Homeless and Alienated in Waiting For Godot
Jean-Paul Sartre (1957) once said "Man is condemned to be free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." (23) Whether this is good or bad is not an issue, whereas the implications derived from this are profound. Life, in this case, has no fixed purpose, and we are free to give it one; perhaps it is more appropriate to say that we are condemned to give it one, instead. One look at today's western modernized society makes it seem as if we strive to learn about everything and invent the ultimate tool to carry out all conceivable tasks for us (however artificial the task may be.) Writers, like Albert Camus, describe how waiting, or more generally, boredom, causes the individual to put serious effort into thought of questions regarding one's identity. It is easily seen, thus, that with the way our society has developed, it was inevitable that things like the existential philosophical movement and the literary absurdist movement would emerge from an era of modernism.
Perhaps one of the more famous absurdists was the 1969 Nobel Literature Prize winner, Samuel Beckett. His most popular play, 'Waiting For Godot,' is easily classified as an absurdist work by its properties, or lack thereof, as pointed out in a 1955 review of the play:
"Beckett defies every known law of playwriting, his play is about nothing... Each Act is interrupted by a big bully and a fool he keeps on a chain... That is all. There is no climax, no sense of anticipation and the situation becomes obvious in the first five minutes." (Barker, qtd. In Butler 22)
This reviewer naively added "I think that people are wrong in trying to read a philosophy i...
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... us aside, making us feel homeless and alienated no matter where we are or try to go, "For reasons unknown."
Works Cited:
Astro, Alan (1990). Understanding Samuel Beckett. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Beckett, Samuel (1954). Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press.
Beckett, Samuel (1958). Endgame. New York: Grove Press.
Beckett, Samuel (1974). First Love and Other Shorts. New York: Grove Press.
Butler, L. St. J. (ed.) (1993) Critical Essays on Samuel Beckett. Brookfield: Scolar Press.
Jeffares, A. N., & Bushrui, S (Eds.). (1981) York Notes on Waiting for Godot. London: York Press.
Sartre, Jean-Paul (1957). Existentialism and Human Emotions. New Jersey: Citadel Press, Inc.
Sartre, Jean-Paul (1946). No Exit and Three Other Plays (Vintage 1989)
Webster Online Dictionary, (1986) Formatted 1994.
In ‘Waiting for Godot’, we know little concerning the protagonists, indeed from their comments they appear to know little about themselves and seem bewildered and confused as to the extent of their existence. Their situation is obscure and Vladimir and Estragon spend the day (representative of their lives) waiting for the mysterious Godot, interacting with each other with quick and short speech.
Angels are not infinite. They are created beings from a point in time. For example, in Job, the angels shouted for joy when God laid the foundation of the earth. (Job 38:7) This proves the angels were created after God created the heavens and before He created the earth.
Does Existentialism deny the existence of God? Can God possibly exist in a world full of madness and injustice? Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett address these questions in The Plague and Waiting for Godot. Though their thinking follows the ideals of existentialism, their conclusions are different.
The veil affair, or rather the scarf affair, in France is a controversial topic, which resulted in the creation of legislation prohibiting "conspicuous" signs of religious affiliation in public schools. This article of law, was pointedly aimed at young Muslim girls who wore the hijab in state schools. Proponents of the law argued that it was a defence of laicite, a French principle which is described as delegating religion to the private sphere, and out of the public civic sphere. Joan Wallach Scott writes, that such legislation, or separation is the state acting to protect individuals from the claims of religion. Scott, further says that laicite, is an instrument of the state to create acceptable forms of religion, which has justified the exclusion and
Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is a complex analysis of politics in a seemingly apolitical and empty world. As Hamm and Clov inhabit the aftermath of Marxism, they display characteristics of the bourgeoisie and proletariat respectively, but only retain them so they can define themselves as something. The work implicitly argues- through the setting, and by defining Hamm and Clov as the bourgeoisie and proletariat- that political platforms are simply human rationalizations in futile opposition to a meaningless world, pointing towards Beckett’s ideological message of existential nihilism.
While Beckett’s works are often defined by their existentialist themes, Endgame seems to offer no solution to the despair and melancholia of Hamm, Clov, Nagg, and Nell. The work is replete with overdetermination that confounds the efforts of critics and philosophers to construct a single, unified theme for the play. Beckett resisted any effort to reconcile the problems of his world, offer solutions, or quench any fears overtly. However, this surface level of understanding that aligns Beckett with the pessimism of the Modernist movement is ironically different from the symbolic understanding that Beckett promotes through his characters and the scene. Beckett’s work does not suggest total hopelessness, but rather that the fears of change, self-centeredness, and despair of Hamm and Clov contribute to their miserable existence. He opposes the Modernist attitude of focus on the subjective, internal state, and reveals the soul of the Modernist to be shallow and starving.
Irish playwright Samuel Beckett is often classified amongst Absurdist Theatre contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Jean Genet, and Eugene Ionesco (Brockett 392-395). However, Endgame, Beckett's second play, relates more closely to the theatrical ideology of German playwright Bertolt Brecht, father of epic theatre and the alienation effect. Through the use of formal stage conventions, theatrical terminology, and allusions to Shakespearean texts within Endgame, Beckett employs Brecht's alienation concept, distancing the audience empathetically from players of the game and instead focusing attention upon the game itself.
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...
Have you ever felt like you don't know where you're going, or if you're making any progress at all in your career or your life? If so, you were most likely having an 'existential moment.' Existentialism is a philosophical and literary perspective that focuses on the experience of an individual person and the way that he or she understands the world.
Looking at the evidence, we can see that Beckett used many devices and ideas to guide his readers and spectators into discovering that his main idea was to show how his absurdist and irrational tragicomedy really expresses how the human life is built; he uses this to say that life is repetitive and formed by cyclical actions that leave everyone in the same place they started at the end, just like Vladimir and Estragon at the end of the play.
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.
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting For Godot. 3rd ed. N.p.: CPI Group, 2006. Print. Vol. 1 of Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works. 4 vols
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.
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.