Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

2006 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett critical appreciate essay ten pages

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

In Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett asks what it is that we are really doing on Earth. He feels that God plays a key role in the solution to the human condition, however, since we do not truly know if God exists, life it would seem is simply a quest to search for an alternate explanation. Most of the time we attempt to distract ourselves from the issue and try desperately to bring some sort of meaning into our life while silently waiting for someone or something to come and give us an answer. According to Beckett, the definition of human existence is waiting to ascertain if the possibility of salvation with a possible God exists, or if all that lies ahead is darkness; he feels that all other aspects of life are insignificant and essentially can be reduced to nothing. These ideas are illustrated in a play where time seems to be irrelevant, nothing of importance ever happens, and the main characters are left waiting for someone who may or may not ever come.

At the very beginning, Beckett hints at his proposal to the solution to the human condition. Vladimir tells the ignorant Estragon the story from the Bible of the two thieves that were crucified at the same time as Jesus. Apparently, one of the thieves believed in God, the other did not--the one who believed was saved. In Vladimir's opinion, this is not that bad a deal: "One of the thieves was saved. (Pause.) It's a reasonable percentage" (8). It seems that according to the story, reward or punishment is handed out depending on behavior (or at least belief). Vladimir's thoughts are somewhat parallel to those of the French philosopher Pascal who rationalized that given the possible outcomes, one is better to bet that God exists. However, ...

... middle of paper ...

...after waiting so long and nothing positive ever happens (besides a few leaves on a tree) that even the persistence of the 'conscious' seems to begin to fade as well.

Beckett poses some interesting questions. If all we are doing on Earth is waiting--waiting for answers whose meanings we may never comprehend--is anything that we do significant at all? As humans, it seems that in a sense we do, somewhere in us, realize our condition. However, we try to remain ignorant of it. We look for distractions; we look for something that seems to have meaning just so the absolute absurdity of our life remains masked. We search for answers--answers that may or may not ever come. In our continued waiting nonetheless, it seems our situation continues to become more hopeless.

Works Cited

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. Trans. Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, 1982.

Show More
Related

  • The Negative Effects of Knowledge in Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot asks that same question. Is there more to life than simply knowing things? The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, seem not to know anything at all, even the reason why they come to the same tree to wait everyday for someone named Godot. They constantly have to remind one another why they are there and waiting. Is there really any purpose to their lives? Beckett seems to think that the answer, not only for Vladimir and Estragon, is no. There is no meaning to the monotonous existence that we put ourselves through day after day after day. If indeed Beckett is symbolizing God as the man Godot who the naïve fools constantly wait for, he is also insinuating that they are wasting their lives because Godot, or God, is never going to come. Either He does not really exist or He does not care enough about these poor, gullible fools to come. Beckett is trying to show that civilization needs to rid itself of its "misconceptions" about the existence of God; that these people who have "got religion" are wasting their time waiting around for a being that either does not exist or does not care. Either way, Beckett thinks they are wasting their time.

    Read More

  • Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America

    1423 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the moment that the curtain rises, Waiting for Godot assumes an unmistakably absurdist identity. On the surface, little about the plot of the play seems to suggest that the actions seen on stage could or would ever happen. At the very least, the process of waiting hardly seems like an ideal focus of an engaging and entertaining production. Yet it is precisely for this reason that Beckett’s tale of two men, whose only discernable goal in life is to wait for a man known simply as Godot, is able to connect with the audience’s emotions so effectivel...

    Read More

  • The Effects Of Global Climate Change

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    Leading to our planets slow demise, global climate change is an important issue that has sparked fascinating research on its causes, as well as its future effects. There has been significant change in weather patterns and climate over the past century. Sea levels are rising, ice caps are shrinking, and extreme unexpected disasters are occurring all over the world at an alarming rate. This means devastating outcomes for the future of planet earth, along with all of earth’s inhabitants. Earth is home to billions of people, as well as countless species. The despondent truth is that humanity is to blame for global climate change.

    Read More

  • Freedom to Choose in Waiting for Godot, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Iraq

    1484 Words  | 3 Pages

    abandoned the conventions of the classical play to concentrate on his important message to humanity. Using his pathetic characters, Estragon and Vladimir, Beckett illustrates the importance of human free will in a land ruled by science and technology. He understood the terrors of progress as he witnessed first hand the destruction caused by technologically-improved weapons working as a spy during WWII. In his tragicomedy, Estragon and Vladimir spend the entire time futilely waiting for Godot to arrive. They believe that this mysterious Godot will help them solve their problems and merely sit and wait for their solution to arrive. Beckett utilizes these characters to warn the reader of the dangers of depending on fate and others to improve one's existence. He supports this idea when Estragon blames his boots and not himself for the pain in his feet, and Vladimir responds, "There'...

    Read More

  • Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: The Theatre of the Absurd

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    The absurdist plays Waiting for Godot written by Samuel Beckett and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead written by Tom Stoppard both incorporate human needs and concerns within their context through its whimsical and comedic dialogues. Both plays belong in the category of the theatre of the absurd, where the existentialist philosophy underlies all aspects of the plays. The central characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead share a deep friendship, this same friendship can also be seen within the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon who are the protagonists in Waiting for Godot. Beckett and Stoppard playfully express friendship and camaraderie throughout their plays, while both sets of characters delve deeper into human needs as it illustrates the dependency for one another that each character relies on .

    Read More

  • Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot: A Critical Allegory of Religious Faith

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot has been said by many people to be a long book about nothing. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend all their time sitting by a tree waiting for someone named Godot, whose identity is never revealed to the audience. It may sound pretty dull at first but by looking closely at the book, it becomes apparent that there is more than originally meets the eye. Waiting for Godot was written to be a critical allegory of religious faith, relaying that it is a natural necessity for people to have faith, but faiths such as Catholicism are misleading and corrupt.

    Read More

  • Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

    2439 Words  | 5 Pages

    Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot are representative works of two separate movements in literature: Modernism and Post-Modernism. Defining both movements in their entirety, or arguing whether either work is truly representative of the classifications of Modernism and Post-Modernism, is not the purpose of this paper; rather, the purpose is to carefully evaluate how both works, in the context of both works being representative of their respective traditions, employ the use of symbolism and allusion. Beckett’s play uses “semantic association” in order to convey meaning in its use of symbolism; Woolf’s novel employs a more traditional mode of conveying meaning in its own use: that is, the meaning of symbols in Mrs. Dalloway is found within the text itself. Woolf’s novel exists as its own entity, with the reader using the text as the only tool in uncovering any symbolic meaning, while Beckett’s play stimulates the audience in such a way that the audience projects their own meaning in the symbols presented.

    Read More

  • The Frontier of Existence in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Ionesco’s Rhinoceros

    2044 Words  | 5 Pages

    This essay will explore the frontier of existence in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Ionesco’s Rhinoceros

    Read More

  • Life And Death In Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Samuel Beckett Tragicomedy Waiting for Godot he begs the question of life and death. Throughout the commotion of the play Becket addresses the age old debate of the afterlife and if people willingly pass this life to enter into Gods kingdom or if God calls them. Beckett introduces characters such as Estragon, Vladimir, and Lucky to illustrate the different types of perspectives that man has taken on this debate.

    Read More

  • Summary of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot

    865 Words  | 2 Pages

    The setting is the next day at the same time. Estragon's boots and Lucky's hat are still on the stage. Vladimir enters and starts to sing until Estragon shows up barefoot. Estragon is upset that Vladimir was singing and happy even though he was not there. Both admit that they feel better when alone but convince themselves they are happy when together. They are still waiting for Godot.

    Read More

  • Waiting for Godot is Not an Absurdist Play

    1863 Words  | 4 Pages

    Waiting for Godot is Not an Absurdist Play. Samuel Beckett's stage plays are gray, both in color and in subject matter. Likewise, the answer to the question of whether or not Beckett's work is Absurdist also belongs to that realm of gray in which Beckett often works. The Absurdist label becomes problematic when applied to Beckett because his dramatic works tend to overflow the boundaries which scholars attempt to assign. When discussing Beckett, the critic inevitably becomes entangled in contradiction.

    Read More

  • Christianity in Waiting for Godot

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    Irish-born French author Samuel Beckett was well known for his use of literary devices such as black comedy in his various literary works. Written during late 1948 and early 1949 and premiered as a play in 1953 as En attendant Godot, Beckett coupled these devices with minimalism and absurdity in order to create the tragicomedy known to English speakers as Waiting for Godot. True to its title, Waiting for Godot is the tale of a pair of best friends known as Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo) who are waiting for the character the audience comes to know as Godot to appear. Throughout Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett alludes to the monotheistic religion of Christianity through symbols, dialogue, and characters to reveal the heavy invisible influence of God in the daily life of man.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Symbolism In Waiting For Godot

    804 Words  | 2 Pages

    Humans spend their lives searching and creating meaning to their lives, Beckett, however, takes a stand against this way of living in his novel ‘Waiting for Godot’. He questions this ideal of wasting our lives by searching for a reason for our existence when there is not one to find. In his play, he showcases this ideology through a simplistic and absence of setting and repetitious dialogue. Beckett’s ability to use these key features are imperative to his ability of conveying his message of human entrapment and existence.

    Read More

  • Waiting For Godot Analysis

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot, has no definite meaning or interpretation, the play acts as a statement of hopelessness regarding human existence. Debate surrounds the play because, due to its simplicity, almost any interpretation is valid. The main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, are aging men who must wait for a person, being, or object named Godot, but this entity never appears to grace the men with this presence. Both characters essentially demonstrate how one must go through life when hope is nonexistent as they pointlessly attempt to entertain themselves with glum conversation in front of a solitary tree. The Theater of the Absurd, a prevalent movement associated with Waiting for Godot, serves as the basis for the message of hopelessness in his main characters. Samuel Beckett's iconic Waiting for Godot and his perception of the characteristics and influence of the Theater of the Absurd illustrate the pointlessness and hopelessness regarding existence. In the play, boredom is mistaken for hopelessness because the men have nothing to do, as they attempt to occupy themselves as, for some reason, they need to wait for Godot. No hope is present throughout the two-act play with little for Estragon and Vladimir to occupy their time while they, as the title indicates, wait for Godot.

    Read More

  • Miscellaneous Critics on Waiting for Godot

    1859 Words  | 4 Pages

    Godot’s characters do not despair in the face of their situation, and this “perseverance remains constant throughout a body of work that, in the words of the citation awarding Beckett the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 had ‘transmuted the destitution of modern man into his exaltation’ (qtd. in Bair 606)” (Hutchings 30).

    Read More

More about Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

Open Document