Waiting for Godot: Absurdity, Time, and Meaning in Beckett’s Play
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: An Analysis
Samuel Beckett (1906 – 1989) was an Irish Protestant writer from a middle-class background and assistant to James Joyce. He was educated at Trinity College (Dublin), where he learned French, Italian, and English. He experienced panic attacks from the age of 20 and suffered a mental breakdown in the 1930s. He lived through the Second World War and escaped to Vichy during the French Resistance. From 1954 onwards, he enjoyed the most fruitful stage of his career. In 1969, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature and became a celebrity. Beckett wrote in both English and French and translated his own works from one language to the other. Perhaps for this reason, Waiting for Godot references the Eiffel Tower.
His works include poetry, short stories, novels, plays (whose staging he directed), and essays. He also wrote radio plays and plays for television (BBC). Beckett’s main works in English are Murphy, Watt, Happy Days, and Waiting for Godot (which is also his most important play in French).
General Aspects of Beckett’s Work
Key aspects of his work include a tendency towards compression, simplification, and erasure of the accessory. He opposed mimesis, believing that art should not imitate life. In drama, he paid special attention to the visual and kinetic elements, to silence and pauses, and to performance, considering rhythm, silence, movement, and stillness.
The Theatre of the Absurd
Beckett’s works are often categorized as belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd. This concept, coined by Martin Esslin, has two important aspects:
- Philosophical: The absurdity of life, the lack of meaning or purpose. This is reflected in Waiting for Godot, where Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot for an unknown reason. They repeatedly state that Godot will save them, but from what? This expresses the post-war doubts about humanity’s ability to understand and control its world. Furthermore, the audience never learns who Godot is.
- Aesthetic: Anti-mimetic art, arbitrary.
The Theatre of the Absurd draws influences from figures like James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and Dadaism.
Existentialism in Waiting for Godot
The play also reflects an existentialist position, representing the subject’s inability to understand the meaning of the world. We see an acceptance of the pointlessness of existence. In fact, at the beginning of Waiting for Godot, Vladimir says, “Suppose we repented,” and Estragon answers, “Of being born?”
Allusions to Time
In Waiting for Godot, there are several allusions to time:
- References to a past life; suggestions of a post-apocalyptic world.
“- You should have been a poet. – I was” “That was nearly sixty years ago…”
In this play, waiting is an anti-action, and life passes in waiting. This echoes a John Lennon quote: “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
Repetition and Doubling
Other important elements in this play are repetition and doublings, represented in different ways:
- Text:
- – Let’s go
- – We can’t
- – Why not?
- – We’re waiting for Godot.
- Characters in pairs: Vladimir & Estragon; Lucky & Pozzo. However, there are some plot event variations: the boy messenger.
- Loop and endless repetition: the moment in which Estragon and Vladimir exchange hats.
The Meaning of Repetition
The meaning of repetition in life is routine, habits, and it also expresses confusion due to a lack of time references, making the audience feel as the characters feel. Repetitions also represent the pointlessness of communication (unfinished conversations, fragmentary dialogue).
Time in this work is cyclic. Thus, in the first and second acts, the events occur in the same way. First, Vladimir and Estragon are waiting, then Pozzo and Lucky arrive, and when they leave, a boy with a message appears, and finally, Vladimir and Estragon continue waiting alone. In addition, a showy element is present throughout the play: a tree, as a symbol of eternal return (the leaves of the tree fall and return to be born, always following the same cycle). The tree also represents natural renewal, the tree of life, and biblical resonance.
Variations in the Play
Nevertheless, there are some variations:
- Estragon has amnesia. On the second day (second act), he does not remember what he did or when he was there the day before, and Vladimir tries to convince him of the passing of time.
- The tree mentioned before also undergoes a change: In the first act, it is leafless, and in the second, it has four or five leaves.
- Pozzo and Lucky have changed too. Pozzo has gone blind, and Lucky is mute.
Humor and Irony
In Waiting for Godot, there are humorous elements such as ironies, wordplays, and nonsense.
For example, during Lucky’s speech in the first act, we can observe a disintegration of language, gross humor in the dialogue:
– “What about hanging ourselves? – Hmm. It’d give us an erection.
They usually say one thing and do the opposite. At the end of the play, Vladimir says, “Shall we go?” and Estragon answers him, “Yes, let’s go,” and they don’t move. Beckett drew inspiration from clowns and silent movies (Chaplin, Buster Keaton). Estragon loses the cord that holds up his trousers, which, being much too big for him, fall about his ankles. This makes comedy out of the tragic.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Samuel Beckett tries to represent the nonsense of life, the lack of creativity as the tragedy for the human being through mechanical dialogues, loneliness, the passing of time, hope (and hopelessness). It is a work full of symbols and significance. As we know, Beckett wrote this play after the Second World War, so his experiences in this war were useful in writing it.