Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett h The

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett h. The Condition of the Absurd: In Search of God?

Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity 1906 -1989

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØWaiting 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” ØIn Beckett’s work there is a deep existential anguish that is the keynote of Beckett’s work.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØRegarding the public’s lazy demand for easy comprehensibility he said: ØHere is a direct expression – pages and pages of it. And if you don’t 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 the 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 ØThe form that is an arbitrary and independent phenomenon can fulfill no higher function that of stimulus for a tertiary or quartary conditioned reflex of dribbling comprehension. ØBeckett and Language ØWaiting for Godot is the attempt to communicate where no communication is possible.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØFor 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. ØBeckett’s 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 Ø One of the best examples of how language is brought to the limits of signification, is Lucky’s 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. ØThis 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. ØIs 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 ØThe 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, 22 -23 and 68 -69).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØStructure and Circularity ØThe 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. Ø This is particularly clear in the circular structure of the play. There are many examples of this circularity.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØHere some examples: ØFor 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). ØAt 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 ØThe static situation is developed in this circular manner: ØBoth acts begin in the same manner: Estragon playing with his boot (2, 62) Ø Both acts finish in the same manner: “Estragon: Well? shall we go? Vladimir: Yes, let’s us go. They do not move” (59). “Vladimir: Well? shall we go? Estragon: Yes, let’s go. They do not move” (109) ØBoth acts end with the same lines of dialogue but spoken by the characters in reversed order.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØIn 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 ØAlso, 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. ØThis 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 ØIf 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. Ø Such attempts are doomed to failure. Beckett’s plays lack plot even more completely than other works of the Theatre of the Absurd.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØWaiting 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. ØThese structures are circular, as is the waiting of the two tramps. ØRather than attempt to answer questions we should attempt to see what questions are being asked.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØWaiting and Nothingness ØWaiting for Godot does not tell a story; it explores a static situation. ØThis is the central question: waiting for what? ØThe play it is not about Godot, but about waiting, and this central theme determines all the others. ØThis 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 man’s land.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØHere some examples: ØEstragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot” (8). Ø“Vladimir: Let’s wait and see what he says. Estragon: Who? Vladimir: Godot” (13). Ø“Estragon: Simply wait. Vladimir: We’re used to it” (39). Ø“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot” (76).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Ø“Estragon: What do we do now? Vladimir: While waiting. Estragon: While waiting” (86). Ø“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot” (88). ØVladimir: Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come” (91) Ø“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot” (96). Ø“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 ØWhat becomes evident is that both of them are ‘tied’ to Godot, they cannot but wait for him endlessly. ØGodot, then becomes the only hope for survival. ØHe is the one that controls their lives and the only possibility of redemption. Ø They can only be saved by Godot and therefore waiting until his arrival is a fate.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØThis becomes clear in several places in the text: Ø“Estragon: We are not tied? We’re not” (15) Ø“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 ØBeing tied implies that their lives are totally and irremediably dependent on Godot, and salvation is his decision alone: Ø“Vladimir: We’ll hang ourselves to-morrow. Unless Godot comes. Estragon: And if he comes? Vladimir: We’ll be saved” (109). Time and Void ØWaiting, 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 ØThey are aware that there is ‘nothing to be done’ while waiting, and this becomes and obsessive statement throughout the play. ØFirst, is the awareness that there is nothing that can help them in their waiting, and the void anxiety have to be confronted, and this is restated time and again, throughout the text. ØThis [nothing to be done] will be come the second, most important theme of the play.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØHere some examples: Ø“Estragon: Nothing to be done” (2). Ø“Vladimir: Nothing to be done” (4). Ø“Vladimir: Nothing to be done” (6). Ø“Estragon: Nothing to be done” (17). Ø“Estragon: In the meantime nothing happens” (40). Ø“Estragon: Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful! (43).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Ø“Vladimir: We’ve nothing more to do here. Estragon: Nor anywhere else (57). Ø“Estragon: What do we do now, now that we are happy? ” (66). Ø“Vladimir” There is nothing we can do” (76). Ø“Estragon: What’ll we do, what’ll we do! (80). Ø“Vladimir: There’s nothing to do” (84).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØBut it is critical for them to fill in time, which will also becomes the third, most important theme of the play. Ø It will travel throughout the entire text, becoming an obsession for the two of them. ØHere some examples: Ø“Vladimir: Ah yes, the two thieves. Do you remember the story. Estragon: No. Vladimir: It’ll pass the time” (6). Ø“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 Ø“Vladimir: That passed the time. Estragon: It would have passed in any case. Vladimir: Yes, but no so rapidly” (51). Ø“Vladimir: We could start all over again perhaps. […] Estragon: That’s the idea, let’s contradict each other” (70*). Ø“That wasn’t such a little canter” (72). Ø“Vladimir: No, I mean the boots. Estragon: Would that be a good thing? Vladimir: It’d pass the time. I assure you, it’d be an occupation” (77). ØEstragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist? ” (77).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Ø“Estragon: Then it’ll be day again. What’ll we do, what’ll we do!” (80). Ø“Vladimir: We could play at Pozzo and Lucky” (82) Ø“Vladimir: How time flies when one has fun!” (86) Ø“Vladimir: What about a little deep breathing? ” (86) Ø“A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. Come, let’s get to work!” (92). ØEstragon: To try him with other names, one after the other. It’d pass the time” (95).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØPassing the time, filling in time avoids thinking about their present, absurd, condition: Ø“Vladimir: We’re in no danger of ever thinking any more” (71). ØVladimir: What is terrible is to have thought” (71).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØPozzo and Lucky / Godot-God ØMany interpretations have been provided about Pozzo and Lucky, and most are wanting. ØHowever, 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? ØIt 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 ØI believe that Pozzo is Godot/God, and he functions as a material deployment of the two tramps dependence.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØOn page 17 they state that they are ‘tied’ to Godot. ØIn the first act, Pozzo has in fact tied Lucky to him, with a rope that allows him to control Lucky. ØIn the second act, Pozzo is tied to Lucky, does this suggest that Pozzo is a creation of Lucky? ØDoes Lucky, then, represent Vladimir and Estragon, and therefore Humanity? ØPozzo 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 Ø Some Conclusions ØMoreover, 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. Ø 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 ØWaiting 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. Ø The ceaseless activity of time is self-defeating, purposeless and therefore null and void. ØThe 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 ØOne 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 we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we’ll die, the same day, the same second… They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams and instant, then it’s night once more (103). ØVladimir 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 ØAgain, 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 ØThat Waiting for Godot is concerned with the hope of salvation through the workings of grace seems clearly established both from Beckett’s own evidence and from the text itself. Ø But the act of waiting for Godot is shown as essentially absurd. ØAnd suicide remains their favourite solution. The failure to commit suicide leads them to rationalize waiting: ‘I’m curious to hear what he has to offer. Then we’ll take it or leave it’ (13).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Ø Godot’s function seems to be to keep his dependents unconscious. ØIn 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. ØFor 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 can’t go on. What have I said? (105).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ØThe routine of waiting for Godot stands for habit, which prevents us from reaching the painful but fruitful awareness of the full reality of being. ØVladimir’s and Estragon’s pastimes are, as they repeatedly indicate, designed to stop them from thinking. ‘We’re 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 ØThe hope of salvation may be merely an evasion of the suffering and anguish that spring from facing the reality of the human condition. ØAnd this is the play all about. It does not provide answers, but hints that we should accept nothingness. ØIn this there is a clear relationship to the Existentialist philosophy of the time (Jean-Paul Sartre).

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Ø 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’ (L’Être et la Néant, 111) ØEND