Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as an Existentialist Play

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was

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.”

The atomic bomb signaled not only the commencement of the Cold War, but also a political divide between the communist ideologies of the Soviet Union and the democracy of the Western world. A fear of communism behind the Iron Curtain and nuclear annihilation spread throughout the US, while existential views regarding the meaning of life arose. Through their texts, composers subverted dominant Cold War paradigms to …….. ATQ……. Samuel Beckett’s modernist existential play ‘Waiting for Godot (Godot) (1953)’ is a philosophical questioning on the purpose of human existence, and the nature of scientific development. In response to the existential angst following WW2, Beckett uses the conventions of Absurdist theatre to examine philosophical

The play merely focuses on time and how Vladimir and Estragon wait for no apparent reason even though they know Godot isn’t going to come. These meaningless arguments and waiting is all they are ever portrayed doing, repetitively contemplating leaving the place or leaving life for that matter – hanging themselves on the tree and committing suicide. This makes it seem like as though the characters are stuck, and have no way out of the situation. Thoughts of leaving the place always get ignored as they once again go back to the beginning – hoping that Godot will arrive. This is because they are afraid that something might go wrong if they stop this ‘waiting’ which is indeed a significant, day to day component of human existence.

In the seventeenth century Rene Descartes once said, "I think therefore I am.” The topic of human presence is thought to be a standout amongst the most fascinating and conflicting in contemporary philosophy. The phrase spoken by the French philosopher could be deciphered in various ways and numerous thinkers were proposed to answer the question: How would I be able to realize that I exist? In the event that there is one idea, which has been under steady assault by analysts and philosophers in the course of the most recent hundreds of years, it is the existence of "I" – that “you” are a genuine individual or 'self'. Many advanced scholars and researchers may recommend that this feeling of being "you" is misleading, or only a basic result of

     Samuel Beckett was forty-two years old and living in post-war Paris when he wrote Waiting for Godot as an exercise to help rid himself of the writer's block which was hindering his work in fiction. Once he started, he became increasingly absorbed in the play, and scribbled it almost without hesitation into a soft-cover notebook in a creative burst that lasted from October 9, 1948, until he completed the typed manuscript on January 29, 1949. After some revision, he offered the script to several producers, but it was refused. Although Beckett himself gave up hope with the script, his wife was more persistent, and, acting as his agent, she continued to approach

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.

The beginning of the play makes Vladimir and Estragon seem interchangeable; they constantly parrot each other, to the point where even they seem bored. Pozzo's statement about his pipe, that the second pipe is never as "sweet" as the first, applies to this play and life in general—it suggests that feelings and events dull with repetition. Throughout his works, Beckett refers to habit as the “great deadener”. The end of Act I establishes Vladimir and Estragon's hopelessness. Even when they both agree to go, and Vladimir says "Yes, let's go," the two men do not move. Even their resolution to go is not strong enough to produce action. This inability to act renders Vladimir and Estragon unable to determine their own fates. Instead of acting, they can only wait for someone or something to act upon

Knowledge can be taken or given in any situation. The transfer of power through knowledge is inevitable, but how an individual uses it is unique to every person. Even though someone may have power, it would be useless unless it was credited by other people. The approval of others in a society is what drives the strength of power. Intelligence may be apparent in a certain individual, but without validation their knowledge is forgotten and not even considered active. If the most knowledgeable entity’s intellectual superiority, the Christian God, was not supported by others, then he would not be the center of an entire religion. In John Milton’s epic poem, his power is defined by his ability to make other people love him with complete obedience and by withholding knowledge. Pozzo, from Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, does the same by controlling all of his slave’s actions and withholding Lucky full potential to be an intellectual human. On the surface, Pozzo from Waiting for Godot and God from Paradise Lost seem to lack similarities, however the amount of power they possess in their own situations is indistinguishable and the different ways in which they utilize their knowledge provides a glance into how different individuals react when they are superior.

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.

The characters are symbolic figures who convey Beckett’s message and vision. The major characters are Vladimir and Estragon. They function as the mouthpiece of anger and irritation, and through them Beckett gets his message across to the audience. They do not know who they are and where they are. In this respect, the endless country-road is symbolic of endless anguish of modern man. Godot for them means a certain state of certainty. The idea of waiting means a static and immobile attitude towards life. They do not take any action, so they can never reach certainty. As long as, they wait doing nothing, they can never achieve this certainty. They are leading a life of boredom and frustration. They have no past, no present, and are waiting hopelessly

Interpersonal relationships in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot are extremely important, because the interaction of the dynamic characters, as they try to satiate one another's boredom, is the basis for the play. Vladimir's and Estragon's interactions with Godot, which should also be seen as an interpersonal relationship among dynamic characters, forms the basis for the tale's major themes. Interpersonal relationships, including those involving Godot, are generally couched in rope images, specifically as nooses and leashes. These metaphors at times are visible and invisible, involve people as well as inanimate objects, and connect the dead with the living. Only an

October 14, 2017, I went to see Waiting for Godot, a production of Richland College Theatre Department. Throughout the whole essay, I will talk about my experience of what I saw in the play, that will include the positives and negatives, I also will discuss if I understood the plot and how did I portray it.

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.