Reflections

My thoughts on the play, Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett 

Paradoxically, ‘Waiting for Godot’ is a brilliant drama where nothing really happens. From that nothingness spring questions that are of utmost importance to mankind, which go on to haunt the reader. ‘Godot’ set at the vortex of the play, is not actually seen anywhere in the play - while a set of people hopelessly bound to him, are sucked into this vortex and are held there without any respite. The play written by Samuel Beckett (Beckett translated his own work written in French in 1948 into English later in 1952-53) depicts post Second World War desolateness and the existential qualms that festered all those who survived the tragedies of the war. 

Written in two acts, the story is all about Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi) waiting to meet Godot who never turns up. These two people meet Pozzo and his slave Lucky, while they wait. Becket is realistic about the toughness in life, and does not venture to offer closures to the situations of his characters. The taut conversations that happen between Estragon, Vladimir and Pozzo are wrought with serious implications. 

The play consists of two acts and two sets of two people, and the character of Godot who never appears but is the central character around whom the story evolves. Beckett’s main characters Estragon and Vladimir, are referred to as Gogo, and Didi by each other - an interesting coinage of words where two letters get repeated in both the names. Two acts, two pairs of characters, along with certain dialogues being repeated twice - throw light on the inherent dualism present in the life of mankind.

Minimalistically terse (“They talk about their lives… To have lived is not enough for them… They have to talk about it”), lyrically poetic (“They make a noise like wings… like leaves… like sand…”), free of verbosity (“But habit is a great deadener”) and subtly humorous (“Boots must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that”) the language of Beckett beckons the reader to become aware of human suffering and captivates him. The play opens with a simple dialogue by Estragon, “Nothing to be done” with a finality that makes one sit up and pay attention to these words. This is followed by the brooding of Vladimir: “I’m beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I’ve tried to to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven’t yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle.” The heaviness of the subject is made pliable through the simplicity of the language and its razorlike sharpness. The repetition of dialogues, used as a technique almost throughout the play makes the reader pause and look at the meaning the writer intends the reader to take notice of. There is a situation where Estragon’s feet hurt because of his shoes and he talks harshly to Vladimir and gets a stinging retort from him. Check out this interaction that takes place between them: 

“Vladimir: It hurts?

Estragon: (Angrily) Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!

Vladimir: (angrily) No one ever suffers but you. I don’t count. I’d like to hear what you’d say if you had what I have.

Estragon: It hurts?

Vladimir: (angrily) Hurts! He wants to know how it hurts!” 

The issue of suffering shifts here from Estragon to Vladimir. This flip-over achieved by Beckett easily and unobtrusively calls the reader’s attention to the core issue of how unaware one can be of another person’s suffering.

The play depicts, indefinite waiting for things that may not happen at all (“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!”); poverty and hunger; being lost in one’s own world (“But habit is a great deadener”, “Was I sleeping, while the others suffered?”); a desperate need to communicate; need for companionship (“Yes, the road seems long when one journeys all alone…”, “Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!”); suicidal thoughts and self-centeredness; suffering, hope and hopelessness (“To every man his little cross… Till he dies… And is forgotten”, “Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old… “); and a great sense of endurance. Religion is questioned seriously, by asking if one needs to believe everything that is told without raising questions. Pozzo when questioned about his blindness gets angry and the tirade that ensues about time is startling when he furiously says, “Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable! When! When! One day, that is not enough for you, 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? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more…” The loud thinking of slave Lucky when he is commanded to think, is a moment of precious freedom for him from the drudgery of slavery and oppression. Thoughts come tumbling, clogging his mind and his speech is muddled.  One cannot but think about the rampage of thoughts in human mind where thoughts overlap and clarity is lost. The characters of Estragon and Vladimir portrayed as forgetful and confused about what is happening in their lives has a strong semblance to mankind’s struggle to come to terms with life and understand it. Despite all the hopelessness that is obvious in the play, one can feel that there is a stoic endurance as an undercurrent giving a ray of hope that life may find a meaning after all – the greatest indication being that Estragon and Vladimir continue to wait, without giving up hope. 

Much has been written about this play, and much reveals itself afresh with every read. A differently and a powerfully written play which you end up reading non-stop! Maybe if you pick it up and go for it, you may like it as much as I did!