Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The Condition of the Absurd: In Search of God?

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Waiting for Godot received its first impressions of the

type of drama against which Beckett reacted in his
rejection of what he has called the grotesque fallacy
of realistic art that miserable statement of line and
surface and the penny-a-line vulgarity of a literature
of notations

In Becketts work there is a deep existential anguish

that is the keynote of Becketts work.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Regarding the publics lazy demand for easy

comprehensibility he said:

Here is a direct expression pages and pages of it. And

if you dont understand it, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is
because you are too decadent to receive it. You are not
satisfied unless form is so strictly divorced from content
that you can comprehend the one almost without
bothering to read the other. This rapid skimming and
absorption of th scant cream of sense is made possible
by what I may call a continuous process of copious
intellectual salivation.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The form that is an arbitrary and independent

phenomenon can fulfill no higher function that that of
stimulus for a tertiary or quartary conditioned reflex of
dribbling comprehension.

Beckett and Language

Waiting for Godot is the attempt to communicate
where no communication is possible.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

For an artist therefore, according to Beckett, the only

possible spiritual development is in the sense of depth.
The artistic tendency is not expansive, but a
contradiction. And art the apotheosis of solitude.
There is no communication because there are no
vehicles of communication.

Becketts work was one of the first works to point to the

fallibility of language as a medium for
communication of metaphysical truth.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Anyone who speaks is carried along by the logic of

language and its articulations.

Thus the writer who pits himself or herself against the

unsayable must use all his/her cunning so as not to say
what the words make him/her say against his will, but to
express instead what by their nature they are
designed to cover up: the uncertain, the
contradictory, the unthinkable.

The play is of a difficult reception because is so

enigmatic, so exasperating, so complex, and so
uncompromising in its refusal to conform to any of the
accepted ideas of dramatic construction.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

One of the best examples of how language is brought to

the limits of signification, is Luckys speech (p. 45),

that is, how his speech reflects and performs the limits of
speech by presenting almost a pure signifier at work,
where the signified has slide under the signifier.

This limit situation of language is also revealed by the

cross-talk which prevent Vladimir and Estragon to
become aware of their situation, and thus they attempt to
escape anguish and suffering.

Is the meaning of the play related to language or is

beyond language? What is the meaning of this play:
Beckett once said: If I knew, I would have said so in
the play.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The cross-talk also provide a good example of the

impossibility of language to communicate, in fact,

they reveal the very failure of language. (p. 14, 2223 and 68-69).

Any endeavour to arrive at a clear and certain

condition is difficult, and always open to
uncertaintiy.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Structure and Circularity

The form, structure, and mood of an artistic statement

cannot be separated from its meaning, its conceptual
content; simply because the work of art as a whole is its
meaning, what is said in it is indissolubly linked with
the manner in which it is said, and cannot be said in
any other way.

This is particularly clear in the circular structure of

the play. There are many examples of this circularity.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Here some examples:

For instance the cross-talk, not only has the function to
pass time and neutralizing meaning, but also
structurally functions in both acts (p. 14, 22-23 and
68-69).

At the beginning of both acts there is a tree, and the

space is the same, indescribably barren and desolate.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The static situation is developed in this circular manner:

Both acts begin in the same manner: Estragon playing

with his boot (2, 62)

Both acts finish in the same manner: Estragon:

Well? shall we go? Vladimir: Yes, lets us go. They do

not move (59). Vladimir: Well? shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, lets go. They do not move (109)

Both acts end with the same lines of dialogue but

spoken by the characters in reversed order.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

In both acts they attempt suicide but fail. In fact, the

suicide is more a game than a serious attempt, and
allows them to pass time

Also, in both acts Pozzo and Lucky appear, although

in different circumstances: during the first act, Pozzo
is the Master and Lucky the salve; in the second,
Pozzo I blind and therefore dependent, and Lucky is
more his Lazarillo who guides him through the road.

This static situation and circularity is also assured by

the repetitive quality of the dialogue, a dialogue that
does not communicate, but simply fills up time.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

If only we could discover some hidden clue, it is felt,

these difficult plays could be forced to yield their
secret and reveal the plot of the conventional play
that is hidden within them.

Such attempts are doomed to failure. Becketts plays

lack plot even more completely than other works of
the Theatre of the Absurd.

Instead of a linear development, they present their

authors intuition of the human condition by a
method that is essentially polyphonic.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Waiting for Godot confronts its audience with an

organized structure of statements and images that
interpenetrate each other and that must be
apprehended in their totality, rather like the different
themes in a symphony, which gain meaning by their
simultaneous interaction.

These structures are circular, as is the waiting of the

two tramps.

Rather than attempt to answer questions we should

attempt to see what questions are being asked.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Waiting and Nothingness

Waiting for Godot does not tell a story; it explores a

static situation.

This is the central question: waiting for what?

The play it is not about Godot, but about waiting,
and this central theme determines all the others.

This central theme, waiting, will be a recurrent

reality within the play, one that it seems to remind
Vladimir and Estragon why they are where are: in
no mans land.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Here some examples:

Estragon: Lets go. Vladimir: We cant. Estragon: Why

not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot (8).

Vladimir: Lets wait and see what he says. Estragon:

Who? Vladimir: Godot (13).

Estragon: Simply wait. Vladimir: Were used to it

(39).

Estragon: Lets go. Vladimir: We cant. Estragon: Why

not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot (76).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Estragon: What do we do now? Vladimir: While

waiting. Estragon: While waiting (86).

Estragon: Lets go. Vladimir: We cant. Estragon: Why

not? Vladimir: Were waiting for Godot (88).

Vladimir: Yes, in this immense confusion one thing

alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come (91)

Estragon: Lets go. Vladimir: We cant. Estragon: Why

not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot (96).

Pozzo: What is he waiting for? Vladimir: What are you

waiting for? Estragon: I am waiting for Godot (100).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

What becomes evident is that both of them are tied to

Godot, they cannot but wait for him endlessly.

Godot, then becomes the only hope for survival.

He is the one that controls their lives and the only

possibility of redemption.

They can only be saved by Godot and therefore

waiting until his arrival is a fate.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

This becomes clear in several places in the text:

Estragon: We are not tied? Were not (15)

Estragon: I am asking you if you are tied. Vladimir:

Tied? Estragon: Tied? Vladimir: How do you mean

tied? Estragon: Down. Vladimir: But by whom? By
whom? Estragon: To your man. Vladimir: To
Godot? Tied to Godot! What an idea! No question
of it (17).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Being tied implies that their lives are totally and

irremediably dependent on Godot, and salvation is his
decision alone:

Vladimir: Well hang ourselves to-morrow. Unless

Godot comes. Estragon: And if he comes? Vladimir:
Well be saved (109).
Time and Void

Waiting, as the central theme of the play leads the two

characters to avoid time and make the waiting
bearable by filling in time with futile actions.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

They are aware that there is nothing to be done

while waiting, and this becomes and obsessive
statement throughout the play.

First, is the awareness that there is nothing that can

help them in their waiting, and the void and anxiety
have to be confronted, and this is restated time and
again, throughout the text.

This [nothing to be done] will be come the second,

most important theme of the play.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Here some examples:

Estragon: Nothing to be done (2).

Vladimir: Nothing to be done (4).

Vladimir: Nothing to be done (6).

Estragon: Nothing to be done (17).

Estragon: In the meantime nothing happens (40).

Estragon: Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody
goes, its awful! (43).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Vladimir: Weve nothing more to do here. Estragon:

Nor anywhere else (57).

Estragon: What do we do now, now that we are

happy? (66).

Vladimir There is nothing we can do (76).

Estragon: Whatll we do, whatll we do! (80).
Vladimir: Theres nothing to do (84).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

But it is critical for them to fill in time, which will also

becomes the third, most important theme of the play.

It will travel throughout the entire text, becoming an

obsession for the two of them.

Here some examples:

Vladimir: Ah yes, the two thieves. Do you remember

the story. Estragon: No. Vladimir: Itll pass the time

(6).
Vladimir: What do we do no? Estragon: Wait.
Vladimir: Yes, but while waiting. Estragon: What about
hanging ourselves? (12)

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Vladimir: That passed the time. Estragon: It would

have passed in any case. Vladimir: Yes, but no so
rapidly (51).

Vladimir: We could start all over again perhaps. []

Estragon: Thats the idea, lets contradict each other
(70*).

That wasnt such a little canter (72).

Vladimir: No, I mean the boots. Estragon: Would that
be a good thing? Vladimir: Itd pass the time. I assure
you, itd be an occupation (77).

Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us

the impression we exist? (77).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Estragon: Then itll be day again. Whatll we do,

whatll we do! (80).

Vladimir: We could play at Pozzo and Lucky (82)

Vladimir: How time flies when one has fun! (86)

Vladimir: What about a little deep breathing? (86)

A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it
go to waste. Come, lets get to work! (92).

Estragon: To try him with other names, one after the

other. Itd pass the time (95).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Passing the time, filling in time avoids thinking about

their present, absurd, condition:

Vladimir: Were in no danger of ever thinking any

more (71).

Vladimir: What is terrible is to have thought (71).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Pozzo and Lucky / Godot-God

Many interpretations have been provided about Pozzo

and Lucky, and most are wanting.

However, there some basic questions that must be

answer: Why Pozzo and Lucky are in the Play? Why
in the first act, their presence lasts for almost half of
the act?

It is not enough to say that say, as Martin Esslin does,

that Pozzo and Lucky represents materiality and
spirituality respectively.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

I believe that Pozzo is Godot/God, and he functions

as a material deployment of the two tramps
dependence.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

On page 17 they state that they are tied to Godot.

In the first act, Pozzo has in fact tied Lucky to him,
with a rope that allows him to control Lucky.

In the second act, Pozzo is tied to Lucky, does this

suggest that Pozzo is a creation of Lucky?

Does Lucky, then, represent Vladimir and Estragon,

and therefore Humanity?

Pozzo comes and goes, he never reveals who he really

is, and with his departure leaves Vladimir and Estragon
waiting for ever.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Some Conclusions

Moreover, it is in the act of waiting that we experience

the flow of time in its purest, most evident form. If we
are active, we tend to forget the passage of time, we
pass the time, but if we are merely passively waiting, we
are confronted with the action of time itself.

As Beckett points out: There is no escape from the

hours and days. Neither from tomorrow nor from
yesterday because yesterday has deformed us, or been
deformed by us. [] The flow of time confronts us with
the basic problem of being.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Waiting is to experience the action of time, which is

constant change: Pozzo is blind, Lucky is dumb. And
yet, as nothing real ever happens, that change is in itself
an illusion.

The ceaseless activity of time is self-defeating,

purposeless and therefore null and void.

The more things change, the more they are the same.
The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each
one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops
says Pozzo (32).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

One day is like another, and when we die, we might

never have existed: Pozzo: Have you not done
tormenting me with your accursed time? One day, is
that not enough for you, one day like any other day, he
went dumb, one day I went blind, one day well go deaf,
one day we were born, one day well die, the same day,
the same second They give birth astride of a grave,
the light gleams and instant, then its night once more
(103).

Vladimir and Estragon live in hope: they wait for Godot,

whose coming will bring the flow of time to a stop.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Again, it seems to be concerned with the fortuitousness

of salvation: (Lucky 45). God, who does not
communicate with us (aphasia), cannot feel for us,
and condemns us for reasons unknown.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

That Waiting for Godot is concerned with the hope of

salvation through the workings of grace seems clearly
established both from Becketts own evidence and from
the text itself.

But the act of waiting for Godot is shown as

essentially absurd.

And suicide remains their favourite solution. The

failure to commit suicide leads them to rationalize
waiting: Im curious to hear what he has to offer. Then
well take it or leave it (13).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Godots function seems to be to keep his dependents

unconscious.

In this view the hope, that habit of hoping, that Godot

might come after all is the last illusion that keeps
Vladimir and Estragon from facing the human
condition and themselves in the harsh light of fully
conscious awareness.

For a brief moment Vladimir is aware of the full

horror of the human condition: The air is full of our
cries.But habit is a great deadener. At me too
someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, he is
sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on I cant go
on. What have I said? (105).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The routine of waiting for Godot stands for habit, which

prevents us from reaching the painful but fruitful
awareness of the full reality of being.

Vladimirs and Estragons pastimes are, as they

repeatedly indicate, designed to stop them from
thinking. Were in no danger of thinking any more
Thinking is not the worst What is terrible is to have
thought (71).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The hope of salvation may be merely an evasion of the

suffering and anguish that spring from facing the reality
of the human condition.

And this is the play all about. It does not provide

answers, but hints that we should accept
nothingness.

In this there is a clear relationship to the

Existentialist philosophy of the time (Jean-Paul
Sartre).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

If, for Beckett as for Sartre, human beings have the

duty of facing the human condition as a recognition
that at the root of our being there is nothingness,
liberty, and the need of constantly creating ourselves in
a succession of choices, then Godot might well become
an image of what Sartre calls bad faith The first
act of bad faith consists in evading what one cannot
evade, in evading what one is (Ltre et la Nant,
111)