Characterization

in The Swamp

Dwellers and

Waiting for Godot

Paper: 14The African Literature

Prepared by: Jinal ParmarDrashti MehtaGoswami GayatriHitesh ParmarJayshree KunchalaKaushalkumar Desai

Roll No:7 to 12

Sem:4

Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi, Department of English, Maharaja KrishnakumarsinghjiBhavnagar UniversityBhavnagar UniversityBhavnagar(Gujarat-India)Guided By: Heenaba Zala

Samuel Beckett Wole Soyinka

Art of Characterization

Waiting for Godot

Estragon

Vladimir

Lucky

Pozzo

Godot

Messenger Boy

The Swamp Dwellers

Igwezu

Awuchick

Kadiye

Blind beggar

Makuri

Alu

Definition: Characterization

To describe the character of… or be a characteristics of…(Oxford Dictionary)

Establishing the distinctive characters of the persons in a narrative by Showing and Telling.

In Showing, the author simply presents the characters talking and acting, and leaves it entirely up to the reader to infer the motives and disposition that lie behind what they say and do. The author may show not only external speech and actions, but also character’s inner thoughts, feelings and responsiveness to events; for highly developed mode of such inner showing.

In Telling, the author intervenes authoritatively in order to describe, an d often to evaluate, the motives and dispositional qualities of the character.(M. H. Abrams- A Glossary of Literary Terms)

Characters

Swamp Dwellers –Igwezu and Blind Beggar

Waiting For Godot Estragon- Vladimir, Pozzo-

Lucky

Waiting For Godot

There are six characters

Estragon an d Vladimir

Pozzo and Lucky- Master slave relationship

Godot- Messenger boy

First• The parents Makuri and Alu conservative

second

• The corrupt priest Kadiye, who beguils his superstitious followers

Third

• the two positive individuals Igwezu and the Begger moving, wondering, seeking and then uncertain what they have found

In The Swamp Dwellers Characters fell into to

three groups

Swamp Dwellers

There are only two important characters in the play, which need illustration. All the other

characters play but a minor role. Therefore the researcher is going to analyze only two characters

Igwezu and the Blind Beggar.

Existentialism

Absurdity

Decolonization

Ideology

Igwezu: He is the protagonist of the play and the real son of the land.

He has great reverence for

the tradition of the swamps. Moreover, he is kind and loving man

He has performed all religious rites that were required by the deity, in order to save his farm and family from the divinely calamities.

But to his utter

disappointment he could neither save his farm nor his family from the destruction. Flood runs

down his crop and his own brother Awuchike seduces his wife.

But being a modern tragedy wherein good scarcely wins,

Igwezu loses all the time. Through his character the playwright certainly not shaking the belief in

God, but raising a question about efficaciousness of religious practices.

The Blind Begger: “Angel from the God,’ would probably correct words for this character. For

he comes in as a saviour in the inescapable condition of Igwezu.

A man having EYES, having Vision, but actually blind

His is a character that eclipses the importance of the protagonist Igwezu.

For his suffering is much more than Igwezu.

Not just that his positive stance and self belief in the adverse conditions make him altogether a different character.

He belongs to the dry north part of Nigeria.

And has undergone long periods of draught and later on the crop-flourish has been divested by the locusts.

Fly – sickness in the

early childhood renders him blind.

His character is strongly contrasted with the character of the Kadiye the village priest.

The beggar gives himself selflessly and unasked for the good of others.

Thus the character of the beggar re-establishesfaith among the people and not destroys it.

•Soyinka's themes are echoes of those of Samuel Beckett. His characters are

gripped by the same hopelessness in which Beckett's characters find

themselves.

• A close reading of Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Soyinka's The Swamp

Dwellers from the perspective of myth critics like Jung, Frye and Kluckhohn

shows a striking similarity in the playwrights' delineation of the human

condition of desolate reality and the quest for salvation, yet remarkable

contrasts in cultural and spiritual concepts and worldviews.

•Soyinka uses in his play through the incorporation of the African idiom,

myth and ritual from which he explores the absurdity of the human condition

against the background of African belief systems.

•Whereas Beckett employs the modernist avant-garde theatrical techniques

and Christian concepts to present the absurdity of human existence.

• The wealthy Pozzo parallels the capitalist Awuchike who takes advantage

of man's wretchedness to exploit others.

•The characters in both plays, therefore, live a tragic and meaningless

existence in which human experience is futile.

•The characters in The Swamp Dwellers are confronted with similar ordeals as

those in Waiting for Godot

The prime victim is Igwezu, an ideal son of the Swamps whose dependence

on supernal assistance for a meaningful existence leads him to frustration.

•The central issue in both plays is on the question of salvation

• The characters in both plays find themselves in the face of misery, an

uncompromising situation without any defined pattern, highlighting chaos as

the dominating force in the world with no question to be asked and no where

to go.From an understanding of the gruesome realities of human existence,

Samuel Beckett and Wole Soyinka see humanity in continual need for

salvation.

•Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Soyinka's The Swamp Dwellers that while in

existence which origin is obscure, essence can be determined by individual

choice and freewill, hence individual salvation

•Lucky in Godot and the blind Beggar in Swamp Dwellers stand out distinctly

as representations of individual salvation.

•In both the plays the main difference, putting aside other factors, is in the

psychological presentation of characters.

• Soyinka's hero makes considerable personal efforts to survive and all he

seeks is the protection of the heavens over his achievements.

• On the contrary, Becketts's tramps are unable to do anything for themselves

but wait for an illusory Godot to deliver salvation to them.

Setting

Urban and Rural life in the Swamp Dwellers

Unity of Time, Place and Action is followed

Waiting For Godot Country road side

Unity of Time, place and Action is not followed

In both plays some characters are waiting Alu-Makuri

Master Slave Relationship

Alu-Makuri

Desala-Igwezu-Auwchike

Kadiye- Blind Begger

Pozzo-Lucky

Women Characters

Waiting for Godot- no women characters are

presented

Swamp Dwellers- Characters of Alu and

Desala - passive characters

Feminist Perspective

Religion- Faith

Character of Serpent- divine- Kadiye- offers

animals for sacrifice to the divine Serpant

Gods- myth

Ogun- Iron

Sango- lightning

Obatala- human forms

Waiting

Waiting For Godot- Theme of waiting

Sawmp Dwellers- Theme of Waiting

Life style in both plays

SettingSwamp Dwellers : The play is set in the hut of Makuri and Alu in a

village of the Delta region of south –

east Nigeria. This region is periodically flooded with waters of river Niger. Thedescription of

the hut with its minute peculiarities adds greater dramatic effect. The insidedetailing of the hut –

rush – baskets, ‘a dire cloths and barber’s equipments, reminds one of theideal pictures of huts

in India. The play opens and ends in this hut.

The swamp Dwellers is a realistic tragedy of the people living in Delta region.Therefore

it is shadowed with grave atmosphere.

Waiting For Godot: Two tramps are waiting by a sickly looking tree for the arrival of Mr. Godot. The setting of the play evening time, country road, a tree . Characters changing their Hat , Shoes. Pozzo and Lucky’s arrival. Messenger boy gives message about Mr. Godot. Estragon an d Vladimir decides to do suicide but never does so and they wants to leave first but till the end they wait

Setting

Dialect

Swamp Dwellers Nigerian dialect

Waiting for Godot Irish written in French and

translated by Beckett in English

Compare and contrast in both the

Plays: In the Swamp Dwellers there are women characters present

In Waiting for Godot there are no women characters

In the Swamp Dwellers there is nothing about Master Slave relationship

In the Waiting for Godot there is Master slave relationship between Pozzo and Lucky

In both plays characters are waiting

The Swamp Dwellers have a good beginning a middle and an end.

There’s no identifiable beginning, middle, and end in Waiting For Godot

In Waiting for Godot Pozzo gets blind and Lucky Dumb where as in Swamp Dwellers the beggar’s character is portrayed as a blind