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The Element of Time in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

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The Element of Time in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Journal of World Englishes and Educational Practices (JWEEP) ISSN: 2707-7586 DOI: 10.32996/jweep Journal Homepage: www.al-kindipublisher.com/index.php/jweep The Element of Time in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Shazia Abid M. Phil English (Literature & Linguistics) Department of English Studies, Qurtuba University 2017, Pakistan Corresponding Author: Shazia Abid, E-mail: [email protected] ARTICLE INFORMATION ABSTRACT Received: March 05, 2021 Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1952) is one of the most puzzling plays of the Accepted: April 18, 2021 modern era. It is a play where nothing happens twice. Hence, the purpose of this Volume: 3 research paper to explore the element of time in Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Issue: 4 Godot (tragicomedy). The play is part of the ‘Theatre of Absurd’ and being an DOI: 10.32996/jweep.2021.3.4.3 absurdist playwright, Beckett tends to explore the internal states of individual’s mind. It also explores the absurdity of modern man that how they are dwelling in a twilight KEYWORDS state and unaware of their surroundings. This work is based on the belief that the universe is irrational, meaningless and the search for order brings the individuals into waiting, absurdism, loneliness, conflict with the universe. The study investigates existentialist’s point of views. In the existentialism, despair, physical play ‘Time’ represents very much dominating force as well as a tormenting tool to its suffering, nothingness, time characters. 1. Introduction 1 Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is a well-known drama of twentieth-century literature. He created completely a new kind of play and exhibits trepidation of human beings using comic style. The play Waiting for Godot is considered a landmark in modern drama. The title suggests itself that the play deals with prolonging the wait for Godot. Beckett’s characters use ordinary words and short sentences and his work is often filled with emptiness. His characters struggle to find existence, but they always fail. They wait for an answer that never comes. His characters live in pain and also confront death, anxiety, despair and physical suffering. They are dwelling in the twilight states and have no awareness of whether it is daytime or nighttime. Waiting for Godot is a famous play that explores the time factor up to a great extent. The play is full of absurd things and shows the forgetful nature of human beings. As drama is the literature genre, it represents human nature and the prevailing incidents that we come across in our daily life, which shows social factors and dimensions. As we see different elements of the related age in Beckett's works, and in modern literature, we come across the elements like confusion, communication gap, fear of food, fear of shelter, and fear of security that arise from the World Wars. Beckett is one of the famous writers in which Martin Esslin called ‘Theatre of Absurd’. ‘Theatre of Absurd’ expresses the belief that human existence has no meaning and it is futile. Human beings are dwelling in a state of absurdity and they are unconscious about their existence. The point of absurdity makes the tramps unable to do anything. There are several instances of conflict between what the character says and what he does. They intend to commit suicide but fail to do so due to their passivity and inactiveness to any action. Thus, what Beckett presents is not nihilism but the inability of a man to be nihilist even in a situation of complete desperation. Despite the pointlessness of their existence, these two tramps still want to go on; however, man's powerlessness is skeptic in circumstances of complete sadness. ESTRAGON: Let’s hang ourselves immediately! VLADIMIR: From a bough? (They go towards the tree) I wouldn’t trust it. ESTRAGON: We can always try. VLADIMIR: Go ahead. ESTRAGON: After you. VLADIMIR: No, no. you first. ESTRAGON: Why me? VLADIMIR: You’re lighter than I am. (Waiting for Godot, p. 10) Published by Al-Kindi Center for Research and Development. Copyright (c) the author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license Page | 16 JWEEP 3(4): 16-22 The element of ‘Time’ in Waiting for Godot plays an important role. Time in the play produces boredom. Beckett was of the view that humans pass the time to overcome the dilemma of anxiety of their existence. In the play, both of the characters Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi) pass the time to stop themselves from thinking too deeply. The tramps do not live in the present time and instead of enjoying it, they are waiting perpetually for a mysterious person named Godot. What distinguishes Waiting for Godot from all other plays is the absence of almost any action of any kind. Therefore, all the absurdist activities they are engaged in are just a waste of time. Khalid and Ali are of the view that “both life and time are controlled by circumstances” (2018 p.41). Time is the indication of the duration of events. It plays an important role in the human life span. The time passes so fast and swiftly that we cannot perceive the exact state of our life. We neither can control time nor can we stop it. Time is not a tangible commodity. It is just a concept through which we visualize past events or situations. Time is cyclic and shows its repeatability like the rising and falling of the waves, the passing seasons, etc. The study of Waiting for Godot goes beyond the limits of human knowledge and tries to display the nature of existence, truth and knowledge. In this paper, the researcher digs out those elements which keep the characters busy waiting for Godot. There is no progression in the play until the end and things move in a circular direction. 2. Literature Review Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is a masterpiece in world literature for its numerous thematic variety and diversity of meanings. According to Reza, “After World War II, the modern man came to accept the absurdity of his existence and even worse came to doubt the existence of God for His being indifferent to all his suffering” (2008 p. 736). Beckett witnessed World Wars and he himself experienced the miserable condition of modern man. So he added 20th-century philosophy in his work to express his feelings of that time about human beings and their absurd condition in society. According to Svalkvist, ‘’Vladimir and Estragon need their habitual numbing games in order to lessen the suffering of waiting”. (2013 p. 11) This is a natural phenomenon that exists in human beings that they wait for something marvellous to happen throughout their entire lives. They do not want to be happy with the little they have but always runs one thing after another, which is the dilemma of human existence. The same is the case with Vladimir and Estragon, who pass their time playing different games and they were also sure that Godot would come and they will be saved. Although, every time they express to leave but they do not move; rather, they wait for Godot. Till the end, they wait, but Godot never comes. 3. Research Method This paper is qualitative in nature and based on textual analysis. Its method is to review already published works of others. Various articles and research papers in different form were consulted upon as per the objective of review. 4. Results and Discussion Waiting for Godot is closely related to Theatre of Absurd which signifies that it is not meant to be presented in a logical sequence. Indeed, plays of this school of thought overlook the traditional ways like chronological order, sensible language and identifiable settings. The play has no absolute plot and it does not tell a story. The main element of the play is waiting, and the readers are stuck in that waiting element with a continuous hope of a change throughout the play. The plot construction makes Waiting for Godot different from traditional plays and it has no dramatic climax as well. As we know arrangement of events with cause and effect makes the audience aware that they recognize everything in proper order and it also saves the readers' energy in recognizing each character and their relationship with other characters. However, in Waiting for Godot, the five characters are drawn from different nationalities and all of them have neither background information nor specific description, which gives the play a universal appeal. Another trait of absurd plays is that the language structure is incomplete and there is a morphological deviation in their dialogues. And there is also a violation of linguistics principles such as, Silence Estragon: (anxious). And we? Vladimir: I beg your pardon? Estragon: I said, And we? Vladimir: I don’t understand. Estragon: Where do we come in? Vladimir: Come in? Estragon: Take your time. (Waiting for Godot p. 19) This conversation is absurd because no one understands each other’s view. Waiting for Godot reflects the human condition in the post-war period and the way the characters think is a clear proof of the human state. Schwab also believes that Samuel Beckett’s plays go beyond the “boundaries of our consciousness in two directions toward the unconscious and toward self-reflection” (1992 p. 97). Page | 17 The Element of Time in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett It is difficult to count the word time in Waiting for Godot. Time does not pass in the play but stays like a continuum. Structurally, the play is incomplete and there are gaps, pauses and broken dialogues.
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