University of Illinois Press

"To Be Is to Be Deceived": The Relation of Berkeley and Plato to "Waiting for Godot" Author(s): Eric P. Levy Source: The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 101, No. 2 (Apr., 2002), pp. 222-237

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Eric R Levy, Univerisity of British Columbia

a Waiting for Godothas provoked wide range of interpretations, respectively emphasizing Christian, Existentialist, Marxist, Freudian, Hobbesian, po and elements cite some litical, Cartesian, semiotic, biographical (to only known -1But the most recurrent?if not con better approaches) perhaps is that it sensual?assumption made by critics regarding Waiting for Godot concerns of earlier cultural as the universal plight man, unprotected by surances or belief systems. A seminal critic in this regard isMartin Esslin, according to whom the play reveals "the full horror of the human condi tion."2 Indeed, the play itself suggests its own universality, as when Vladimir (a) identifies Pozzo's fallen state with "all humanity" (p. 54L) or (b) at at tributes Everyman status to himself and Estragon: "But at this place, this we or not" moment of time, all mankind is us, whether like it (p. 51L).3

Samuel i. For a summary of critics treating the first four categories, see Andrew Kennedy, more recent Existentialist Beckett (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), p. 31. For see and Existence in interpretations, David McCandless, "Beckett and Tillich: Courage St. Waiting for Godot,'" Philosophy and Literature, 12 (1988), 48-57, and Lance John Butler, Samuel Beckett and theMeaning of Being: A Study in Ontological Parables (London: Macmillan, see 1984), pp. 74-113 (drawing on Heidegger and Sartre). For a Hobbesian reading, Rob on A. McCar ert Zaller, "Waiting for Leviathan," in Critical Essays Samuel Beckett, ed. Patrick to later thy (Boston: Prentice-Hall, 1986), pp. 160-73. F?r the play's relation the passive resistance movement of the early sixties, see Herbert Blau, "Quaquaquaqua: The Babel of Beckett," in The World of Samuel Beckett, ed. Joseph H. Smith (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 1-15, at p. 9; and Rosette Lamont, "Beckett's Metaphysics of Choiceless Awareness," in Samuel Beckett Now, ed. MelvinJ. Friedman, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Univ. of Chi cago Press, 1975), pp. 199-217, at p. 217. For Cartesian commentary, see Sheila Rabillard, a "The Body in Beckett: D?n?gation and the Critique of Depoliticized Theatre," Criticism, see 34 (1992), 99-118, at 114, n. 2. For semiotic and linguistic interpretations, Jean Alter, Anna White "Waiting for the Referent: Waiting for Godot?" in On Tieferring in Literature, ed. side and Michael Issacharoff (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1987), pp. 42-56; Man uela Corfariu and Daniela Roventa-Frumusana, "Absurd Dialogue and Speech Acts: Beck ett's En Attendant Godot,'" Poetics, 13 (1984), 119-33; and Wolfgang Iser, Prospecting: From Reader Response toLiterary Anthropology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 152 93. For biographical analysis, see S. E. Gontarski, The Intent of "Undoing" in Samuel Beckett's Dramatic Texts (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1985), pp. 35-36; Deirdre Bair, Samuel to Beckett: A Biography (London: Harcourt, 1978), p. 386; and James Knowlson, Damned Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), pp. 378-82. 2. Martin Esslin, The Theatre of theAbsurd (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 37-38. 3. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, trans. Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 1954). are text. All quotations from the play pertain to this edition, and cited parenthetically in my

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In her recent study of the play as an inversion of the extreme Nominal ism of Kroll offers a valuable of Bishop Berkeley, Norma reinterpretation Waiting for Godot in these terms. According to Kroll, in Waiting for Godot Beckett "inverts [Berkeley's] trust in God's unwavering regard of his cre ation" such that God's perception (represented by the absent Godot) is withdrawn "from the human to contend predicament," forcing humanity with the resultant metaphysical "discontinuities."4 In Kroll's view, the play illumines the of human existence in terms of problematics metaphysical the control of its victims as are to be con factors beyond who, individuals, as manifestations of the fortune of mankind."5 strued "particular general The will a of the present study pursue contrary analysis play, replacing the notion of universality or irremediable human condition with the idea of deliberately sustained self-deception. In this context, the plight of nor Vladimir and Estragon is neither inherent inevitable, but doggedly a unno devised. Underpinning this interpretation is web of heretofore ticed allusions to or invocations of the works of both Berkeley and Plato? whose constructions of as we shall philosophers reality constitute, see, a philosophical opposites whose polarity is crucial to deeper understand ing of Waiting for Godot. Moreover, the relation of Berkeley and Beckett one we shall find is completely different from the adduced by Kroll. For whereas to Godot the absence of example, according Kroll, symbolizes is the sole of we shall God who, in Berkeley's system, guarantor certainty, that Godot or excuses the of discover justifies perpetuation uncertainty.

I. THE RELEVANCE OF BERKELEY TO WAITING FOR GODOT

notes As Lance St. John Butler (writing shortly before Kroll) (without the in the course of commentary), play invokes, Lucky's stupendous name has never before speech, the of "Bishop Berkeley" (p. 29L).6 But it been observed that Lucky is also explicitly associated with Berkeley's cel ebrated description of the intellectual confusion resulting from improp to that er philosophical concepts. According Berkeley, the uncertainty

re The letters, "L" and "R" after the page number refer to the left and right hand pages spectively. 4. Norma Kroll, "Berkeley Inside Out: Existence and Destiny in Waiting for Godot," JEGP, a of Beckett's later 94 (1995), 530-53, at 530, 535. For Berkelean interpretation work, Film, A between Beckett and see Sylvie Debevec Henning, "'Film': Dialogue Berkeley," Journal of Beckett Studies, 7 (1982), 89-99. 5. Kroll, p. 552. 6. Lance St. Butler, Godot and in to Beck John " "Waitingfor Philosophy," Approaches Teaching Brater York: ett's "Waitingfor Godot, ed. June Schlueter and Enoch (New MLA, 1991), pp. 48-55, at p. 52.

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arrests in its toward about the nature of real the mind progress certainty ity stems, not from the unintelligibility of reality, but from the erroneous intellectual principles employed to understand "the nature of things."7 Speculative reason stymies its own philosophical investigations by the mistaken ideas with which it thinks: "that fine and subtle net of abstract ideas, which has so miserably perplexed and entangled the minds of men."8 The image of the intellectual net, which "stay[s] and embarrass [es] the mind in its search after truth," explicitly recurs in the figure of Lucky who, just before the stupendously inconclusive act of thinking ("unfinished for reasons in which he mentions does unknown,"p. 29L) "Bishop Berkeley," a dance in a net: "The Net. He thinks he's entan depicting entanglement gled in a net" (p. 27L) .9Both this phrase describing Lucky and Berkeley's phrase describing intellectual perplexity deploy the words "net" and "en declamation the in tangled." Indeed, Lucky's concerning quandary which man more his search for and or, precisely, philosophical meaning "wastes wastes and constitutes an of what pines pines" (p. 29R) unrivalled example Berkeley, in the famous inaugural paragraph of A Treatise Concerning the Human terms "forlorn Principles of Knowledge, skepticism."10 In on closer that a re fact, inspection, inaugural paragraph provides on markably penetrating gloss the opening situation in Waiting for Godot, where Estragon is seen "sitting on a lowmound," by the side of" [a] country road" (p. 7L). After a prolonged and futile struggle to "take off his boot," he lapses, "giving up again," and declares his frustration: "Nothing to be done" (p. 7L). Berkeley's inaugural paragraph displays the same imagery regarding a figure seated by a road, in a state of dejected futility. But in Berkeley's passage, that sense of futility is caused by intellectual, not phys frustration. The seated the efforts of reason to ical, figure, perplexed by illumine "the nature of has to things," given up the attempt ascertain truth by philosophic "speculation," and succumbed to "a forlorn skepticism":

Yet so it we see the illiterate bulk of mankind is, that walk the high road of plain common and are sense, governed by the dictates of nature, for the most part easy and undisturbed. To them nothing that is familiar appears unaccount able or to not difficult comprehend. They complain of any want of evidence in their and are out of all of no soon senses, danger becoming skeptics. But er do we sense and to a depart from instinct follow the light of superior prin to and on nature a ciple, reason, meditate, reflect the of things, but thou sand in our minds scruples spring up concerning those things which before we to errors sense seemed fully comprehend. Prejudices and of do from all

7- George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles ofHuman Knowledge, ed. Colin M. Turbayne (1710; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), p. 5. 8. Berkeley, p. 21. 9. Berkeley, p. 6. 10. Berkeley, p. 5.

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our parts discover themselves to view; and, endeavouring to correct these by we are reason, insensibly drawn into uncouth paradoxes, difficulties, and us as we in inconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon advance specula at we tion, till length, having wandered through many intricate mazes, find we a ourselves just where were, or, which isworse, sit down in forlorn skepticism.11 (my emphasis)

The goal of the present analysis is to clarify the perplexity and frustra tion that encumber life in Waiting for Godot. We can take our first step to end solution to the of ward that by examining Berkeley's problem specu lative reason perplexing itself by its own thinking. According to Berkeley, the mind knows reality only through the ideas of it formed by sense per ception: "we hold indeed the objects of sense to be nothing else but ideas which cannot exist In this the term "ideas" in unperceived."12 context, such as etc. as cludes sensory qualities colour, size, smell, taste, Just pain exists in the awareness of so external exist only suffering it, objects only as ideas in the mind perceiving them: "All things that exist, exist only in that are notional."13 To as Cassirer the mind, is, they purely Berkeley, notes, "[t]he reality of perception is the only certain and utterly unproblemati cal?the of all to be is to be only primary?datum knowledge."14 Hence, perceived ( esse estpercipi) : that is, to be is to be an idea or complex of ideas in this to "de the mind. By reasoning, according Windelband, Berkeley molished the of substances."15 Cassirer elaborates: conception corporeal summons inner to battle outward ex "Thus Berkeley experience against

perience, psychology against physics."16 who seeks to overcome "forlorn Vladimir Unlike Berkeley skepticism," and devote their lives to it. But for Berke Estragon sustaining whereas, the to be overcome concerns the nature of for ley, skepticism reality, Vladimir and Estragon the skepticism to be prolonged concerns the mean and of life. The ideas entertain concern their ing purpose primary they own state of is certain when about" thwarted uncertainty: "Nothing you're (p. 10R); "No, nothing is certain" (p. 35R). By prolonging perplexity re garding purpose ("What do we do now?" p. 49L), they ultimately render purpose irrelevant. The only certainty they know is the necessity of wait in this immense confusion one alone is clear. We are wait ing: "Yes, thing for Godot to come?" . at that awaits the ing (p. 5 iR) But, bottom, waiting

11. Berkeley, p. 5. 12. Berkeley, p. 45. 13. Berkeley, p. 38. 14. Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. Ralph Manheim, 3 vols. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1957), III, 23. 15. Wilhelm Windelband, A History of Philosophy, trans. James H. Tufts, 2 vols. ( 1901 ;New York: Harper, 1958), II, 469. 16. Cassirer, III, 24.

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arrival of so there no ever purposelessness, that will be need for purpose to or again disturb them make them suffer boredom in its absence: 'You'd rather be stuck there doing nothing?" "Yes" (p. 45R). To transpose a Vladimir's words from different context, they wait "[i]n anticipation of some return" in concerns tangible (p. 51L) which, this case, the shelter of their own this are of the perplexity. By means, they absolved responsi bility to fulfill their own freedom ("We've lost our rights?" "We got rid of and determine their own them," p. 13R), meaning?a project similarly rejected by Hamm and Clov in Endgame: "Mean something! You and I, mean Ah! that's a something! good one!"17 In this the relation between Godot and the regard, primary couple (Vladimir and Estragon) is especially instructive. Conventionally, Godot as a is interpreted reification of the ideal plenitude or sufficiency of be ing which "humanity" (p. 54L) lacks but inconsolably yearns for. To for the concerns "the man Knight, example, play dilemma of who, hav ing projected his best qualities onto an external and abstract being, is rendered not come to save impotent when that abstraction does him from his self-induced anxieties."18 critics tend to Godot as Yet, though regard an ideal exempt from the failings of his adherents, this figure, whose func tion is to explain purpose, is himself explicitly associated with postponement of For he is to to "he'd purpose. expected delay response "supplication": have to think it over" (p. 13L). The function of Godot can be clarified by reference to the function of God in For as we to to Berkeley's metaphysics. Berkeley, have seen, be is be perceived: "the objects of sense [are] nothing else but ideas which cannot an exist unperceived."19 But there is obvious distinction between (a) ideas which belong to the internal world of imagination only, and are susceptible to instantaneous change or disappearance, and (b) ideas which to the external world of and do not or pertain things, change disappear to the of the mind them. according vagaries perceiving For the and of ideas to real Berkeley, greater constancy clarity pertaining things (as opposed to imaginary ones) is due to the action of God: "The on senses ideas imprinted the by the Author of Nature are called real things; and those excited in the less con imagination, being regular, vivid, and are more termed ideas or which stant, properly images of things they copy and represent" (original emphasis).20 Windelband elaborates: "The real ity of bodies consists, therefore, in this, that their ideas are communicat

17- Samuel Beckett, Endgame, trans. Samuel Beckett (NewYork: Grove Press, 1958), p. 33. 18. Alan E. Knight, "The Medieval Theatre of the Absurd," PMLA, 86 (1971), 183-89, at 186. 19. Berkeley, p. 45. 20. Berkeley, p. 38.

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ed by God to finite spirits, and the order of succession in which God ha we bitually does this call laws ofNature' (original emphasis).21 Unlike Berkeley's God whose function is to guarantee the distinction between and Godot is an of reality illusion, agency indeterminacy. Indeed, his the "I emissary, Boy, repeats the statement, don't know, Sir," five times in course as the of the play. Just Berkeley's God sustains ideas of real things in human minds, so Godot sustains the idea of waiting in the minds of Vladimir and Estragon. Through this waiting, Vladimir and Estragon are to own relieved of the need determine their reality independently. For them existence is no more than an not to be taken "We illusion, seriously: us always find something, eh Didi, to give the impression we exist?" (p. More construe their existence as the 44R). precisely, they suffering of which can never mean more excruciating futility than enforced endur ance: "I can't on like this." "That's what think" In go you (p. 60R). this the of the recurrent to confirm context, significance inability experience emerges: "Do you not remember?" 'You dreamt it" (p. 39L); "I tell you we weren't here Another of yesterday. your nightmares" (p. 42R). WTiereas Berkeley's God assures the distinction between reality and illusion, wait ing for Godot assures that nothing has more reality than the need to avoid me someone the disturbance of recognizing the truth: "At too is looking, me someone of too is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on" (p. 58R). to the for Vladimir and Yet, despite appearances contrary, Estragon avoidance of truth and of "forlorn a perpetuation skepticism" is demand ing exercise that requires exhausting intellectual effort: "Use your intelli can't For in reason must con gence, you?" (p. 12R). this case, labour to ceive distractions that its own hamper activity:

In the meantime let us to converse since we are of try calmly, incapable keep ing silent. You're right, we're inexhaustible. so we It's won't think, (p. 40L)

To hamper thought and ensure its inability to move forward, Vladimir and Estragon engage in interminably inconclusive dialogue. The use of to avoid truth Socratic use of to dialogue parodies the dialogue achieve truth. In fact, in addition to invoking Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles ofHuman Knowledge, Waiting for Godot also refers frequently to the Platonic Later in our we shall examine the dialogues. inquiry, impli cations of Beckett's fusion of and Plato. we must Berkeley But first iden tify and interpret the Platonic allusions which on their own?whether or not we can confirm Beckett's direct citation in each case?function as

21. Windelband, II, 470.

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to focus our on and illumine an stra lenses by which thought important tum of meaning in the play.

II. THE RELEVANCE OF THE PLATONIC DIALOGUES TO WAITING FOR GODOT

Before embarking on this phase of our inquiry, it important to follow Aristotle's advice (in Book B of the Metaphysics), and draw up the aporia: the intellectual obstacles more obstructions that is, anticipate or, literally, of passage we might encounter.22 Unlike our earlier project in discussing our now cannot on direct internal evidence Berkeley, enterprise always rely in order to demonstrate a utterance or dramatic situation ex that given plicitly invokes an external, philosophical text. Though we shall, in at least one instance, be able to confirm Beckett's deliberateness of citation, and in other cases evidence will at least be there though the preponderant, are other instances where the relevance of a section of a Pla particular or on tonic dialogue to Waiting for Godot cannot be confirmed supported textual But the time we conclude our consideration purely grounds. by of the Platonic dialogues, we shall have established that they contain strik ing metaphors and situations which can deepen the signification of the play, whether through Beckett's deliberate intention or simply fortuitous correspondence. The dramatic emphasis in Waiting for Godot on removing boots ("Es on a low is to take off his or tragon, mound, trying boot," p. 7L) putting on me to a sec them ("Come on, give your foot," p. 44R) refers directly tion of the Theaetetus (193 c-d). In that dialogue, Plato analyzes the prob lem of true and false of in terms of correct and incor judgment objects rect matching of present perception with the corresponding memory impression or "imprint" obtained by past identification of that object.23 Correct identification of the perceived object is compared to the action of one's foot into the correct boot Mis putting (or memory impression). taken identification of the object is analogous to putting one's foot in the wrong boot:

occur in a case It remains, then, that false judgment should like this?when

22. Joseph Owens provides an etymology of the term: "The vocabulary of the Aristotelian on aporia is based the Greek 'poros', meaning 'passage'. The privative alpha gives the signifi an no can no cation 'lack of passage'. In aporia the intellect has passage. It make headway. Something is holding it back," {The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1951], p. 214). 23. Plato, Theaetetus, trans. F. M. Cornford, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI (New York: Bol lingen, 1961), pp. 847-919.

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I, who know you and Theodorus and possess imprints of you both like seal waxen see at a impressions in the block, you both distance indistinctly and am a to to in hurry assign the proper imprint of each the proper visual per a own to a ception, likefitting foot into its footmark effect recognition, and then make like a man the mistake of interchanging them, who thrusts his feet into the the of each to the of wrong shoes, and apply perception imprint the other. (193 c-d, my emphasis)

There to be no that the references in Beckett's appears question play to removing or donning boots do indeed invoke this passage; for in Watt (an earlier Beckettian text) an explicit linking of problematic perception occurs. After with mismatching footwear describing Watt's mismatched footwear ("a boot, brown in colour, and a shoe, happily of a brownish colour the narrator addresses Watt's futile to a also"), attempt identify perceived object: "SoWatt waited with impatience, for the figure to draw near Watt is no more with very indeed."24 However, concerned objective identification of the object than he is with correct matching of foot with footwear. He simply wants to clarify what the object appears to be, not what it is: "For Watt's as it was not after actually concern, deep appeared, all with what the figure was, in reality, but with what the figure appeared to be, in reality" {Watt, p. 227). indifference to and his concern with mere Watt's reality appearance inverts the Platonic where the of is to ascend metaphysics, goal knowledge from the shifting illusions of opinion to the unchanging truth of the Ideas or Pure Forms. In the Beckettian universe, the only truth is knowledge of The Beckettian answer to the of its irrelevance. paradoxical problem dis from is that is real as tinguishing appearance reality nothing because, Malone writes in his paraphrase of the Pre-Socratic philosopher, Democri tus of Abdera, "Nothing is more real than nothing {Malone Dies, original emphasis).25 There are many analogues of this claim in Waiting for Godot: "In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness!" (p. 52L); "There's no lack of void" (p. 42R). In psycho means logical and moral terms, the primacy of nothingness that life is reduced to awareness of triviality ("This is becoming really insignificant," p. 44L), boredom ("We wait. We are bored," p. 52L), and futility ("Noth

24- Samuel Beckett, Watt (New York: Grove Press, 1959), pp. 218, 227. Further referen ces to Watt will appear parenthetically in the text. 25. Samuel Beckett, MaloneDies, in Three Novels: Molloy, Mahne Dies, The Unnamable, trans. Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 1958), pp. 179-288, at p. 192. Cf. Democritus of Abdera, Fragment 156, in Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments inDiets, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, trans. Kathleen Freeman (Cambridge: Har as occurs vard Univ. Press, 1966), p. 106: "Naught exists just much as Aught." An echo also in Samuel Beckett, Murphy (New York: Grove, 1957), p. 246: "the Nothing, than which in the guffaw of the Abderite naught ismore real."

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ing to be done," p. 7L). For Vladimir and Estragon, life is a verbalized version of "the soundless tumult of the inner lamentation" in expressed Watt (p. 217), a reiterative complaint about the pointlessness of living: "I can't go on!" (p. 58R). There is "[n]othing to be done" (p. 7L), because there is only the absence of purpose in which to do it. Whereas the celebrated purpose of Platonic dialogue is to clarify truth by disclosing error, the Beckettian dialogue in Waiting for Godot cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, because it has lingered so long in doubt: The 'You think so?" "I don't know." 'You may be right" (p. 51R). situa tion in the play is exactly opposite to that described in the Allegory of the Cave?the most famous Platonic myth in the Republic and one which Brian Duffy has already linked to The Unnamable.26 In that allegory, the requi site intellectual movement is from the flickering shadows of illusion, in side the the constant of truth outside. cave, toward radiantly light shining Through this movement, as Jaeger indicates, the soul turns "away from the realm of becoming, until it can bear to look at the brightest pinnacle of Plato's for this movement from the of mere reality."27 analogy ignorance to the of true concerns the sudden transi opinion certainty knowledge tion from blindness to the gift of sight: "inserting vision into blind eyes" (Re In contrast to Socratic whose public 518b6, my emphasis). dialogue, pur pose is illumination, the purpose of Beckettian dialogue is to sustain "idle discourse" (p. 51L), so that reason might thereby be protected from the risk of clarification and the difficult decisions which would follow from it. In this context, darkness is preferable to light: "But has it ['our reason'] not long been straying in the night without end of the abyssal depths?" And blindness is to the movement into (p. 5 lR). preferable vision. Indeed, deeper darkness, instead of toward greater illumination, is epitomized by the transition of Pozzo from vision to blindness: "I used to have wonder ful sight" (p. 54R). Yet, though "confusion" (p. 5 lR) brings its reward, it also entails frustra tion at not able to the more not being know truth?and, fundamentally, being able to know why truth remains inaccessible: "Idon't know why I don't know!" (p. 43R). Ironically, the Boy, who encourages waiting for Godot, is on the figure whom Estragon physically vents his frustration at not being able to know the to a truth?or, conversely, prove that claim is false:

That's all a of us pack lies. (Shaking the Boy by the arm.) Tell the truth! But it is the Boy: (trembling). truth, Sir! (p. 33L, original emphasis)

26. See Brian Duffy, "The Prisoners in the Cave and Worm in the Pit: Plato and Beckett on Authority and Truth, "Journal of Beckett Studies, 8 (1998), 51-71. 27. Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. Gilbert Highet, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1943), II, 295.

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Estragon's rage at the human inability to determine the truth epitomizes the predicament of philosophical reason in the world of the play. In the philosophies of both Berkeley and Plato, reason can successfully establish certainty, though it does so in opposite ways: either, with Berkeley, by postulating the primacy of sense perception or, with Plato, by postulating the of the But in reason primacy non-sensory Ideas. the world of the play, is epistemologically challenged. It cannot achieve certainty ("Tell us the truth!"), because its only available principle of verification is doubt or In other as is as cer uncertainty. words, Estragon demonstrates, nothing tain as conviction in "I don't I don't as ignorance: know why know!" Or, is certain but the of reason to Lucky exemplifies, nothing inability under stand its own limitations?to understand, that is, the reason for its own incompletion of thought: "left unfinished for reasons unknown" (pp. 28R-29L). In this the of abuse context, deeper significance Estragon's physical of with another Platonic allusion. Lucky emerges, along Just as, when shak ing the Boy, Estragon was venting frustration at the human inability to achieve certainty, so, when furiously "kicking" (p. 56R) the fallen Lucky, Estragon is again, by implication, venting his consternation at the futility of thought. To begin with, in kicking Lucky, Estragon abuses the figure conspicuously associated with the hapless predicament of thought: "Think, pig!" (p. 47L). But the full resonance of Estragon's outburst emerges in context of another Platonic where Socrates the dialogue (the Protagoras), refers to knowledge or the reasoning faculty as a slave "which is kicked about" unrestrained emotions: by

... not of as a much less a dominant Most people do think knowledge force, or a man often while he is ruled ruling force; they think may have knowledge at one at or sometimes by something else, time anger, another pleasure pain, as a is about love, very often fear; they really picture knowledge slave which kicked by all these other things. {Protagoras 352bc, my emphasis)28

There is perhaps no more succinctly penetrating evaluation of the mentality embodied by the primary couple than these words of Socrates. cannot achieve is cer Vladimir and Estragon certainty ("No, nothing tain," p. 35R), because they know nothing but their own feelings, the most persistent of which is self-pitying boredom: "Nothing happens, it's awful!" allow emotion nobody comes, nobody goes, (p. 27R). They to overcome as emotion to him thought, just Estragon allows provoke incarnation of ob into violence against Lucky?the thinking. Indeed, session with their own feelings is precisely the factor that perpetuates

28. Quoted and translated by E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1951), p. 185.

This content downloaded from 129.97.58.73 on Mon, 19 Oct 2015 21:07:28 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 232 Levy re their plight. Vladimir's reprehension of the blind Pozzo ironically bounds upon himself: "He can think of nothing but himself!" (p. 53L). So does "Let him alone. Can't see he's think his subsequent pity: you ing of the days when he was happy" (p. 55R). Indeed, the fallen Lucky whom kicks also the own mental Estragon represents primary couple's ity; for the useless burden of "sand" (p. 57L) under which he collapses epitomizes their own preoccupation with the "misery" (p. 41R) of futil ity.Hence, it is appropriate that Estragon "hurts his foot" (p. 56R) when kicking Lucky; for he is confronting his own?and Vladimir's?refusal to know anything but the pathos of purpose: "alas alas abandoned un finished" (p. 29R).29 The negation, in Waiting for Godot, of conviction in the purpose of life con is illumined by another Platonic dialogue: the Phaedo. This dialogue tains three and consecutive in distort powerful metaphors which recur, ed in one to an form, the play. Though the correspondence of any them element in the be the of play might merely fortuitous, correspondence all three to elements that Beckett deliberate respective strongly suggests ly designed the parallels. The first of these metaphors concerns the guard post. In the Phaedo, the watch or guard post is associated with the task of enduring life without deserting one's post through the act of suicide: "The allegory which the tell us?that we are men in a sort of from mystics put guard post, which one must not release oneself or run to me to be a doc away?seems high trine with difficult implications" (p. 62b).30 In Waiting for Godot, the task of standing guard is debased to keeping an appointment every evening with a who never arrives: "We have our party kept appointment and that's an end to that" act on which of (p. 51R). Here, watching?the security life depends?is demoted to waiting, and waiting, in turn, is demoted to the of suicide: "We'll tomorrow. procrastination hang ourselves Unless Godot comes" (p. 60R). Whereas in the Phaedo death is not to be pre-empted or prematurely induced, in Waiting for Godot it is the status quo. For life itself is construed as a posthumous exercise, doomed by "habit" (p. 58R) to recapitulate innumerably the same experience lived before: "To have lived is not enough for them." "They have to talk about it" (p. 40R). Indeed, Vladimir and are each the same Estragon already pseudo-spectral, revisiting evening futility, unable to impinge their action upon it. In fact, they perceive their

In the context 29- of the allusions in Waiting For Godot to the Platonic dialogues, the sub title of the play, "a tragicomedy in two acts," gains further significance; for Socrates himself refers to "the whole tragicomedy of life" (Philebus 50b). See Plato, Philebus, trans. R. Hack in forth, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, pp. 1087-150. trans. 30. Plato, Phaedo, Hugh Tredennick, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, pp. 41-98.

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environment as a "charnel-house" to a from "For or, interpolate phrase To End Yet a of remains": "Where are all these Again," "[p]lace corpses from?" "These skeletons" (p. 41L).31 In Waiting for Godot, life is over when it begins: "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's once more" As in "Afar a the night (p. 57B). Bird," only response to living is to "g[i]ve up before birth."32 The only possible accomplishment is "to grow old" (p. 58L). The image of human enterprise is the death's head: "the skull fading fading fading" (p. 29R).33 The same passage in the Phaedo which construes life as a vigil at the guard post also foregrounds two more important metaphors. Just before the reference to the guard post, Socrates links the time before death with sunset and contemplation of the life after death or "the future life": "What else can one do in the time before sunset?" (6ie). Then, immediately after the Socrates associates the notion of suicide with guard post reference, the action o? fleeing a good master: "a stupid person might get the idea that itwould be to his advantage to escape from his master" (62d). Of course, both sunset and the possibility that a slave will flee from his master figure on sun prominently in Waiting for Godot. Pozzo delivers a set speech the set. Pozzo has a slave far from tries to Moreover, also who, running away, prevent his master from dismissing him: "He imagines that when I see how well he carries I'll be tempted to keep him in that capacity" (p. 2 lL). In moral earnestness in the Socratic each case, the implicit metaphors The sunset of the relation be is debased. contemplation eschatological tween the life to come and the life to end becomes a discourse on the ir relevance of preparation: "night is charging and will burst upon us pop! like that! just when we least expect it" (p. 25R).34 The metaphor regard a ing the temptation to flee good master (i.e., to commit suicide) is invert ed to concern the project to "cod" (p. 21L) the master into keeping the slave, as if intensification of suffering, instead of prompting suicide, could become the reason for living. This strategy, of course, epitomizes the plight of Vladimir and Estragon who reduce life to excruciating futility in order to escape the responsibilities of purpose. Indeed, Lucky provides a gloss on their predicament: "labours abandoned left unfinished" (p. 29R).

31. Samuel Beckett, "For To End Yet Again," in For To End Yet Again and Other Fizzles (Lon 11. don: John Calder, 1976), pp. 11-15, at p. 32. Samuel Beckett, "Afar A Bird," in For To End Yet Again and Other Fizzles, pp. 39-41, at P-39 33. Mary Junker, Beckett: The Irish Dimension (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1995), p. 49, iden tifies the skull as the Turoe Stone in Connemara: "an anthropomorphic image of pagan worship, dating from around 279 B.C." 34. According to Paul Davies, The Ideal Real: Beckett's Fiction and Imagination (Rutherford: sunset rest to Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1994), p. 205, "offers the tired physical eye, is the so that imagination can free itself of the material world to which it tied during day."

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Further consideration of Plato will clarify Waiting for Godot. In the Meno (g7e-g8a), Socrates employs the metaphor of the "tether" to distinguish between knowledge from mere "opinion" (a term used by Vladimir in his first speech and a little later by Estragon, pp. 7L, 10R). Knowledge can be relied while is to abscond: upon, opinion prone

are a so as in True opinions fine thing and do all sorts of good long they stay not run a so their place, but they will stay long. They away from man's mind; are reason. they not worth much until you tetherthem by working out the That as we are process, my dear Meno, is recollection, agreed earlier. Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and stable. That is why knowledge more one is something valuable than right opinion. What distinguishes from the other is the tether? (my emphasis)35

The image of the tether is, of course, prominent in Waiting for Godot; for is tethered to Pozzo means of a round his neck" Lucky "by rope passed (p. 15L), while Vladimir and Estragon, by their own admission, are teth ered psychologically to Godot: "Tied to Godot! What an idea! No ques tion of it" examination of the Meno (p. 14R). Closer passage perhaps strengthens the connection between the tether in that Platonic dialogue in For introduces the notion of the and the tether Beckett's play. Socrates tether reference to "the statues of Daedalus" if left by which, "untethered," will "like a slave' Pozzo's slip away runaway (p. 97d, my emphasis). Lucky, tethered slave, does indeed seem associated with this distinction between knowledge and mere opinion; for his supreme function is "to think" philo sophically (p. 27R) about the meaning of "man" (p. 29L). can our in We conclude consideration of Platonic allusions Waiting for the enters near the Godot with discussion of Godot's emissary, Boy, who end of each Act with the message that, though Godot "won't come this he is sure to "come to-morrow" The of the evening," (p. 58R). figure Boy in Waiting for Godot entrains a celebrated Platonic antecedent, even if the connection is only fortuitous. Early in Plato's Republic, Socrates and his are instructed a to await the arrival of his master: companion by boy

we our seen we were for town After had said prayers and the spectacle starting son us a when Polemarchus, the of Cephalus, caught sight of from distance as we were run us wait for hastening homeward and ordered his boy and bid Polemarchus him, and the boy caught hold of my himation from behind and said, wants you to wait. And I turned around and asked where his master was. em There he is, he said, behind you, coming this way. Wait for him. (my phasis)36

35- Plato, Meno, trans. W. K. C. Guthrie, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, pp. 354-84. 36. Plato, Republic, trans. Paul Shorey, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, pp. 576-844, 1.327b. Further references to the Republic will be cited parenthetically, and pertain to this translation.

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The great dialogue on justice that ensues after the brief waiting request ed by the boy (Polemarchus's slave) contrasts starkly with Vladimir and but inconclusive on Estragon's ever-renewing dialogue their situation: 'Yes, now I remember, yesterday evening we spent blathering about nothing in That's been on now for half a em particular going century" (p. 42R, my phasis). Whereas to Socrates, the purpose of dialogue is to train thought to and overcome its own for Vladimir and recognize ignorance, Estragon serves to distract themselves from for effec dialogue only responsibility tive thinking.

III.THE JUXTAPOSITION OF PLATOAND BERKELEYIN WAITING FOR GODOT

The preceding interpretation of Waiting for Godot, enabled by the allusions to Berkeley's Treatise Concerning thePrinciples ofHuman Knowledge and the Platonic dialogues, diverges from the popular reading inaugurated by Martin Esslin and reaffirmed afterwards. to that frequently According view, Waiting for Godot dramatizes the Absurdity of the "human" (p. 19R) con dition, unfolding helplessly in a universe with neither intrinsic meaning nor An overlooked but formulation of purpose.37 extremely competent this prevailing view is offered by John J. Mood: Indeed, "If there is any thing Beckett is serious about, will not be disingenuous about, will not dis it is this matter of But as we semble, helplessness" (original emphasis).38 have found, there is abundant evidence that the plight of existence in the world of the not a but a sub play reflects, universally objective condition, jective attitude or perspective which prefers to perpetuate faith in futility. At the deepest level, the helplessness which afflicts Vladimir and Estragon is not generic, but carefully planned. They wait for that which will never are certain that it will never come. Their awaits arrive because they waiting its own continuation: for . . . only "waiting waiting" (pp. 51R, 50L). They wait because it is all they know of life ("All my lousy life I've crawled about in the mud!" p. 39R), and all they choose to know: 'You'd rather be stuck there doing nothing?" 'Yes" (p. 45R). on the condition that Godot will That Vladimir and Estragon wait only never come is indicated their of his the who by questioning emissary, Boy, at to as arrives the end of each evening advise that, Vladimir puts it, come . . . he'll come to-morrow" "[Godot] won't this evening [b]ut (p.

37- See Esslin, p. 56; Eoin O'Brien, The Beckett Country (Dublin: Black Cat Press, 1986), p. 68; Simon Levy, Samuel Beckett's Self Referential Drama (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1990), p. 16; and Butler, ''Waitingfor Godot and Philosophy," pp. 48-55. 38. John J. Mood, "'The Personal System'?Samuel Beckett's Watt," PMLA, 86 (1971), 255~65> at 263.

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58R). When the Boy arrives on the first evening, Estragon asks: "What kept you so late?" (p. 32R). His query clearly shows that the object of the cele brated waiting is the Boy, not Godot. This emphasis on waiting for the Boy, instead of waiting for Godot, can be clarified by the insistence on the Boy's role as witness: 'You did see didn't 'You're sure us, you?" (p. 34L); you saw come me never saw me, you won't and tell to-morrow that you me!" (p. 59L). The proximate cause of this anxiety about not being seen is the fact that each a with Godot's evening differentboy arrives message. Hence, each new Boy has no recollection of any previous meeting: "This is your first time?" Sir" "This is first time." Sir" 'Yes, (p. 33R). your 'Yes, (p. 58R). this situation suits Vladimir and as Ironically, Estragon perfectly, further reference to can As discussed the Berkeley's metaphysics clarify. earlier, hallmark of Berkeley's philosophy is the proposition that to be is to be per ceived. That is, objects exist only as ideas in the mind perceiving them. If Vladimir and remain uncertain about re Estragon being perceived, they own sees main uncertain about their existence: "Do you think God me?" (p. 49R). But the project of Vladimir and Estragon is to remain uncertain of their own existence, to prove that existence is only an illusion which they themselves control: "We find eh to us the im always something, Didi, give pressionne exist?" (p. 44R, my emphasis). Indeed, on hearing the approach of intruders, Estragon's initial reflex is to hide behind the tree: 'Your only hope left is to disappear" (p. 47R). Here avoidance of being seen indicates the wish to exist only in terms of the perplexity which they sustain for each other: "That's the let's contradict each other" idea, (p. 41L). We are now to the fusion of Plato and in Wait ready explicate Berkeley ingfor Godot. To begin with, these two philosophers uphold contradictory doctrines the nature of For concerning reality. Berkeley, reality is found ed on sense in is a of ideas in the mind. perception which, turn, complex For sense concerns inconstant Plato, perception only appearances, where as genuine reality is to be founded on the changeless self-identity of the Ideal Forms which remain constant never "always and invariable, admit alteration in or in ting any any respect any sense" (Phaedo 78d). Cassirer formulates the contrast between Plato and "In order Berkeley compactly: to affirm the reality of its objects, classical epistemology had to degrade sensation to and set it down as a mere subjective appearance, ultimately name. Now [with Berkeley] the opposite thesis is upheld: sensation has become the sole matter a mere reality and is name."39 Waiting for Godot conflates these two appraisals of reality. Here, reality on is founded perception, as in Berkeley's metaphysics, but perception concerns "this immense confusion" Ber always (p. 51R). Hence, unlike

39- Cassirer, III, 23.

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where is "the certain and keley's system perception only utterly unprob . . lematical. datum of all knowledge" (Cassirer, II, 23), perception in the play confirms only a changeless indeterminacy which defies certain knowl edge: "Nothing very definite" (p. 13L). Hence constancy ("The essential doesn't change," p. 14B), instead of entailing truth, as in the Platonic metaphysics, simply confirms deception: "That's all a pack of lies" (p. 33L). In Beckett's universe, to be is to be deceived. It is to believe, despite avail able alternatives, that there is "[njothing to be done" but continue the same futility, nothing to be known but the same perplexity: "What do we do now?" (p. 12L).

a see 40. For companion study of the play, Eric P. Levy, "False Innocence in Waiting For Godot," Journal of Beckett Studies, 3 (1994), 19-36.

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