Images and Metaphors in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot Essay

In Chaim Potok’s book, The Chosen, blindness is a recurring theme. Although there are some instances of physical blindness, such as Billy in the hospital, most of the situations in this book are of the figurative sense. In these circumstances, the person has good physical vision, however, due to their previous experiences, they are not able to see the true situation.

Theatre is a complex art that attempts to weave stories of varying degrees of intricacies with the hope that feelings will be elicited from the audience. Samuel Beckett’s most famous work in the theatre world, however, is Waiting for Godot, the play in which, according to well-known Irish critic Vivian Mercier, “nothing happens, twice.” Beckett pioneered many different levels of groundbreaking and avant-garde theatre and had a large influence on the section of the modern idea of presentational theatre as opposed to the representational. His career seemingly marks the end of modernism in theatre and the creation of what is known as the “Theatre of the Absurd.”

Plinio is the main character in the story and is viewed as the protagonist. He is a young man who is described to be a ‘A well knit, good looking young fellow of twenty-three'. He is depicted to be very emotional and quiet due to the experiences in his life ‘he was A quiet

“When I finished the book Luo had not yet returned, there was no doubt that he had gone to visit the Little Seamstress so he could tell her this wonderful tale of Balzac’s. In my mind’s eye I could see Luo telling her the story and the Little Seamstress listening vigorously open - mouthed. As I was thinking about her I felt a sudden stab of jealousy, a bitter emotion I had never felt before and my desire to be with the Little Seamstress grew stronger. Later that day, Luo came back with leaves of a gingko tree. “We made love there, against the trunk”; those words made me feel somewhat sick in the heart, I didn’t even know that was possible. I strained to imagine it but words failed me... Why does Luo always get everything? He even said himself

Phillip demonstrated independence after experiencing the hardships of blindness as evidenced in the novel when he was able to survive on the cay after Timothy’s death. At the beginning of the book after becoming blind Phillip acts almost completely helpless. In the passage it states, “In wild excitement, I stumbled up and fell overboard. I went

After the narrator’s first failed attempt in using the right words to describe what he sees, the blind man asks him to get a pen and a paper, puts his hand on the narrator’s hand that is holding the pen, and asks him to draw the cathedral. Then, the blind man tells the narrator to close his eyes while he continues drawing. For the first time the narrator appears to be able to see.

Pete could get anyone to listen to him and change people’s minds, even Louis’s. Pete was prevalent throughout the movie, but it didn’t seem like he was the perfect brother who everyone adored like it was stated in the book. “Pete Zamperini was handsome, popular, impeccably groomed, polite to elders and avuncular to juniors, silky smooth with girls, and blessed with such sound judgement that even when he was a child, his parents consulted him on difficult decisions.” (Hillenbrand). In the shadow of Pete, Louis was always the underachiever and never seemed as motivated to do anything good with his life. That was until Louis found his way onto a track in the middle of a race after a few of his classmates decided he was the only one who looked like he could run decently; Louis came in last place and was ashamed. After that, Pete forced Louis to practice running everyday. This event when the classmates pick Louis to run never happens in the movie, instead it is just Pete who persuades Louis to join track and

The narrator is quite obviously the character that Carver wants us to see as figuratively "blind." There is a stark contrast in the blind man and the

Obsessed with her “unluckiness,” she neglects her children who are constantly exposed to the cold, emptiness of their mother’s heart. She is unable to love anything but the money she cannot attain. Her oldest child, Paul, forced to deal with this bitter treatment the longest, becomes obsessed with money as well, but as an attempt to win the interest of his mother. “Absorbed, taking no heed of other people, he went about with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for luck” (Lawrence 483). He rides into a trance on his rocking horse until he is killed by this urgency to find a winner. He wants to be “lucky” so badly. He wants to be the best, something his mother and father believed they could never be. He needs the money so that his house will stop screaming and his mother will love him.

Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett's existential masterpiece, for some odd reason has captured the minds of millions of readers, artists, and critics worldwide, joining them all in an attempt to interpret the play. Beckett has told them not to read anything into his work, yet he does not stop them. Perhaps he recognizes the human quality of bringing personal experiences and such to the piece of art, and interpreting it through such colored lenses. Hundreds of theories are expounded, all of them right and none of them wrong. A play is only what you bring to it, in a subconscious connection between you and the playwright.

Modernist fiction is incredibly dense and abstract. Writers from the twentieth century also seem to carry with them the weight of the world, and thus their fiction has been filled with realistic misery and pain. Still, these writers often add to this element with existentialist thematic structures, which construct a very unique and experimental viewpoint on a modern existence. This is what is occurring in both Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as well as Albert Camus' The Stranger. The two a very different in format, yet both play upon the modernist idea of abandonment by God and the idea that there is an underlying sense of nothingness that guides modern life. Each focuses on the notion of free will and how it determines our lives in a world devoid of God. Together, these great works of contemporary fiction are a telling testament to the changing nature of sentiments regarding both religion and the meaning of life in a tumultuous twentieth century paradigm.

Who is Godot and what does he represent? These are two of the questions that Samuel Beckett allows both his characters and the audience to ponder. Many experiences in this stage production expand and narrow how these questions are viewed. The process of waiting reassures the characters in Beckett's play that they do indeed exist. One of the roles that Beckett has assigned to Godot is to be a savior of sorts. Godot helps to give the two tramps in Waiting for Godot a sense of purpose. Godot is an omnipresent character that helps to give meaning and function to the lives of two homeless men.

The periods of silence in Waiting for Godot are moments in which the characters realize where there is no certainty, there can be no definite meanings and words are just futile nonsense. No matter how much they use language, how long they talk to each other or what they talk about, silence will eventually fall on them like a haunting cloud, reminding them that they are no more than two tramps who are waiting for someone to redeem them.

The play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is famous for its cyclic storyline and non-existing plot. In the lines, Beckett incorporates themes of existentialism and the loss of hope. Throughout the two acts of the play, the main protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, spend their days waiting aimlessly for a mysterious figure named Godot. While central in the play, Godot never makes an appearance in any act, and merely exists as a name. While Pozzo and Lucky, two other characters make their appearance in each act of the play, the boy is perhaps the most mysterious and intriguing. The boy, whom appears towards the end of each act, exemplifies the never-ending cycle of the search for hope that remains unfulfilled through the use of symbolism,

In Waiting for Godot, Beckett often focused on the idea of "the suffering of being." Most of the play deals with the fact that Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for something to relieve them from their boredom. Godot can be understood as one of the many things in life that people wait for. Waiting for Godot is part of the ‘Theater of the Absurd’. This implies that it is meant to be irrational and meaningless. Absurd theater does not have the concepts of drama, chronological plot, logical language, themes, and recognizable settings. There is also a split between the intellect and the body within the work. Vladimir represents the intellect and Estragon the body, both cannot exist without the other.