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Waiting for Godot

• . Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot was first performed on 5 January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris,

absurd /əbˈsəːd/

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adjective 1. wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate. "the allegations are patently absurd"

Definition of absurd : The state or condition in which human beings exist in an irrational and meaningless universe and in which human life has no ultimate meaning. Absurd Drama:

Etymology[edit] Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay "The ".[2] He grouped these plays around the broad theme of the Absurd, similar to the way uses the term in his 1942 essay The of Sisyphus.[3] The Absurd in these plays takes the form of man's reaction to a world apparently without meaning, or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. This style of writing was first popularized by the Eugène Ionesco The Bald Soprano (1950). Although the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to , mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the "well-made play". In his book Absurd Drama (1965), Esslin wrote: The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy. It aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.[citation needed]

Playwrights commonly associated with the Theatre of the Absurd include Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, , Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter, , , Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Miguel Mihura, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Fernando Arrabal, Václav Havel, , Malay Roy Choudhury, Tadeusz Różewicz, Sławomir Mrożek, N.F. Simpson, and Badal Sarkar (Badal Sircar).[4]

Origin of Absurd Drama:

In the first edition of The Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin saw the work of these playwrights as giving artistic meaning to Albert Camus's philosophy that life is inherently without meaning, as illustrated in his work The Myth of Sisyphus. In the first (1961) edition, Esslin presented the four defining playwrights of the movement as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Eugène Ionesco, and Jean Genet, and in subsequent editions he added a fifth playwright, Harold Pinter—although each of these writers has unique preoccupations and characteristics that go beyond the term "absurd."[5][6] Other writers associated with this group by Esslin and other critics include Tom Stoppard,[7] Friedrich Dürrenmatt,[8] Fernando Arrabal,[9] Edward Albee,[10] Boris Vian,[11] and Jean Tardieu.[5][6][9] Significant precursors Though the label "Theatre of the Absurd" covers a wide variety of playwrights with differing styles, they do have some common stylistic precursors (Esslin [1961]). These precursors include Elizabethan , formal experimentation, pataphysics, , Dadaism, and most importantly . Elizabethan – tragicomedy] The mode of most "absurdist" plays is tragicomedy.[12][13] As Nell says in , "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness … it's the most comical thing in the world".[14] Esslin cites William Shakespeare as an influence on this aspect of the "Absurd drama."[15] Shakespeare's influence is acknowledged directly in the titles of Ionesco's Macbett and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Friedrich Dürrenmatt says in his essay "Problems of the Theatre", "Comedy alone is suitable for us … But the tragic is still possible even if pure tragedy is not. We can achieve the tragic out of comedy. We can bring it forth as a frightening moment, as an abyss that opens suddenly; indeed, many of Shakespeare's tragedies are already really comedies out of which the tragic arises."[16] Though layered with a significant amount of tragedy, the Theatre of the Absurd echoes other great forms of comedic performance, according to Esslin, from Commedia dell'arte to vaudeville.[12][17] Similarly, Esslin cites early film comedians and music hall artists such as , the Keystone Cops and as direct influences. (Keaton even starred in Beckett's Film in 1965.)[18]

Formal experimentation of Absurd Drama:

As an experimental form of theatre, many Theatre of the Absurd playwrights employ techniques borrowed from earlier innovators. Writers and techniques frequently mentioned in relation to the Theatre of the Absurd include the 19th-century nonsense poets, such as Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear;[19] Polish playwright Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz;[20] the Russians Daniil Kharms,[21] Nikolai Erdman,[22] and others; 's distancing techniques in his "Epic theatre";[23] and the "dream plays" of .[5][24] One commonly cited precursor is Luigi Pirandello, especially Six Characters in Search of an Author.[24][25] Pirandello was a highly regarded theatrical experimentalist who wanted to bring down the fourth wall presupposed by the realism of playwrights such as . According to W. B. Worthen, Six Characters and other Pirandello plays use "Metatheatre— roleplaying, plays-within-plays, and a flexible sense of the limits of stage and illusion—to examine a highly-theatricalized vision of identity".[26] Another influential playwright was whose The Breasts of Tiresias was the first work to be called "surreal".[27][28][29] Pataphysics, surrealism, and Dadaism] One of the most significant common precursors is whose wild, irreverent, and lascivious Ubu plays scandalized Paris in the 1890s. Likewise, the concept of 'pataphysics— "the science of imaginary solutions"—first presented in Jarry's Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien (Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician)[30] was inspirational to many later Absurdists,[28] some of whom joined the Collège de 'pataphysique, founded in honor of Jarry in 1948[27][31] (Ionesco,[32] Arrabal, and Vian[32][33] were given the title Transcendent Satrape of the Collège de 'pataphysique). The Theatre Alfred Jarry, founded by and Roger Vitrac, housed several Absurdist plays, including ones by Ionesco and Adamov.[34][35] Artaud's "The Theatre of Cruelty" (presented in The Theatre and Its Double) was a particularly important philosophical treatise. Artaud claimed theatre's reliance on literature was inadequate and that the true power of theatre was in its visceral impact.[36][37][38] Artaud was a Surrealist, and many other members of the Surrealist group were significant influences on the Absurdists.[39][40][41] is also frequently compared to Surrealism's predecessor, Dadaism (for example, the Dadaist plays by performed at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich).[42] Many of the Absurdists had direct connections with the Dadaists and Surrealists. Ionesco,[43][44] Adamov,[45][46] and Arrabal[47] for example, were friends with Surrealists still living in Paris at the time including Paul Eluard and André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, and Beckett translated many Surrealist poems by Breton and others from French into English.[48][49] Relationship with existentialism Many of the Absurdists were contemporaries with Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosophical spokesman for existentialism in Paris, but few Absurdists actually committed to Sartre's own existentialist philosophy, as expressed in Being and Nothingness, and many of the Absurdists had a complicated relationship with him. Sartre praised Genet's plays, stating that for Genet, "Good is only an illusion. Evil is a Nothingness which arises upon the ruins of Good".[50] Ionesco, however, hated Sartre bitterly.[51] Ionesco accused Sartre of supporting Communism but ignoring the atrocities committed by Communists; he wrote Rhinoceros as a criticism of blind conformity, whether it be to Nazism or Communism; at the end of the play, one man remains on Earth resisting transformation into a rhinoceros[52][53] Sartre criticized Rhinoceros by questioning: "Why is there one man who resists? At least we could learn why, but no, we learn not even that. He resists because he is there".[54][55] Sartre's criticism highlights a primary difference between the Theatre of the Absurd and existentialism: the Theatre of the Absurd shows the failure of man without recommending a solution.[56] In a 1966 interview, Claude Bonnefoy, comparing the Absurdists to Sartre and Camus, said to Ionesco, "It seems to me that Beckett, Adamov and yourself started out less from philosophical reflections or a return to classical sources, than from first-hand experience and a desire to find a new theatrical expression that would enable you to render this experience in all its acuteness and also its immediacy. If Sartre and Camus thought out these themes, you expressed them in a far more vital contemporary fashion". Ionesco replied, "I have the feeling that these writers – who are serious and important – were talking about absurdity and death, but that they never really lived these themes, that they did not feel them within themselves in an almost irrational, visceral way, that all this was not deeply inscribed in their language. With them it was still , eloquence. With Adamov and Beckett it really is a very naked reality that is conveyed through the apparent dislocation of language".[57] In comparison to Sartre's concepts of the function of literature, Samuel Beckett's primary focus was on the failure of man to overcome "absurdity" - or the repetition of life even though the end result will be the same no matter what and everything is essentially pointless - as James Knowlson says in Damned to Fame, Beckett's work focuses, "on poverty, failure, exile and loss — as he put it, on man as a 'non-knower' and as a 'non-can-er' ."[58] Beckett's own relationship with Sartre was complicated by a mistake made in the publication of one of his stories in Sartre's journal Les Temps Modernes.[59] Beckett said, though he liked Nausea, he generally found the writing style of Sartre and Heidegger to be "too philosophical" and he considered himself "not a philosopher".[60]

History of Absurd Drama:

The "Absurd" or "New Theater" movement was originally a Paris-based (and a Rive Gauche) avant-garde phenomenon tied to extremely small theaters in the Quartier Latin. Some of the Absurdists, such as Jean Genet,[61] Jean Tardieu,[62] and Boris Vian.,[63] were born in France. Many other Absurdists were born elsewhere but lived in France, writing often in French: Samuel Beckett from Ireland;[62] Eugène Ionesco from Romania;[62] Arthur Adamov from Russia;[62] Alejandro Jodorowsky from Chile and Fernando Arrabal from Spain.[64] As the influence of the Absurdists grew, the style spread to other countries—with playwrights either directly influenced by Absurdists in Paris or playwrights labelled Absurdist by critics. In some of those whom Esslin considered practitioners of the Theatre of the Absurd include Harold Pinter,[62] Tom Stoppard,[65] N. F. Simpson,[62] James Saunders,[66] and David Campton;[67] in the United States, Edward Albee,[62] Sam Shepard,[68] Jack Gelber,[69] and John Guare;[70] in Poland, Tadeusz Różewicz,[62] Sławomir Mrożek,[62] and Tadeusz Kantor;[71] in Italy, Dino Buzzati;[72] and in Germany, Peter Weiss,[73] Wolfgang Hildesheimer,[62] and Günter Grass.[62] In India, both Mohit Chattopadhyay[74] and Mahesh Elkunchwar[74] have also been labeled Absurdists. Other international Absurdist playwrights include Tawfiq el-Hakim from Egypt;[75] Hanoch Levin from Israel;[76] Miguel Mihura from Spain;[77] José de Almada Negreiros from Portugal;[78] Mikhail Volokhov[79] from Russia; Yordan Radichkov from Bulgaria;[80] and playwright and former Czech President Václav Havel.[62] Major productions in the field of Absurd Drama:

• Jean Genet's The Maids (Les Bonnes) premiered in 1947.[81] • Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano (La Cantatrice Chauve) was first performed on May 11, 1950 at the Théâtre des Noctambules. Ionesco followed this with The Lesson (La Leçon) in 1951 and The Chairs (Les Chaises) in 1952.[82][83] • Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot was first performed on 5 January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris.[84] • In 1957, Genet's The Balcony (Le Balcon) was produced in at the .[85] • That May, Harold Pinter's The Room was presented at The Drama Studio at the University of Bristol.[86][87] Pinter's The Birthday Party premiered in the West End in 1958.[88] • Edward Albee's The Zoo Story premiered in West Berlin at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt in 1959.[89] • On October 28, 1959, Krapp's Last Tape by Beckett was first performed at the in London.[90] • Fernando Arrabal's Picnic on the Battlefield (Pique-nique en campagne) came out in 1958.[91][92] • Genet's The Blacks (Les Nègres) was published that year but was first performed at the Théatre de Lutèce in Paris on 28 October 1959.[93] • 1959 also saw the completion of Ionesco's Rhinoceros which premiered in Paris in January 1960 at the Odeon.[94] • Beckett's was first performed at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York on 17 September 1961.[95] • Albee's Who's Afraid of ? also premiered in New York the following year, on October 13.[89] • Pinter's The Homecoming premiered in London in June 1965 at the Aldwych Theatre.[96][97] • Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade) was first performed in West Berlin in 1964 and in New York City a year later.[98] • Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966.[99] • Arrabal's Automobile Graveyard (Le Cimetière des voitures) was also first performed in 1966.[91] • Lebanese author Issam Mahfouz's play The Dictator premiered in Beirut in 1969.[100] • Beckett's —dedicated to then-imprisoned Czech dissident playwright Václav Havel, who became president of Czechoslovakia after the 1989 Velvet Revolution—was first performed at the Avignon Festival on July 21, 1982.[101][102] The film version (, 2001) was directed by David Mamet and performed by Harold Pinter, Sir , and Rebecca Pidgeon.[103] Legacy Echoes of elements of "The Theatre of the Absurd" can be seen in the work of many later playwrights, from more avant-garde or experimental playwrights like Suzan-Lori Parks— in The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World and The America Play,[104] for example—to relatively realistic playwrights like David Mamet—in Glengarry Glen Ross, which Mamet dedicated to Harold Pinter.[105][106] Irish playwright Martin McDonagh in plays such as Pillowman[107] addresses some of the themes and uses some of the techniques of Absurdism, especially reminiscent of Beckett[108] and Pinter.[109][110]

Theatrical features of Absurd Drama:

Plays within this group are absurd in that they focus not on logical acts, realistic occurrences, or traditional character development; they, instead, focus on human beings trapped in an incomprehensible world subject to any occurrence, no matter how illogical.[111][112][113] The theme of incomprehensibility is coupled with the inadequacy of language to form meaningful human connections.[27] According to Martin Esslin, Absurdism is "the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose"[114] Absurdist drama asks its viewer to "draw his own conclusions, make his own errors".[115] Though Theatre of the Absurd may be seen as nonsense, they have something to say and can be understood".[116] Esslin makes a distinction between the dictionary definition of absurd ("out of harmony" in the musical sense) and drama's understanding of the Absurd: "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless".[117]

Characters in Absurd Drama:

The characters in Absurdist drama are lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe and they abandon rational devices and discursive thought because these approaches are inadequate.[118] Many characters appear as automatons stuck in routines speaking only in cliché (Ionesco called the Old Man and Old Woman in The Chairs "übermarionettes").[119][120] Characters are frequently stereotypical, archetypal, or flat character types as in Commedia dell'arte.[121][122][123] The more complex characters are in crisis because the world around them is incomprehensible.[123] Many of Pinter's plays, for example, feature characters trapped in an enclosed space menaced by some force the character can't understand. Pinter's first play was The Room – in which the main character, Rose, is menaced by Riley who invades her safe space though the actual source of menace remains a mystery[124] – and this theme of characters in a safe space menaced by an outside force is repeated in many of his later works (perhaps most famously in The Birthday Party). In Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit, the main character, Alfred, is menaced by Claire Zachanassian; Claire, richest woman in the world with a decaying body and multiple husbands throughout the play, has guaranteed a payout for anyone in the town willing to kill Alfred.[125] Characters in Absurdist drama may also face the chaos of a world that science and logic have abandoned. Ionesco's recurring character Berenger, for example, faces a killer without motivation in The Killer, and Berenger's logical arguments fail to convince the killer that killing is wrong.[126] In Rhinocéros, Berenger remains the only human on Earth who hasn't turned into a rhinoceros and must decide whether or not to conform.[127][128] Characters may find themselves trapped in a routine, or in a metafictional conceit, trapped in a story; the title characters in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, for example, find themselves in a story (Hamlet) in which the outcome has already been written.[129][130] The plots of many Absurdist plays feature characters in interdependent pairs, commonly either two males or a male and a female. Some Beckett scholars call this the "pseudocouple".[131][132] The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence (like Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot[129] or the two main characters in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead); one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character (like Pozzo and Lucky in Waiting for Godot or Hamm and Clov in Endgame); the relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play (as in Ionesco's The Lesson[133] or in many of Albee's plays, The Zoo Story[134][135] for example).

Language of Absurd Drama:

Despite its reputation for nonsense language, much of the dialogue in Absurdist plays is naturalistic. The moments when characters resort to nonsense language or clichés—when words appear to have lost their denotative function, thus creating misunderstanding among the characters—make the Theatre of the Absurd distinctive.[27][136] Language frequently gains a certain phonetic, rhythmical, almost musical quality, opening up a wide range of often comedic playfulness.[137] Jean Tardieu, for example, in the series of short pieces Theatre de Chambre arranged the language as one arranges music.[138] Distinctively Absurdist language ranges from meaningless clichés to vaudeville-style word play to meaningless nonsense.[133][139] The Bald Soprano, for example, was inspired by a language book in which characters would exchange empty clichés that never ultimately amounted to true communication or true connection.[140][141] Likewise, the characters in The Bald Soprano—like many other Absurdist characters—go through routine dialogue full of clichés without actually communicating anything substantive or making a human connection.[142][143] In other cases, the dialogue is purposefully elliptical; the language of Absurdist Theater becomes secondary to the poetry of the concrete and objectified images of the stage.[144] Many of Beckett's plays devalue language for the sake of the striking tableau.[145] Harold Pinter—famous for his "Pinter pause"—presents more subtly elliptical dialogue; often the primary things characters should address are replaced by ellipsis or dashes. The following exchange between Aston and Davies in is typical of Pinter: ASTON. More or less exactly what you... DAVIES. That's it … that's what I'm getting at is … I mean, what sort of jobs … (Pause.) ASTON. Well, there's things like the stairs … and the … the bells … DAVIES. But it'd be a matter … wouldn't it … it'd be a matter of a broom … isn't it?[146] Much of the dialogue in Absurdist drama (especially in Beckett's and Albee's plays, for example) reflects this kind of evasiveness and inability to make a connection.[134] When language that is apparently nonsensical appears, it also demonstrates this disconnection. It can be used for comic effect, as in Lucky's long speech in Godot when Pozzo says Lucky is demonstrating a talent for "thinking" as other characters comically attempt to stop him: LUCKY. Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment...[147] Nonsense may also be used abusively, as in Pinter's The Birthday Party when Goldberg and McCann torture Stanley with apparently nonsensical questions and non-sequiturs: GOLDBERG. What do you use for pajamas? STANLEY. Nothing. GOLDBERG. You verminate the sheet of your birth. MCCANN. What about the Albigensenist heresy? GOLDBERG. Who watered the wicket in Melbourne? MCCANN. What about the blessed Oliver Plunkett? GOLDBERG. Speak up Webber. Why did the chicken cross the road?[148] As in the above examples, nonsense in Absurdist theatre may be also used to demonstrate the limits of language while questioning or parodying the determinism of science and the knowability of truth.[149][150][151] In Ionesco's The Lesson, a professor tries to force a pupil to understand his nonsensical philology lesson: PROFESSOR. … In Spanish: the roses of my grandmother are as yellow as my grandfather who is Asiatic; in Latin: the roses of my grandmother are as yellow as my grandfather who is Asiatic. Do you detect the difference? Translate this into … Romanian PUPIL. The … how do you say "roses" in Romanian? PROFESSOR. But "roses", what else? … "roses" is a translation in Oriental of the French word "roses", in Spanish "roses", do you get it? In Sardanapali, "roses"...[152]

Waiting for Godot

PLAY BY BECKETT Samuel Barclay Beckett (/ˈbɛkɪt/; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. A resident of Paris for most of his adult life, he wrote in both French and English. Beckett's work offers a bleak, tragi-comic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and became increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the "Theatre of the Absurd".[3] Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation."[4] He was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1984.

Alternative Title: “En attendant Godot” Waiting for Godot, tragicomedy in two acts by Irish writer Samuel Beckett, published in 1952 in French as En attendant Godot and first produced in 1953. Waiting for Godot was a true innovation in drama and the Theatre of the Absurd’s first theatrical success.

The play consists of conversations between Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for the arrival of the mysterious Godot, who continually sends word that he will appear but who never does. They encounter Lucky and Pozzo, they discuss their miseries and their lots in life, they consider hanging themselves, and yet they wait. Often perceived as being tramps, Vladimir and Estragon are a pair of human beings who do not know why they were put on earth; they make the tenuous that there must be some point to their existence, and they look to Godot for enlightenment. Because they hold out hope for meaning and direction, they acquire a kind of nobility that enables them to rise above their futile existence.

An introduction to Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is a play that prompts many questions, and answers none of them. As the title suggests, it is a play about waiting: two men waiting for a third, who never appears. ‘And if he comes?’ one of Beckett’s tramps asks the other near the end of the play. ‘We’ll be saved’, the other replies, although the nature of that salvation, along with so much else, remains undefined: for both characters and audience, Waiting for Godot enforces a wait for its own meaning. Characters

Character Description

Estragon Estragon, called "Gogo" by Vladimir, is a man who is beaten every night. Vladimir Vladimir, called "Didi" by Estragon, is a man trying to make sense of the world.

Pozzo Pozzo is a pompous man who believes he is in control.

Lucky Lucky is Pozzo's leashed and burdened slave.

Godot Godot, a possible stand-in for God, is the titular character of the play, yet he never appears on stage.

A boy A boy comes twice (or perhaps two boys come, once each) as a messenger from Godot.

About Character Estragon Estragon is one of the two protagonists. He is a bum and sleeps in a ditch where he is beaten each night. He has no memory beyond what is immediately said to him, and relies on Vladimir to remember for him. Estragon is impatient and constantly wants to leave Vladimir, but is restrained from leaving by the fact that he needs Vladimir. It is Estragon's idea for the bums to pass their time by hanging themselves. Estragon has been compared to a body without an intellect, which therefore needs Vladimir to provide the intellect. Vladimir Vladimir is one of the two protagonists. He is a bum like Estragon, but retains a memory of most events. However, he is often unsure whether his memory is playing tricks on him. Vladimir is friends with Estragon because Estragon provides him with the chance to remember past events. Vladimir is the one who makes Estragon wait with him for Mr. Godot's imminent arrival throughout the play. Vladimir has been compared to the intellect which provides for the body, represented by Estragon. Lucky Lucky is the slave of Pozzo. He is tied to Pozzo via a rope around his neck and he carries Pozzo's bags. Lucky is only allowed to speak twice during the entire play, but his long monologue is filled with incomplete ideas. He is silenced only by the other characters who fight with him to take of his hat. Lucky appears as a mute in the second act. Pozzo Pozzo is the master who rules over Lucky. He stops and talks to the two bums in order to have some . In the second act Pozzo is blind and requires their help. He, like Estragon, cannot remember people he has met. His transformation between the acts may represent the passage of time. a boy The boy is a servant of Mr. Godot. He plays an identical role in both acts by coming to inform Vladimir and Estragon the Mr. Godot will not be able to make it that night, but will surely come the next day. The boy never remembers having met Vladimir and Estragon before. He has a brother who is mentioned but who never appears. The boy in Act I, a local lad, assures Vladimir that this is the first time he has seen him. He says he was not there the previous day. He confirms he works for Mr. Godot as a goatherd. His brother, whom Godot beats, is a shepherd. Godot feeds both of them and allows them to sleep in his hayloft. The boy in Act II also assures Vladimir that it was not he who called upon them the day before. He insists that this too is his first visit. When Vladimir asks what Godot does the boy tells him, "He does nothing, sir."[44] We also learn he has a white beard—possibly, the boy is not certain. This boy also has a brother who it seems is sick but there is no clear evidence to suggest that his brother is the boy who came in Act I or the one who came the day before that. Whether the boy from Act I is the same boy from Act II or not, both boys are polite yet timid. In the first Act, the boy, despite arriving while Pozzo and Lucky are still about, does not announce himself until after Pozzo and Lucky leave, saying to Vladimir and Estragon that he waited for the other two to leave out of fear of the two men and of Pozzo's whip; the boy does not arrive early enough in Act II to see either Lucky or Pozzo. In both Acts, the boy seems hesitant to speak very much, saying mostly "Yes Sir" or "No Sir", and winds up exiting by running away.

Godot The identity of Godot has been the subject of much debate. "When Colin Duckworth asked Beckett point-blank whether Pozzo was Godot, the author replied: 'No. It is just implied in the text, but it's not true.' "[45] Deirdre Bair says that though "Beckett will never discuss the implications of the title", she suggests two stories that both may have at least partially inspired it. The first is that because feet are a recurring theme in the play, Beckett has said the title was suggested to him by the slang French term for boot: "godillot, godasse". The second story, according to Bair, is that Beckett once encountered a group of spectators at the French Tour de France bicycle race, who told him "Nous attendons Godot" – they were waiting for a competitor whose name was Godot.[46] "Beckett said to Peter Woodthorpe that he regretted calling the absent character 'Godot', because of all the theories involving God to which this had given rise."[47] "I also told [Ralph] Richardson that if by Godot I had meant God I would [have] said God, and not Godot. This seemed to disappoint him greatly."[48] That said, Beckett did once concede, "It would be fatuous of me to pretend that I am not aware of the meanings attached to the word 'Godot', and the opinion of many that it means 'God'. But you must remember – I wrote the play in French, and if I did have that meaning in my mind, it was somewhere in my unconscious and I was not overtly aware of it."[49] (Note: the French word for 'God' is 'Dieu'.) However, "Beckett has often stressed the strong unconscious impulses that partly control his writing; he has even spoken of being 'in a trance' when he writes."[50] While Beckett stated he originally had no knowledge of Balzac's play Mercadet ou le faiseur, whose character Godeau has an identical-sounding name and is involved in a similar situation, it has been suggested he may have been instead influenced by The Lovable Cheat,[51] a minor adaptation of Mercadet starring Buster Keaton, whose works Beckett had admired[52] and who he later sought out for Film. Unlike elsewhere in Beckett's work, no bicycle appears in this play, but in his essay "The Cartesian Centaur"[53] reports that Beckett once, when asked about the meaning of Godot, mentioned "a veteran racing cyclist, bald, a 'stayer', recurrent placeman in town-to- town and national championships, Christian name elusive, surname Godeau, pronounced, of course, no differently from Godot." Waiting for Godot is clearly not about track cycling, but it is said that Beckett himself did wait for French cyclist Roger Godeau [de] (1920–2000; a professional cyclist from 1943 to 1961), outside the velodrome in .[54][55] Of the two boys who work for Godot only one appears safe from beatings, "Beckett said, only half-jokingly, that one of Estragon's feet was saved".[56] The name "Godot" is pronounced in Britain and Ireland with the emphasis on the first syllable, /ˈɡɒdoʊ/ GOD-oh;[2] in North America it is usually pronounced with an emphasis on the second syllable, /ɡəˈdoʊ/ gə-DOH. Beckett himself said the emphasis should be on the first syllable, and that the North American pronunciation is a mistake.[57] Georges Borchardt, Beckett's literary agent, and who represents Beckett's literary estate, has always pronounced "Godot" in the French manner, with equal emphasis on both syllables. Borchardt checked with Beckett's nephew, Edward, who told him his uncle pronounced it that way as well.[58]

Vladimir and Estragon

The first step towards engaging with the play is accepting that it won’t supply solutions to its mysteries. The critic Hugh Kenner wrote that all of Beckett’s works ‘can be grasped as a whole, if we are willing to let the patches of darkness fall where they do, and not worry at them. We shall not find out who Godot is, and shall waste our time trying’. Godot’s purpose in the play is to be that which is waited for, and that is that. When it comes to who is doing the waiting, we know more. Vladimir and Estragon, or Didi and Gogo, are tramps that meet each day by a solitary tree (the sole piece of set dressing stipulated in the play script) to wait for a man called Godot. Vladimir, ‘an ineffective man of the world’, and the ‘marvellously incompetent’ Estragon have been compared to , and they are indeed essentially a comedy transplanted into a tragedy. In its English-language edition (the play was originally written in French) Beckett called the play ‘a tragicomedy in two acts’, and his biographer points out that ‘[o]ne of Beckett’s most notable characteristics is his ability to make truly funny jokes about the genuinely worst aspects of human existence, and nowhere is this talent more evident than in Godot’.

Laurel and Hardy aren’t the only film comedians who appear to have fed into the creation of Vladimir and Estragon. Beckett was a great admirer of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and in fact a 1915 film of Chaplin’s, The Tramp, includes a scene in which Chaplin’s character, bowler-hatted and shabbily suited, much like Beckett’s tramps, stops along a dusty road to eat lunch beside a tree. The blend of misfortune and comedy that typically besets Chaplin’s Tramp clearly has a parallel in Beckett’s work, as does the plight of a character who is forced to exist as an itinerant and an outcast. But the sentimentality Chaplin indulged in is completely absent in Waiting for Godot, and from Beckett’s entire body of work.

Pozzo and Lucky

Something else, or someone else: midway through the first act, Pozzo and Lucky appear. Lucky is harnessed by a rope around his neck and carries a large bag, a folding stool, a picnic basket and a greatcoat. Behind him comes Pozzo, holding the other end of the rope and a whip. Pozzo, with his loud voice and dominating manner, is the first of several tyrants in Beckett’s work for the stage, but he is not a straightforward villain. Like every other character in Waiting for Godot, he has his ambiguities. His whip is frayed, and before long the watch he is so proud of – a prized and unique possession in this land of waiting, where time seems to work differently, or not at all – goes missing. So although Pozzo seems powerful compared to Vladimir and Estragon, and his relationship with Lucky is clearly one of master and servant, some critics believe that Pozzo is fleeing something rather than freely roaming the landscape, and that the frayed rope and lost watch represent his crumbling authority. As for Lucky, he is regularly abused by Pozzo and forced to execute several tasks for the supposed entertainment of Vladimir and Estragon, including dancing and ‘thinking’. In response to Pozzo’s command to ‘Think!’, Lucky performs the longest unbroken speech in the play, an apparently chaotic stream of consciousness that takes in theology, philosophy, golf, history and scatological humour (‘it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labours of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown…’).

Dramatic structure in Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot defies traditional dramatic structure, in which back stories reveal the causes of the crisis the audience watches unfolding before them, and which are resolved at the play’s conclusion. We know nothing about Vladimir and Estragon other than that they sleep in ditches, that Estragon is beaten at night by violent gangs, and that he might have once been a poet – ‘Isn’t that obvious?’ he says, gesturing to the rags he wears. Additionally, we know that they are waiting for Godot. We don’t know how long they have been waiting, although the way they speak about it suggests it is long enough for tedium to have set in:

Estragon Let’s go. Vladimir We can’t. Estragon Why not? Vladimir We’re waiting for Godot. Estragon [Despairingly] Ah!

To pass the time they talk, play games and argue. These goings-on are conscious attempts to stave off boredom, the boredom of interminable waiting. The entire play, in fact, is made up of attempts to fill the time. For Vladimir and Estragon life appears to be on hold until Godot appears, and it is tempting to see this aspect of the play in a universal light. To see life as a succession of attempts to pass the time. ‘That wasn’t such a bad little canter’, says Estragon after a rapid-fire exchange. ‘Yes’, Vladimir says, ‘but now we’ll have to find something else’.

The staging

The almost bare stage set on which Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky interact magnifies the theatricality of what we, the audience, are watching. At times, Vladimir and Estragon’s dialogue seems to taunt the audience about their position and role in this artificial space – emphasised by references to popular culture and different forms of entertainment. During the first episode featuring Pozzo and Lucky, as Pozzo pontificates like a ham actor, Vladimir and Estragon take on the role of audience members, and in the process force the ‘real’ audience to consider the theatrical medium itself. Vladimir Charming evening we’re having. Estragon Unforgettable. Vladimir And it’s not over. Estragon Apparently not. Vladimir It’s only beginning. Estragon It’s awful. Vladimir Worse than pantomime. Estragon The circus. Vladimir The music hall. Estragon The circus.

As Fintan O’Toole writes: ‘Waiting for Godot is essentially a joke on the whole theatrical experience, an extended invitation to the audience to get up and leave. Nothing is going to happen, the play keeps telling us, it’s going to get more boring… Why do you insist on hanging around in futile expectation? Like Didi and Gogo, our decision to stay is the triumph of hope over experience’.

Violence in Waiting for Godot

At the end of Act 1, following the departure of Pozzo and Lucky, a boy appears with a message for Vladimir and Estragon: ‘Mr Godot told me to tell you he won’t come this evening but surely tomorrow’. Vladimir questions the boy about the work he does for Mr Godot (he minds the goats), and asks if Mr Godot beats him. He doesn’t, the boy says, but he beats his brother. This piece of information adds to the pattern of beatings given and received throughout the play: the gangs beat Estragon in the night, Pozzo beats Lucky (who violently kicks Estragon) and Mr Godot beats the messenger boy’s brother. Violence and humour are the two extremes that puncture the boredom which Vladimir and Estragon struggle against, the poles of the harsh, absurd world presented in the play.

The next day

The second act, which the stage directions describe as the same time the next day, is a variation of the first. Again Vladimir and Estragon wait, again they engage in conversation and play to while away the time. At one point they play at being Pozzo and Lucky. Estragon takes Pozzo’s part, an because it is a part Vladimir seems more suited to: he sometimes shouts at and abuses Estragon, suggesting that one day their relationship could perhaps become like that of Pozzo and Lucky. When Pozzo and Lucky reappear they are greatly changed. Pozzo can no longer see, and Lucky can no longer speak. The difference that has come over them suggests that this isn’t the next day after all, that more time has elapsed. But when Vladimir asks how long it has been since Lucky went dumb, Pozzo responds angrily:

Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable. When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day like any other day, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? [Calmer.] They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more. Pozzo’s speech suggests that talk of time is immaterial – another change from Act 1, when his watch was so important to him. But what is really happening here? Could it be the case that Vladimir and Estragon are mistaken, and that what they think was yesterday – what the very stage directions suggest was yesterday – in fact lies much further in the past? Estragon’s boots, abandoned because they are too small for him, occupy the same place on the stage at the beginning of Act 2 as they do at the end of Act 1, but it is possible that he has repeated the same actions many times, and that we are simply witnessing two occurrences in an infinitely repeated sequence. The idea receives some support from the fact that the two tramps are so forgetful: Estragon needs to be reminded 13 times throughout the play who they are waiting for and why, and after their first meeting with Pozzo and Lucky the following conversation takes place:

Vladimir How they’ve changed! Estragon Who? Vladimir Those two. Estragon That’s the idea, let's make a little conversation. Vladimir Haven't they? Estragon What? Vladimir Changed. Estragon Very likely. They all change. Only we can’t. Vladimir Likely! It's certain. Didn't you see them? Estragon I suppose I did. But I don’t know them. Vladimir Yes you do know them. Estragon No I don’t know them. Vladimir We know them, I tell you. You forget everything. [Pause. To himself.] Unless they're not the same...

This uncertainty characterises certain exchanges between Vladimir and Estragon throughout the play. Very near the beginning Estragon looks around and says, ‘We came here yesterday’:

Vladimir Ah, no, there you’re mistaken. Estragon What did we do yesterday? Vladimir What did we do yesterday? Estragon Yes. Vladimir Why… [Angrily.] Nothing is certain when you’re about.

Despair, futility… and hope?

This uncertainty about time, and about what is new experience versus repetition, feeds into the air of futility that hangs about the play. The first thing we see is a man trying, and failing, to take off his boot, and the last is the two tramps agreeing ‘Let’s go’, but then remaining still. Looking at the tree Estragon says, ‘Pity we haven’t got a bit of rope’, but Vladimir suggests they wouldn’t even be able to kill themselves successfully. Yet there are some patches of light in the play beyond the gallows humour, and the bitterly funny absurdity of the tramps’ situation. That same tree Estragon wants to hang himself from, bare in Act 1, has a few leaves in Act 2. The precise meaning of that is uncertain; perhaps it is a different tree altogether, but it is a small sign of life in an otherwise barren landscape. And on a human level, in the midst of the bickering and despair that Vladimir and Estragon trade in, there is occasional tenderness, as when Estragon is hurt and Vladimir tells him, ‘I’ll carry you. If necessary’. It would be too much to say that these moments of respite enable an optimistic reading of the play, but they prevent it from being completely without hope. As is so often the case throughout Beckett’s work, any conclusion beyond that must be interpretation and speculation.

Waiting for Godot | Context

Waiting for Godot, like most of Samuel Beckett's works, contains little in the way of historical context. He wanted his audience to experience the play without the expectations and assumptions attached to a particular people, place, or time. The play is not entirely free from cultural context, however, containing references to the Bible, Shakespeare, and ancient Greek mythology, as well as a number of allusions to Christianity.

World War II Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot shortly after World War II ended, and the conflicts and horrors of the war were fresh in his memory. He lived in occupied Paris, working with the until he and his companion, Suzanne Déschevaux-Dumesnil, had to flee to avoid being arrested by the Germans. He and Déschevaux-Dumesnil spent the remainder of the war in a region of the French countryside not under German control. After the Allied victory in Europe, Beckett volunteered for the Red Cross, witnessing firsthand the consequences of war and the results of Nazi brutality.

Modernism and Waiting for Godot displays characteristics of both and postmodernism. The modernist period in literature, which began around the turn of the 20th century, saw writers respond negatively to the Industrial Revolution and the horrors of World War I. Modernism's goal—to create something completely new—sparked much experimentation by merging psychological theory with the creation of many new forms and styles. Characteristics of modernism include the following: • focus on the inner self or consciousness • concern with the decline of civilization and the effects of capitalism • characterization of technology as cold and unfeeling • alienation and loneliness of the individual • first-person narrators • stream of consciousness style • deviation from traditional plot structures Postmodernism, which arose after World War II, turned away from modernism's insistence on entirely new literary forms. Instead, postmodern art, including literature, often reflected numerous traditional styles within one work. Characteristics of postmodernism include the following:

• parody, paradox, or pastiche (imitation of another work) • fragmentation • interest in flattened emotions • focus on an anonymous or collective experience • self-reference or recursion (the use of repeating elements) • unreliable narrators Both modernist and postmodernist works reject traditional values and generally accepted meanings for texts. The Theater of the Absurd Waiting for Godot was a defining work in what came to be known as the Theater of the Absurd, plays in which a lack of purpose and logic create uncertainty, hopelessness, ridiculousness, and humor. The absurdity of characters' words and actions reveals the absurdity of human existence. The characters may call one another by childish, almost clownish, nicknames and engage in conversations and interactions straight out of slapstick comedy. Though not a formal movement, the absurdist plays of Beckett, along with those of Eugène Ionesco, Harold Pinter, and some other playwrights of the mid- 20th century had in common a pessimistic view of an essentially purposeless human existence. As in Waiting for Godot, absurdist plays break with traditional structures and use of language to convey images and ideas that have no clearly defined meaning or resolution. In Waiting for Godot, the human condition is depicted as ridiculous and without purpose. Beckett labeled the play a "tragicomedy," emphasizing both the humor to be seen in the absurdity of existence and the anxiety and hopelessness resulting from a lack of purpose. Many also see the play as an illustration of the views of existentialism, especially the philosophy of French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, whose proposition that humankind "first surges up in the world—and defines [itself] afterwards," argues that there is no inherent meaning in human existence. Beckett warned audiences, however, against making religious or philosophical deductions, saying, "the key to the play was the literal relations among its surface features not any presumed meanings that could be deduced from them."

Waiting for Godot Summary of Act I

The setting is in the evening on a country road with a single tree present. Estragon is trying to pull off his boot, but without success. Vladimir enters and greets Estragon, who informs him that he has spent the night in a ditch where he was beaten. With supreme effort Estragon succeeds in pulling off his boot. He then looks inside it to see if there is anything there while Vladimir does the same with his hat. Vladimir mentions the two thieves who were crucified next to Christ. He asks Estragon if he knows the Gospels. Estragon gives a short description of the maps of the Holy Land at which point Vladimir tells him he should have been a poet. Estragon points to his tattered clothes and says he was. Vladimir continues with his narrative about the two thieves in order to pass the time.

Estragon wants to leave but Vladimir forces him to stay because they are both waiting for Godot to arrive. of the two bums knows when Godot will appear, or even if they are at the right place. Later it is revealed that they do not even know what they originally asked Godot for.

Estragon gets bored of waiting and suggests that they pass the time by hanging themselves from the tree. They both like the idea but cannot decide who should go first. They are afraid that if one of them dies the other might be left alone. In the end they decide it is safer to wait until Godot arrives.

Estragon asks Vladimir whether they still have rights. Vladimir indicates that they got rid of them. He then fears that he hears something, but it turns out to be imaginary noises. Vladimir soon gives Estragon a carrot to eat. Pozzo and Lucky arrive. Lucky has a rope tied around his neck and is carrying a stool, a basket, a bag and a greatcoat. Pozzo carries a whip which he uses to control Lucky. Estragon immediately confuses Pozzo with Godot which gets Pozzo upset. Pozzo spends several minutes ordering Lucky around. Lucky is completely silent and obeys like a machine. Pozzo has Lucky put down the stool and open the basket of food which contains chicken. Pozzo then eats the chicken and throws away the bones. Lucky stands in a stooped posture holding the bags after each command has been completed and appears to be falling asleep.

Estragon and Vladimir go to inspect Lucky who intrigues them. They ask why he never puts his bags down. Pozzo will not tell them, so Estragon proceeds to ask if he can have the chicken bones that Pozzo has been throwing away. Pozzo tells him that they technically belong to Lucky. When they ask Lucky if he wants them, he does not reply, so Estragon is given the bones.

Pozzo eventually tells them why Lucky hold the bags the entire time. He thinks it is because Lucky is afraid of being given away. While Pozzo tells them why Lucky continues to carry his bags, Lucky starts to weep. Estragon goes to wipe away the tears but receives a terrible kick in the shin.

Pozzo then tells them that he and Lucky have been together nearly sixty years. Vladimir is appalled at the treatment of Lucky who appears to be such a faithful servant. Pozzo explains that he cannot bear it any longer because Lucky is such a burden. Later Vladimir yells at Lucky that it is appalling the way he treats such a good master.

Pozzo then gives an oratory about the night sky. He asks them how it was and they tell him it was quite a good speech. Pozzo is ecstatic at the encouragement and offers to do something for them. Estragon immediately asks for ten francs but Vladimir tells him to be silent. Pozzo offers to have Lucky and then think for them.

Lucky dances for them and when asked for an encore repeats the entire dance step for step. Estragon is unimpressed but almost falls trying to imitate it. They then make Lucky think. What follows is an outpouring of religious and political doctrine which always starts ideas but never brings them to completion. The three men finally wrestle Lucky to the ground and yank off his hat at which point he stops speaking. His last word is, "unfinished."

The men then spend some effort trying to get Lucky to wake up again. He finally reawakens when the bags are placed in his hand. Pozzo gets up to leave and he and Lucky depart the scene. Vladimir and Estragon return to their seats and continue waiting for Godot.

A young boy arrives having been sent by Mr. Godot. Estragon is outraged that it took him so long to arrive and scares him. Vladimir cut him off and asks the boy if he remembers him. The boy says this is his first time coming to meet them and that Mr. Godot will not be able to come today but perhaps tomorrow. The boy is sent away with the instructions to tell Mr. Godot that he has seen them. Both Estragon and Vladimir discuss past events and then decide to depart for the night. Neither of them moves from his seat. Waiting for Godot Summary of Act II

The setting is the next day at the same time. Estragon's boots and Lucky's hat are still on the stage. Vladimir enters and starts to sing until Estragon shows up barefoot. Estragon is upset that Vladimir was singing and happy even though he was not there. Both admit that they feel better when alone but convince themselves they are happy when together. They are still waiting for Godot. Estragon and Vladimir poetically talk about "all the dead voices" they hear. They are haunted by voices in the sounds of nature, especially of the leaves rustling. Vladimir shouts at Estragon to help him not hear the voices anymore. Estragon tries and finally decides that they should ask each other questions. They manage to talk for a short while.

Estragon has forgotten everything that took place the day before. He has forgotten all about Pozzo and Lucky as well as the fact that he wanted to hang himself from the tree. He cannot remember his boots and thinks they must be someone else's. For some reason they fit him now when he tries them on. The tree has sprouted leaves since the night before and Estragon comments that it must be spring. But when Vladimir looks at Estragon's shin, it is still pussy and bleeding from where Lucky kicked him. Soon they are done talking and try to find another topic for discussion. Vladimir finds Lucky's hat and tries it on. He and Estragon spend a while trading hats until Vladimir throws his own hat on the ground and asks how he looks. They then decide to play at being Pozzo and Lucky, but to no avail. Estragon leaves only to immediately return panting. He says that they are coming. Vladimir thinks that it must be Godot who is coming to save them. He then becomes afraid and tries to hide Estragon behind the tree, which is too small to hide him.

The conversation then degenerates into abusive phrases. Estragon says, "That's the idea, let's abuse each other." They continue to hurl insults at one another until Estragon calls Vladimir a critic. They embrace and continue waiting.

Pozzo and Lucky enter but this time Pozzo is blind and Lucky is mute. Lucky stops when he sees the two men. Pozzo crashes into him and they both fall helplessly in a heap on the ground. Vladimir is overjoyed that reinforcements have arrived to help with the waiting. Estragon again thinks that Godot has arrived.

Vladimir and Estragon discuss the merits of helping Pozzo get off the ground where he has fallen. When Vladimir asks how many other men spend their time in waiting, Estragon replies that it is billions. Pozzo in desperation offers to pay for help by offering a hundred francs. Estragon says that it is not enough. Vladimir does not want to pick up Pozzo because then he and Estragon would be alone again. Finally he goes over and tries to pick him up but is unable to. Estragon decides to leave but decides to stay when Vladimir convinces him to help first and then leave.

While trying to help Pozzo, both Vladimir and Estragon fall and cannot get up. When Pozzo talks again Vladimir kicks him violently to make him shut up. Vladimir and Estragon finally get up, and Pozzo resumes calling for help. They go and help him up. Pozzo asks who they are and what time it is. They cannot answer his questions. Estragon goes to wake up Lucky. He kicks him and starts hurling abuses until he again hurts his foot. Estragon sits back down and tries to take off his boot. Vladimir tells Pozzo his friend is hurt.

Vladimir then asks Pozzo to make Lucky dance or think for them again. Pozzo tells him that Lucky is mute. When Vladimir asks since when, Pozzo gets into a rage. He tells them to stop harassing him with their time questions since he has no notion of it. He then helps Lucky up and they leave.

Vladimir reflects upon the fact that there is no truth and that by tomorrow he will know nothing of what has just passed. There is no way of confirming his memories since Estragon always forgets everything that happens to him.

The boy arrives again but does not remember meeting Estragon or Vladimir. He tells them it is his first time coming to meet them. The conversation is identical in that Mr. Godot will once again not be able to come but will be sure to arrive tomorrow. Vladimir demands that the boy be sure to remember that he saw him. Vladimir yells, "You're sure you saw me, you won't come and tell me to-morrow that you never saw me!"

The two bums decide to leave but cannot go far since they need to wait for Godot. They look at the tree and contemplate hanging themselves. Estragon takes off his belt but it breaks when they pull on it. His trousers fall down. Vladimir says that they will hang themselves tomorrow unless Godot comes to save them. He tells Estragon to put on his trousers. They decide to leave but again do not move.

Waiting for Godot Analysis of the Play

Although very existentialist in its characterizations, Waiting for Godot is primarily about hope. The play revolves around Vladimir and Estragon and their pitiful wait for hope to arrive. At various times during the play, hope is constructed as a form of salvation, in the personages of Pozzo and Lucky, or even as death. The subject of the play quickly becomes an example of how to pass the time in a situation which offers no hope. Thus the theme of the play is set by the beginning: Estragon: Nothing to be done.

Vladimir: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion.

Although the phrase is used in connection to Estragon's boots here, it is also later used by Vladimir with respect to his hat. Essentially it describes the hopelessness of their lives.

A direct result of this hopelessness is the daily struggle to pass the time. Thus, most of the play is dedicated to devising games which will help them pass the time. This mutual desire also addresses the question of why they stay together. Both Vladimir and Estragon admit to being happier when apart. One of the main reasons that they continue their relationship is that they need one another to pass the time. After Pozzo and Lucky leave for the first time they comment: V: That passed the time.

E: It would have passed in any case.

And later when Estragon finds his boots again:

V: What about trying them.

E: I've tried everything.

V: No, I mean the boots.

E: Would that be a good thing?

V: It'd pass the time. I assure you, it'd be an occupation.

Since passing the time is their mutual occupation, Estragon struggles to find games to help them accomplish their goal. Thus they engage in insulting one another and in asking each other questions.

The difficulty for Beckett of keeping a dialogue running for so long is overcome by making his characters forget everything. Estragon cannot remember anything past what was said immediately prior to his lines. Vladimir, although possessing a better memory, distrusts what he remembers. And since Vladimir cannot rely on Estragon to remind him of things, he too exists in a state of forgetfulness.

Another second reason for why they are together arises from the existentialism of their forgetfulness. Since Estragon cannot remember anything, he needs Vladimir to tell him his history. It is as if Vladimir is establishing Estragon's identity by remembering for him. Estragon also serves as a reminder for Vladimir of all the things they have done together. Thus both men serve to remind the other man of his very existence. This is necessary since no one else in the play ever remembers them:

Vladimir: We met yesterday. (Silence) Do you not remember?

Pozzo: I don't remember having met anyone yesterday. But to-morrow I won't remember having met anyone to-day. So don't count on me to enlighten you.

Later on the same thing happens with the boy who claims to have never seen them before. This lack of reassurance about their very existence makes it all the more necessary that they remember each other.

Estragon and Vladimir are not only talking to pass the time, but also to avoid the voices that arise out of the silence. Beckett's heroes in other works are also constantly assailed by voices which arise out of the silence, so this is a continuation of a theme the author uses frequently:

E: In the meantime let's try and converse calmly, since we're incapable of keeping silent.

V: You're right, we're inexhaustible.

E: It's so we won't think. V: We have that excuse.

E: It's so we won't hear.

V: We have our reasons.

E: All the dead voices.

V: They make a noise like wings.

E: Like leaves.

V: Like sand.

E: Like leaves.

Silence.

V: They all speak at once.

E: Each one to itself.

Silence.

V: Rather they whisper.

E: They rustle.

V: They murmur.

E: The rustle.

Silence.

V: What do they say?

E: They talk about their lives.

V: To have lived is not enough for them.

E: They have to talk about it.

V: To be dead is not enough for them.

E: It is not sufficient.

Silence.

V: They make a noise like feathers.

E: Like leaves.

V: Like ashes. E: Like leaves.

Long silence.

V: Say something!

One of the questions which must be answered is why the bums are suffering in the first place. This can only be answered through the concept of original sin. To be born is to be a sinner, and thus man is condemned to suffer. The only way to escape the suffering is to repent or to die. Thus Vladimir recalls the thieves crucified with Christ in the first act:

V: One of the thieves was saved. It's a reasonable percentage. (Pause.) Gogo.

E: What?

V: Suppose we repented.

E: Repented what?

V: Oh . . . (He reflects.) We wouldn't have to go into the details.

E: Our being born?

Failing to repent, they sit and wait for Godot to come and save them. In the meantime they contemplate suicide as another way of escaping their hopelessness. Estragon wants them to hang themselves from the tree, but both he and Vladimir find it would be too risky. This apathy, which is a result of their age, leads them to remember a time when Estragon almost succeeded in killing himself:

E: Do you remember the day I threw myself into the Rhone?

V: We were grape harvesting.

E: You fished me out.

V: That's all dead and buried.

E: My clothes dried in the sun.

V: There's no good harking back on that. Come on.

Beckett is believed to have said that the name Godot comes from the French "godillot" meaning a military boot. Beckett fought in the war and so spending long periods of time waiting for messages to arrive would have been commonplace for him. The more common interpretation that it might mean "God" is almost certainly wrong. Beckett apparently stated that if he had meant "God," he would have written "God".

The concept of the passage of time leads to a general irony. Each minute spent waiting brings death one step closer to the characters and makes the arrival of Godot less likely. The passage of time is evidenced by the tree which has grown leaves, possibly indicating a change of seasons. Pozzo and Lucky are also transformed by time since Pozzo goes blind and Lucky mute. There are numerous interpretation of Waiting for Godot and a few are described here:

Religious interpretations posit Vladimir and Estragon as humanity waiting for the elusive return of a savior. An extension of this makes Pozzo into the Pope and Lucky into the faithful. The faithful are then viewed as a cipher of God cut short by human intolerance. The twisted tree can alternatively represent either the tree of death, the tree of life, the tree of Judas or the tree of knowledge.

Political interpretations also abound. Some reviewers hold that the relationship between Pozzo and Lucky is that of a capitalist to his labor. This Marxist interpretation is understandable given that in the second act Pozzo is blind to what is happening around him and Lucky is mute to protest his treatment. The play has also been understood as an for Franco-German relations.

An interesting interpretation argues that Lucky receives his name because he is lucky in the context of the play. Since most of the play is spent trying to find things to do to pass the time, Lucky is lucky because his actions are determined absolutely by Pozzo. Pozzo on the other hand is unlucky because he not only needs to pass his own time but must find things for Lucky to do.

Waiting for Godot | Themes In Waiting for Godot, Beckett builds his themes through the minimalist setting and the characters' absurd conversations and actions. Characters represent humanity, the setting represents human existence, and words and actions demonstrate larger truths about the human condition.

Absurdity of Existence One of the most noticeable features of the play is utter absurdity: Vladimir and Estragon dress shabbily, engage in physically inept actions, and partake in clownish nonsensical conversations. They absurdly wait endlessly for an unchanging situation to change when it is clear Godot will never come. They occasionally discuss ending their wait by hanging themselves or simply leaving, but absurdly, they never take any action. Although they agree there is "nothing to be done," they work absurdly hard to fill the time while they wait. The unavoidable conclusion is that human existence itself is absurd. Beckett's emphasis on the absurdity of human behavior shows both the tragic and comedic sides of the existential crises. Purposelessness of Life None of the characters in Waiting for Godot has a meaningful purpose. Waiting for Godot might seem to give Vladimir and Estragon a purpose, but the fact that Godot never arrives renders their waiting meaningless. Likewise, Pozzo and Lucky might seem to be traveling toward something, but their travels are ultimately shown to be equally purposeless. Pozzo initially professes to be taking Lucky to the fair to sell him, but this purpose is never fulfilled. The second time they pass by, they express no purpose at all—they are simply moving from one place to another. Their traveling may even be counterproductive because they cannot seem to go any distance without falling down. The messages from Godot delivered by the boy are equally purposeless. Godot will never come, and it is not at all clear the messages are even meant for Vladimir and Estragon—the boy calls Vladimir "Albert." All the characters seem to be trapped in their purposeless roles by little more than habit, which Vladimir calls "a great deadener." The idea that life has no purpose is a recurring theme in the Theater of the Absurd, which Waiting for Godot helped define.

Folly of Seeking Meaning Although it is unclear who or what Godot represents, by waiting for him, Vladimir and Estragon are clearly seeking some type of meaning outside themselves. In Act 1, they remember making a "kind of prayer" to Godot, expecting it to give them some direction, and they decide it is safer to wait and see what Godot says rather than die by hanging themselves. Godot, however, never comes, representing the futility and folly of such a search for meaning in an inherently meaningless existence.

Uncertainty of Time Time is a slippery thing in Waiting for Godot. It seems to pass normally during the period the characters are on the stage, with predictable milestones, such as the sunset and moonrise, although the characters are sometimes confused about it. But the intervals between the two acts and various events are wildly uncertain. When Vladimir and Estragon return at the beginning of Act 2, the growth of leaves on the tree suggests a longer period of time has passed than the one day Vladimir claims it has been. Estragon and Pozzo retain little or no memory of their encounter the "previous" day, and other changes have mysteriously occurred "overnight." Estragon and Vladimir have no firm idea of how long they have been together or how long ago they did other things, such as climb the or pick grapes in Macon country. The characters also seem to be trapped by time, endlessly repeating essentially the same day again and again. This creates a despair that leads them to repeatedly contemplate suicide, although they never remember to bring the rope they would need to actually hang themselves. Time is one of the main ways people organize their lives and memories, so the uncertainty of time in the play contributes to the feeling of meaninglessness.

Waiting for Godot | Symbols

Beckett famously refused to interpret Waiting for Godot, letting his writing speak for itself. "No symbols where none intended"—the last line of Beckett's novel —is often read as a warning against assigning symbolic meaning to objects in his writing. This doesn't mean that no was intended, only that audiences should be careful about assigning meanings not supported by words and actions in the play. Leafless Tree The tree, near which Estragon and Vladimir meet, is completely bare of leaves at the beginning of the play. It represents the only organic element in the setting, and it is dead or dormant. This tree portrays the world as barren and lifeless, emphasizing the lack of purpose and meaning the characters must contend with. The apparent growth of leaves on the tree in Act 2 does nothing to ease the sense of meaninglessness; it only adds to the characters' uncertainty about the place and the passage of time. The staging is telling in this regard: despite Vladimir's description of the tree as "covered with leaves," the stage directions specify only "four or five" leaves, leaving it mostly barren. Some point out that the cross on which Christ was crucified is sometimes called a tree. Vladimir and Estragon do discuss the tree and hanging themselves in Act 1 shortly after talking about the two thieves crucified along with Christ. This could support the interpretation that hanging from the tree draws a parallel between them and the thieves. Beckett, however, said he was puzzled by people trying to take away "a broader, loftier meaning" from the play, making it unlikely that he intended any broader religious symbolism.

Lucky's Baggage Lucky never puts down the items he carries, except when it is necessary to fulfill one of Pozzo's orders. Then he immediately picks them up again, even when he has not been told to do so and there is no purpose in it. This action echoes the human tendency of enslavement to burdens, holding onto them even when doing so is unnecessary. The baggage Lucky carries seems to consist mostly of items for Pozzo's comfort. In Act 2, however, one of the bags, which is never opened in Act 1, is revealed to contain only sand. Other than his hat, none of what Lucky carries is for himself and may not even be useful. Yet he takes it up again and again—another example of a character "deadened" by habit, fulfilling the task mindlessly and without purpose.

Pozzo's Rope Pozzo's rope is the only rope that physically appears in the play, and it represents the balance of power in the relationship between Pozzo and Lucky. In Act 1, Pozzo dominates Lucky with a rope half the length of the stage: "Pozzo drives Lucky by means of a rope passed around his neck," and Lucky is often the recipient of Pozzo's whip. Yet Lucky accepts this balance of power without question, as if he cannot envision any other state for himself. By Act 2, however, the rope is shortened, and the balance of power in Pozzo and Lucky's relationship is less clear. Pozzo, now blind, depends on Lucky for direction, and Lucky, still slavish, depends psychologically on Pozzo. By extension, there are a number of figurative ropes in the play. Vladimir and Estragon, like Pozzo and Lucky, are similarly tied to each other in a relationship based on domination and submission. The pair is also tied to Godot and the dominating belief that his arrival will provide a meaning for their lives. Vladimir and Estragon also entertain the idea of hanging themselves with a rope. While suicide is never a real option, its discussion provides the pair a diversion from the act of waiting for Godot. The rope here becomes a symbol of submission to an illogical belief.

Motifs Duality Duality is everywhere in Waiting for Godot. Every character has a counterpart, and the paired characters often complement and contrast each other. Vladimir and Estragon seem nearly identical at first, but contrasting characteristics show them to be essentially two different parts of a whole. Pozzo and Lucky are opposites in status, but they also share a mutual dependence. The boy, although written as one part played by a single actor, may actually be two brothers, one of whom tends the sheep while the other tends the goats. Even people who are simply discussed often come in twos, such as the two thieves from the Bible (one is saved, the other is damned). The only character without a counterpart is the one who never appears: the ambiguous Godot. The whole play is dual in structure, consisting of two acts depicting nearly the same events. Act 2 mirrors Act 1 (for example, Estragon arrives first in Act 1, while Vladimir is the first to appear in Act 2), with the events of Act 2 seeming to reflect a bit more darkly the events of Act 1. It is also clear that the two days seen in the play are reflections of many days in the past and days that will continue, endlessly, into the future.

Hats Hats are worn by Vladimir, Estragon, Lucky, and Pozzo and are a vehicle for the characters to show their identities. For example, Lucky needs his hat in order to think; Pozzo shows his power over Lucky by taking his servant's hat off. Vladimir, the "thinker" of the two main characters, is fixated on his hat, while Estragon, who is more realistic, thinks first of his boots. In Act 2, Estragon and Vladimir have a long "bit" in which they exchange their hats along with Lucky's; an aimless attempt to make time pass as they wait.

Setting There is only one scene throughout both acts. Two men are waiting on a country road by a tree. The men are of unspecified origin, though it is clear that they are not English by nationality since they refer to currency as francs, and tell derisive jokes about the English – and in English-language productions the pair are traditionally played with Irish accents. The script calls for Estragon to sit on a low mound but in practice—as in Beckett's own 1975 German production—this is usually a stone. In the first act the tree is bare. In the second, a few leaves have appeared despite the script specifying that it is the next day. The minimal description calls to mind "the idea of the lieu vague, a location which should not be particularised".[59] Other clues about the location can be found in the dialogue. In Act I, Vladimir turns toward the auditorium and describes it as a bog. In Act II, Vladimir again motions to the auditorium and notes that there is "Not a soul in sight." When Estragon rushes toward the back of the stage in Act II, Vladimir scolds him, saying that "There's no way out there." Also in Act II, Vladimir comments that their surroundings look nothing like the Macon country, and Estragon states that he's lived his whole life "Here! In the Cackon country!" once suggested putting the play on in a round—Pozzo has often been commented on as a ringmaster[60]—but Beckett dissuaded him: "I don't in my ignorance agree with the round and feel Godot needs a very closed box." He even contemplated at one point having a "faint shadow of bars on stage floor" but, in the end, decided against this level of what he called "explicitation".[61] In his 1975 Schiller Theater production, there are times when Didi and Gogo appear to bounce off something "like birds trapped in the strands of [an invisible] net", in James Knowlson's description. Interpretations "Because the play is so stripped down, so elemental, it invites all kinds of social and political and religious interpretation", wrote Normand Berlin in a tribute to the play in Autumn 1999, "with Beckett himself placed in different schools of thought, different movements and 'ism's. The attempts to pin him down have not been successful, but the desire to do so is natural when we encounter a writer whose minimalist art reaches for bedrock reality. 'Less' forces us to look for 'more', and the need to talk about Godot and about Beckett has resulted in a steady outpouring of books and articles.[62][63] Throughout Waiting for Godot, the audience may encounter religious, philosophical, classical, psychoanalytical and biographical – especially wartime – references. There are ritualistic aspects and elements taken directly from vaudeville[64] and there is a danger in making more of these than what they are: that is, merely structural conveniences, avatars into which the writer places his fictional characters. The play "exploits several archetypal forms and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos."[65] Beckett makes this point emphatically clear in the opening notes to Film: "No truth value attaches to the above, regarded as of merely structural and dramatic convenience."[66] He made another important remark to Lawrence Harvey, saying that his "work does not depend on experience – [it is] not a record of experience. Of course you use it."[67] Beckett tired quickly of "the endless misunderstanding". As far back as 1955, he remarked, "Why people have to complicate a thing so simple I can't make out."[68] He was not forthcoming with anything more than cryptic clues, however: "Peter Woodthorpe [who played Estragon] remembered asking him one day in a taxi what the play was really about: 'It's all symbiosis, Peter; it's symbiosis,' answered Beckett."[69] Beckett directed the play for the Schiller-Theatre in 1975. Although he had overseen many productions, this was the first time that he had taken complete control. Walter Asmus was his conscientious young assistant director. The production was not naturalistic. Beckett explained, It is a game, everything is a game. When all four of them are lying on the ground, that cannot be handled naturalistically. That has got to be done artificially, balletically. Otherwise everything becomes an imitation, an imitation of reality [...]. It should become clear and transparent, not dry. It is a game in order to survive."[70] Over the years, Beckett clearly realised that the greater part of Godot's success came down to the fact that it was open to a variety of readings and that this was not necessarily a bad thing. Beckett himself sanctioned "one of the most famous mixed- race productions of Godot, performed at the Baxter Theatre in the University of Cape Town, directed by Donald Howarth, with [...] two black actors, and , playing Didi and Gogo; Pozzo, dressed in checked shirt and gumboots reminiscent of an Afrikaner landlord, and Lucky ('a shanty town piece of '[71]) were played by two white actors, Bill Flynn and Peter Piccolo [...]. The Baxter production has often been portrayed as if it were an explicitly political production, when in fact it received very little emphasis. What such a reaction showed, however, was that, although the play can in no way be taken as a political allegory, there are elements that are relevant to any local situation in which one man is being exploited or oppressed by another."[72] Political "It was seen as an allegory of the "[73] or of French Resistance to the Germans. Graham Hassell writes, "[T]he intrusion of Pozzo and Lucky [...] seems like nothing more than a for Ireland's view of mainland Britain, where society has ever been blighted by a greedy ruling élite keeping the working classes passive and ignorant by whatever means."[74] Vladimir and Estragon are often played with Irish accents, as in the Beckett on Film project. This, some feel, is an inevitable consequence of Beckett's rhythms and phraseology, but it is not stipulated in the text. At any rate, they are not of English stock: at one point early in the play, Estragon mocks the English pronunciation of "calm" and has fun with "the story of the Englishman in the brothel".[75] Freudian[edit] "Bernard Dukore develops a triadic theory in Didi, Gogo and the absent Godot, based on 's trinitarian description of the psyche in The Ego and the Id (1923) and the usage of onomastic techniques. Dukore defines the characters by what they lack: the rational Go-go embodies the incomplete ego, the missing pleasure principle: (e)go-(e)go. Di-di (id-id) – who is more instinctual and irrational – is seen as the backward id or subversion of the rational principle. Godot fulfills the function of the superego or moral standards. Pozzo and Lucky are just re- iterations of the main protagonists. Dukore finally sees Beckett's play as a metaphor for the futility of man's existence when salvation is expected from an external entity, and the self is denied introspection."[76] Jungian "The four archetypal personalities or the four aspects of the soul are grouped in two pairs: the ego and the shadow, the persona and the soul's image (animus or anima). The shadow is the container of all our despised emotions repressed by the ego. Lucky, the shadow, serves as the polar opposite of the egocentric Pozzo, prototype of prosperous mediocrity, who incessantly controls and persecutes his subordinate, thus symbolising the oppression of the unconscious shadow by the despotic ego. Lucky's monologue in Act I appears as a manifestation of a stream of repressed unconsciousness, as he is allowed to "think" for his master. Estragon's name has another connotation, besides that of the aromatic herb, tarragon: "estragon" is a cognate of estrogen, the female hormone (Carter, 130). This prompts us to identify him with the anima, the feminine image of Vladimir's soul. It explains Estragon's propensity for poetry, his sensitivity and dreams, his irrational moods. Vladimir appears as the complementary masculine principle, or perhaps the rational persona of the contemplative type."[77] Existantial Broadly speaking, existentialists hold that there are certain fundamental questions that all human beings must come to terms with if they are to take their subjective existences seriously and with intrinsic value. Questions such as life, death, the meaning of human existence and the place of God in that existence are among them. By and large, the theories of existentialism assert that conscious reality is very complex and without an "objective" or universally known value: the individual must create value by affirming it and living it, not by simply talking about it or philosophising it in the mind. The play may be seen to touch on all of these issues. Martin Esslin, in his The Theatre of the Absurd (1960), argued that Waiting for Godot was part of a broader literary movement that he called the Theatre of the Absurd, a form of theatre which stemmed from the absurdist philosophy of Albert Camus. Absurdism itself is a branch of the traditional assertions of existentialism, pioneered by Søren Kierkegaard, and posits that, while inherent meaning might very well exist in the universe, human beings are incapable of finding it due to some form of mental or philosophical limitation. Thus humanity is doomed to be faced with the Absurd, or the absolute absurdity of the existence in lack of intrinsic purpose.[78] Ethical Just after Didi and Gogo have been particularly selfish and callous, the boy comes to say that Godot is not coming. The boy (or pair of boys) may be seen to represent meekness and hope before compassion is consciously excluded by an evolving personality and character, and in which case may be the youthful Pozzo and Lucky. Thus Godot is compassion and fails to arrive every day, as he says he will. No-one is concerned that a boy is beaten.[79] In this interpretation, there is the irony that only by changing their hearts to be compassionate can the characters fixed to the tree move on and cease to have to wait for Godot. Christian Much of the play is steeped in scriptural allusion. The boy from Act One mentions that he and his brother mind Godot's sheep and goats. Much can be read into Beckett's inclusion of the story of the two thieves from Luke 23:39–43 and the ensuing discussion of repentance. It is easy to see the solitary tree as representative of the Christian cross or the tree of life. Some see God and Godot as one and the same. Vladimir's "Christ have mercy upon us!"[80] could be taken as evidence that that is at least what he believes. This reading is given further weight early in the first act when Estragon asks Vladimir what it is that he has requested from Godot:[81] Vladimir: "Oh ... nothing very definite." Estragon: "A kind of prayer." Vladimir: "Precisely." Estragon: "A vague supplication." Vladimir: "Exactly." Other explicit Christian elements that are mentioned in the play include, but not limited to, repentance,[82] the Gospels,[83] a Saviour,[84] human beings made in God's image,[85] the cross,[86] and Cain and Abel.[87] According to biographer Anthony Cronin, "[Beckett] always possessed a Bible, at the end more than one edition, and Bible concordances were always among the reference books on his shelves."[88] Beckett himself was quite open on the issue: "Christianity is a mythology with which I am perfectly familiar so I naturally use it."[89] As Cronin argues, these biblical references "may be ironic or even sarcastic".[90] "In answer to a defence counsel question in 1937 (during the libel action brought by his uncle against Oliver St. John Gogarty) as to whether he was a Christian, Jew or atheist, Beckett replied, 'None of the three' ".[91] Looking at Beckett's entire œuvre, Mary Bryden observed that "the hypothesised God who emerges from Beckett's texts is one who is both cursed for his perverse absence and cursed for his surveillant presence. He is by turns dismissed, satirised, or ignored, but he, and his tortured son, are never definitively discarded."[92] Autobiographical Waiting for Godot has been described as a "metaphor for the long walk into Roussillon, when Beckett and Suzanne slept in haystacks [...] during the day and walked by night [... or] of the relationship of Beckett to Joyce."[93] Beckett told Ruby Cohn that 's painting Two Men Contemplating the Moon, which he saw on his journey to Germany in 1936, was a source for the play.[94] Sexual Though the sexuality of Vladimir and Estragon is not always considered by critics,[95][96] some see the two vagabonds as an ageing homosexual couple, who are worn out, with broken spirits, impotent and not engaging sexually any longer. The two appear to be written as a parody of a married couple.[97] Peter Boxall points out that the play features two characters who seem to have shared life together for years; they quarrel, embrace, and are mutually dependent.[98] Beckett was interviewed at the time the play was premiering in New York, and, speaking of his writings and characters in general, Beckett said "I'm working with impotence, ignorance. I don't think impotence has been exploited in the past."[99] Vladimir and Estragon consider hanging themselves, as a desperate way to achieve at least one final erection. Pozzo and his slave, Lucky, arrive on the scene. Pozzo is a stout man, who wields a whip and holds a rope around Lucky's neck. Some critics have considered that the relationship of these two characters is homosexual and sado-masochistic in nature.[100] Lucky's long speech is a torrent of broken ideas and speculations regarding man, sex, God, and time. It has been said that the play contains little or no sexual hope; which is the play's lament, and the source of the play's humour and comedic tenderness.[101] wonders if Beckett might be restating the sexual and moral basis of Christianity, that life and strength is found in an adoration of those in the lower depths where God is concealed.[102]

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