangelists speaks of a thief being saved. Whereas, other three do not mention any thief at all, and third one says that both of them abused Christ. In other words, there is fifty-fifty chance of salvation, but as only one out of four witnesses reports it, the chances are considerably reduced. As Vladimir points out the fact that everybody seems to believe that one witness: “It is the only version they know.” Estragon, whose attitude has been skeptic throughout merely comments: “People are bloody ignorant apes.” It means that tramps know that salvation is only an illusion to get relief from the sufferings, only an evasion. They know that their waiting for Godot is only a hope against hope. Even from the religious point of view the salvation is not certain. It is a matter of ‘may be or may not be’. Beckett himself referred in the writings of St. Augustine: “Do not despair: one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume: one of the thieves was damned.”

Even Godot himself is unpredictable in bestowing kindness and punishment. The boy who is his messenger looks after the goats, is treated well by Godot. But the boy’s brother, who looks after the sheep, is beaten by Godot. The parallel to Cain and Abel is evident. If Godot’s kindness is bestowed as a matter of chance, his coming is not a source of pure joy. It can also mean damnation. When in Act-II Pozzo and Lucky return and two tramps try to identify them, Estragon calls out:  “Abel! Abel!”  Pozzo responds. But when Estragon calls out:  “Cain! Cain!” Pozzo responds again and Estragon concludes: “He is all humanity”. But in spite of this pessimism which shows the helplessness of humanity, it might be argued that two tramps who are waiting for Godot, are somewhat superior to Pozzo and Lucky who have no object, no appointment, and are wholly egocentric and wrapped in their sadomasochistic relationship. Estragon and Vladimir are superior to both Pozzo and Lucky – not because naïve. They are aware that all we do in this life is nothing, when seen against the senseless action of time, which is in itself an illusion. They are aware that suicide would be the best solution to get rid of sufferings. They are less self-centered. For a brief moment, Vladimir is aware of the full horror of the human condition: “The air is full of our cries … At me too someone is looking …” But the habit of waiting prevents them from the awareness of the full reality of their existence.

To conclude we can say that the hope for salvation may be an evasion of suffering and anguish that spring from facing the reality of the human condition. But even then this illusion is necessary to keep one on the right path. As Ibsen in the play “The Wild Duck” also says that illusions are necessary for life. When you take away illusions from one, you take away his life. Hope for salvation may be an illusion of life but this is necessary when you have no other way because the wretchedness of modern man can only be overcome by re-establishing faith. “There is shadow under this red rock comes in under the shadow of the red rock.”

Lucky's Dance and Speech

Lucky's dance is merely a clumsy shuffling, which is a complete disappointment to Vladimir and Estragon. Thus they decide to have Lucky think. They give him his hat, and after protesting Pozzo's brutality, they arrange themselves for Lucky's performance of thinking. It takes the form of a long, seemingly incoherent speech. The speech is delivered as a set piece, yet it is anything but a set piece. Under different directors, this scene can be variously played. For example, Lucky most often speaks directly to the audience with the other characters at his back, while Vladimir and Estragon become more and more agitated as the speech progresses. Often Vladimir and Estragon run forward and try to stop Lucky from continuing his speech. As they try to stop Lucky, he delivers his oration in rapid-fire shouts. At times, Pozzo pulls on Lucky's rope, making it even more difficult for him to continue with his speech. The frenzied activity on the stage, the rapid delivery of the speech, and the jerking of the rope make it virtually impossible to tell anything at all about the speech and, consequently, emphasize the metaphysical absurdity of the entire performance. Lucky's speech is an incoherent jumble of words which seems to upset Vladimir and Estragon, for sporadically both rise to protest some element of the speech. Therefore, the speech does communicate something to the two tramps or else they would not know to protest. The form of the speech is that of a scholarly, theological address, beginning "Given the existence . . . of a personal God," but it is actually a parody of this kind of address since the nonsensical and the absurd elements are in the foreground and the meaningful aspects of it are totally obscured, as is the God whom Lucky discusses. Here, we have a combination of the use of scholastic, theological terminology along with the absurd and the nonsensical. For example, the use of qua (a Latin term meaning "in the function or capacity of") is common in such scholarly addresses, but Lucky's repetition of the term as quaquaquaqua creates an absurd, derisive sound, as though God is being ridiculed by a quacking or squawking sound. Furthermore, the speech is filled with various academic sounding words, some real words like aphasia (a loss of speech; here it refers to the fact that God from his divine heights now has divine aphasia or a divine silence) and some words like apathia or athambia which do not exist (even though apathia is closely aligned to apathy and thus becomes another oblique comment on the apathy of God in the universe). Other absurd terms are used throughout the speech, and there is also a frequent use of words which sound obscene, interspersed throughout the speech. As an example, the names of the scholars Fartov and Belcher are obviously created for their vulgarity.

 Therefore, the speech is filled with more nonsense than sense — more that is illogical than that which is logical. If, however, we remove the illogical modifiers, irrelevancies, and incomprehensible statements and place them to the side. Lucky's speech is an attempt, however futile, to make a statement about man and God. Reduced to its essence, the speech is basically as follows: “acknowledging the existence of a personal God, one who exists outside of time and who loves us dearly and who suffers with those who are plunged into torment, it is established beyond all doubt that man, for reasons unknown, has left his labors abandoned, unfinished.”

 It is significant that the speech ends at this point because man can make certain assumptions about God and create certain hypotheses about God, but man can never come to a logical conclusion about God. One must finish a discourse about God, as Lucky did, by repeating "for reasons unknown . . . for reasons unknown . . . for reasons unknown . . . ." And equally important is the fact that any statement made about God is, by its nature, lost in a maze of irrelevance, absurdity, and incoherence — without an ending. Therefore, man's final comment about God can amount to nothing more than a bit of garbled noise which contains no coherent statement and no conclusion. Furthermore, Lucky's utterances are stopped only after he is physically overpowered by the others.

After the speech, Pozzo tiles to revive Lucky, who is emotionally exhausted, completely enervated by his speech. After great difficulty, Pozzo gets Lucky up, and amid protracted adieus, he begins to go, albeit he begins to go the wrong way. Pozzo's inability to leave suggests man's reliance upon others and his natural instinct to cling to someone else. But with one final adieu, Pozzo and Lucky depart.