Theme of Waiting In Waiting for Godot
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Transcript of Theme of Waiting In Waiting for Godot
M.K.BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY
Name -: Parmar Milankumar L.Roll no. -: 14Enrollment no. -: Pg14101026Course no. -: 9- Modernist LiteratureTopic -: “Waiting” in ‘Waiting for Godot’ -Samuel BeckettEmail -: [email protected]
Submitted to -: Department of
English
Smt.S.B.Gardi
M.K.B.University
IntroductionSamuel Beckett, French, and English playwright
Born - 1905, Dublin
Died – 1989, Paris, France
‘En attendant Godot’ -1948 in French
‘Waiting for Godot’-1954 in English
Play belongs to theatre of Absurd
Theatre of the Absurd
• The theatre of the Absurd is the dramatic movement in 1950s.
• Martin Esslin first used the phrase “theatre of the absurd” in a 1961.
• French thinkers such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre used the term absurd to described what they understood as the fundamentally meaningless situation of humans in a confusing, hostile, and indifferent world.
• “Absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to the world apparently without meaning and man as controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces.” –Esslin Martin
Vladimir
Lucky
Pozzo
Estragon
Boy- Messenger
The play is the waiting of the two tramps Vladimir and Estragon.
Waiting for Godot does not tell a story; it explores a static situation.
The very title of the play suggests its central theme as Martin Esslin has pointed out.
“the subject of the play is not Godot but Waiting, the act of waiting as an essential and characteristic aspect of human condition”
Throughout our lives we always wait for something… And Godot represent the objective of our waiting……an
event, a person, death. It can be a thing of one’s desire.
“If we are active, we tend to forget the passage of time, we pass the time, but if we are merely passively waiting, we are confronted with the action of time itself.”
This central theme, waiting, will be a recurrent reality within the play, one that it seems to remind Vladimir and Estragon why they are where they are: in no man’s land.
Throughout the play Vladimir keeps on repeating that they are “waiting for Godot.” Actually, Vladimir repeats it for eight times and ninth was by Estragon.
And “passed the time” or “will pass the time” is repeated five times.
“Nothing to be done” repeated four times, two times by each.
Examples from the text
Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot” (8).
“Vladimir: Let’s wait and see what he says. Estragon: Who? Vladimir: Godot” (13).
“Estragon: Simply wait. Vladimir: We’re used to it” (39).
“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot” (76).
“Estragon: What do we do now? Vladimir: While waiting. Estragon: While waiting” (86).
“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot” (88).
Vladimir: Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come” (91)
“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon: Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot” (96).
“Pozzo: What is he waiting for? Vladimir: What are you waiting for? Estragon: I’ am waiting for Godot” (100).
What they are waiting for ?
Waiting for Godot…?
Someone or something ?
Meaning and
direction ?
An impetus for living ?
A reason for dying ?
Death ?
Salvation
What becomes evident is that both of them are ‘tied’ to Godot, they cannot do anything except to wait for him endlessly.
Godot, then becomes the only hope for survival.
He is the one that controls their lives and the only possibility of redemption.
They can only be saved by Godot and therefore waiting until his arrival is a fate.
Estragon and Vladimir are tied to each other by an abstract bonds and by their common act of waiting for Godot…
Time and void Waiting, as the central theme of the play leads the
two characters to avoid time and make the waiting bearable by filling in time with futile actions.
They are aware that there is ‘nothing to be done’ while waiting, and this becomes and obsessive statement throughout the play.
First, is the awareness that there is nothing that can
help them in their waiting, and the void and anxiety have to be confronted, and this is restated time and again, throughout the text.
But it is critical for them to fill in time, which will also becomes the third, most important theme of the play.
It will travel throughout the entire text, becoming an obsession for the two of them.
Examples from text But it is critical for them to fill in time, which will also becomes the
third, most important theme of the play.
It will travel throughout the entire text, becoming an obsession for
the two of them.
“Vladimir: Ah yes, the two thieves. Do you remember the story.
Estragon: No. Vladimir: It’ll pass the time” (6).
“Vladimir: What do we do no? Estragon: Wait. Vladimir: Yes, but
while waiting. Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?” (12)
“Vladimir: That passed the time. Estragon: It would have passed in
any case. Vladimir: Yes, but no so rapidly” (51).
Vladimir: We could play at Pozzo and Lucky” (82)
“Vladimir: How time flies when one has fun!” (86)
Passing the time, filling in time avoids thinking about their present, absurd, condition:
“Vladimir: We’re in no danger of ever thinking any more” Vladimir: What is terrible is to have thought” (71).
“Estragon: Nothing to be done” (2).
“Vladimir: Nothing to be done” (4).
“Vladimir: Nothing to be done” (6).
“Estragon: Nothing to be done” (17).
Examples of Nothingness in Waiting
So what ?
We really don’t know even after reading/watching a play, it still remain confusion that who actually is waiting and for what ? Vladimir, Estragon, or we as reader or audience waiting for Godot or end of the play.
As time passes waiting becomes habit. Moreover, it is in the act of waiting that we experience the flow
of time in its purest, most evident form. If we are active, we tend to forget the passage of time, we pass the time, but if we are merely passively waiting, we are confronted with the action of time itself.
But if we are merely passively waiting, we are confronted with the action of time itself.”
The more things change, the more they are the same. ‘The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops’ says Pozzo (32).
Waiting is to experience the action of time, which is constant change: Pozzo is blind, Lucky is dumb. And yet, as nothing real ever happens, that change is in itself an illusion.
For Waiting