Waiting for Godot
Contents:
Absurd drama
Existentialism
Waiting for Godot
Theme of Nothingness
Theme of Waiting
Religious Themes
Character: Estragon and Vladimir
Character: Pozzo and Lucky
Lucky’s speech
Absurd drama
Definition: A drama which takes the form of a man’s reaction to a world apparently without
meaning, or man as a puppet.
Etymology:
The word was first used by Albert Camus in ‘Myth of Sisyphus’- “meaningless and
absurd”- (the act of rolling a stone downhill and taking it uphill all again)
‘Theatre of Absurd’- book by Martin Esslin- named a dramatic genre.
Why absurd drama?
Existential philosophy, Avant Garde theatre, modernity and Liberal Humanism.
Aftermath of WW1 & WW2- people in shell-shock
Monotony of people, indifference to emotions, inability to communicate their
feelings, moral dilemma, psychological trauma, purposelessness of living.
Life throbbing between hope and hopelessness.
Features:
o Meaningless and unconventional dialogues
o Non-sensical and repetitive actions
o Silence and pauses
o Meaningless and arbitrary plots (ends and begins at the same arbitrary point)
o Meaningless fragmentation
o Impossible plots
o Characters are hardly human beings (personification of animals, figments of
imagination etc.)
o Purpose: Not to convey meaning, but to express meaninglessness.
, Existentialism
-Focus on individual existence, freedom and choice.
-Essence of Living- none.
Beliefs:
o Meaning in life is based on the way one chooses to live.
o There is no God or transhuman forces-only choices.
o At the core of existence, there is no purpose or explanation.
o Man can only control his inner existence because world is an absurd place to live.
o According to Sartre existence precedes essence- individuality precedes identity-man
first exists, encounters himself and then the world, later defines himself.
o Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de
Beauvoir
Themes:
o Dread
o Boredom
o Alienation
o Absurdity
o Nothingness
Waiting for Godot
Subhead: ‘Tragicomedy in 5 acts”
Beckett says about the theme: “abandonment of macrocosm in the pursuit of the
microcosm”.
Protagonists-Vladimir and Estrogen-nomadic roamers without an identity.
Beckett says about the form: “here is form in meaning, and meaning in the form.”
Spatial and temporal factors of the play, according to the critic Hugh Kerner, is
“nowhen and nowhere”. This non specificality enables Beckett to isolate his
characters from any social reality that might deflect attention from the generalized
human situation that is portrayed.
Language has no immediate meaning, but something beyond it.
So much activities and gestural energies- adds to the purposeless absurdity of the
play.
Theme of Nothingness
“Nothing to be done” – theme is foregrounded by Estragon at the beginning of the
play- and repeated throughout the play
Shows existentialist view of the drama.
o purposelessness in life.
o Meaninglessness
o Mysterious.
o Gives way to myriad of themes-silence speaks more.
Silence- a motif of nothingness- silences and hesitations in between.
Contents:
Absurd drama
Existentialism
Waiting for Godot
Theme of Nothingness
Theme of Waiting
Religious Themes
Character: Estragon and Vladimir
Character: Pozzo and Lucky
Lucky’s speech
Absurd drama
Definition: A drama which takes the form of a man’s reaction to a world apparently without
meaning, or man as a puppet.
Etymology:
The word was first used by Albert Camus in ‘Myth of Sisyphus’- “meaningless and
absurd”- (the act of rolling a stone downhill and taking it uphill all again)
‘Theatre of Absurd’- book by Martin Esslin- named a dramatic genre.
Why absurd drama?
Existential philosophy, Avant Garde theatre, modernity and Liberal Humanism.
Aftermath of WW1 & WW2- people in shell-shock
Monotony of people, indifference to emotions, inability to communicate their
feelings, moral dilemma, psychological trauma, purposelessness of living.
Life throbbing between hope and hopelessness.
Features:
o Meaningless and unconventional dialogues
o Non-sensical and repetitive actions
o Silence and pauses
o Meaningless and arbitrary plots (ends and begins at the same arbitrary point)
o Meaningless fragmentation
o Impossible plots
o Characters are hardly human beings (personification of animals, figments of
imagination etc.)
o Purpose: Not to convey meaning, but to express meaninglessness.
, Existentialism
-Focus on individual existence, freedom and choice.
-Essence of Living- none.
Beliefs:
o Meaning in life is based on the way one chooses to live.
o There is no God or transhuman forces-only choices.
o At the core of existence, there is no purpose or explanation.
o Man can only control his inner existence because world is an absurd place to live.
o According to Sartre existence precedes essence- individuality precedes identity-man
first exists, encounters himself and then the world, later defines himself.
o Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de
Beauvoir
Themes:
o Dread
o Boredom
o Alienation
o Absurdity
o Nothingness
Waiting for Godot
Subhead: ‘Tragicomedy in 5 acts”
Beckett says about the theme: “abandonment of macrocosm in the pursuit of the
microcosm”.
Protagonists-Vladimir and Estrogen-nomadic roamers without an identity.
Beckett says about the form: “here is form in meaning, and meaning in the form.”
Spatial and temporal factors of the play, according to the critic Hugh Kerner, is
“nowhen and nowhere”. This non specificality enables Beckett to isolate his
characters from any social reality that might deflect attention from the generalized
human situation that is portrayed.
Language has no immediate meaning, but something beyond it.
So much activities and gestural energies- adds to the purposeless absurdity of the
play.
Theme of Nothingness
“Nothing to be done” – theme is foregrounded by Estragon at the beginning of the
play- and repeated throughout the play
Shows existentialist view of the drama.
o purposelessness in life.
o Meaninglessness
o Mysterious.
o Gives way to myriad of themes-silence speaks more.
Silence- a motif of nothingness- silences and hesitations in between.
