If you were to take a snapshot of the early 1900’s, it would be characterized by confusion and depression. After two world wars and the market crash, the chaos sent people into a world full of absurdity and thus the theatre of the absurd was born. The theatre of the absurd represents an artist’s personal vision of the world and describes the human condition by characters who are constantly circling around life’s difficult choices. In Beckets Waiting for Godot, he represents the human condition by demonstrating the uncertainty in religion, the struggle for freedom, and the torment of waiting.
As we grow old enough to understand we must find the meaning of our lives, we soon come to realize we also need guidance. For many, guidance comes in the form of religion. When we come to the decisions that lead us to success or failure, taking action can cause anxiety that forces us to put the responsibility on someone else. In Waiting for Godot, Godot is the person Vladimir and Estragon decided to place the responsibility of their life choices upon. In my interpretation, Didi and Gogo represent all of humanity, and GODot represents god, or better put, one of the gods. In act I, Gogo mentioned they asked him “a kind of prayer”, they hoped that he will “save” them, and they’re worried if they don’t believe he exists they’ll be “punished”. All of these characteristics are believed by many Christians today and become the three simple principles to guide their decision making. Although, throughout the play a lot of emphasis is put on the uncertainty of Godot’s existence. Considering in America every 1 out of 4 people don’t believe in God, it is certainly one of the powerful characteristics that Becket uses to describe the human condition. But ...
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...pression or even suicide. You can sense Gogo and Didi’s depression throughout the whole play and they even mention committing suicide because the wait is so unbearable. I don’t believe Becket was trying to suggest you should commit suicide if the wait is unbearable but I believe through his existentialistic views he was saying that we might not be able to control how or when we come into this world but we can control how we choose to exit. Only time can tell how your life will turn out.
In Beckets play there is a lot of absurdity and chaos, but these characteristics explain the struggles we still go through today. All of his characters represent the human condition by showing us their uncertainty of religion, a struggle to free themselves from their own prisons, and how hard it can be to wait for the unknown.
Works Cited
http://www.shmoop.com/waiting-for-godot/
...onnects his audience to the characters and although the play is written for the Elizabethan era, it remains pertinent by invoking the notion of human nature. He implements themes of love, anger, and impulsiveness and demonstrates the influence these emotions have on human behavior. It is evident that because human nature is constant, people have and will continue to be affected by these emotions.
...particular play acts as a vessel for this message of mocking self-indulgence and the tragedy of the lack of true love and suspicion of relationships that seems to define the present generation.
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...
A term coined by the critic Martin Esslin, 'The Theatre of the Absurd' refers to the work of a number of playwrights, mostly written in the 1950s and 1960s. Its roots lie in an essay by the French philosopher Albert Camus. In his 'Myth of Sisyphus', written in 1942, he first defined the human situation as basically meaningless and absurd.
The play explores and examines the underlying nature and basic faults of humanity like self-indulgence. Because of the plays conflict of issues, it can consistently be reshaped and analysed to suit current times. Because of this, different meanings are constantly produced.
Bates, Alfred, ed. Excerpt. The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization. London: Historical, 1906.
Shakespeare’s plays show the complexity of human beings. Everyone is different in reactions, actions, and thought. Shakespeare explores various themes throughout his writing career. Each play is unique, and their themes are handled in a very distinct way as Shakespeare writes each work with great care. Two major themes are appearance versus reality and relationship between motive and will; Othello, Hamlet, and Henry IV, Part 1 all portray these two themes in similar and different ways.
The plots were different. The dramatists believed that the human existence is absurd and they used comedy in their plays such as ,Beckett's Waiting for Godot,(1953) (Drabble3). Beckett has tackled political themes in his plays such as, Catastrophe (1982), and What Where (1983) which deals with torture and totalitarian. Beckett's plays are not intellectually understood. Besides, irony was used in his works and his plays are closed compositions. The characters from the beginning until the end remain the same without development. In the Absurd Theatre the writers selected strange names for their works in order to reflect their rejection of the norms and the conventional values (Innes428-31). As for the Naturalistic Theatre, it rejects the natural laws. The naturalists and the realists share the same idea that the issues of the middle and lower classes should be tackled in the literary works. The writers at that time focused on the influence of the economic and material environment (drabble
Samuel Beckett may have denied the use of Christian mythology in Waiting for Godot, but the character of Lucky proves otherwise. We can read Lucky as a symbolic figure of Christ, and, as such, his actions in the play carry a criticism of Christianity, suggesting that the merits of Christianity have decreased to the point where they no longer help man at all.
...ith the lack of closure the author has paved many paths, making one unable to give a proper retelling of the play due to various interpretations. The play has also slyly inserted a philosophy on human life, the uncertainty and how it is a major part of human life is portrayed through this play. All these characteristic together make this play a very good play, it makes one want to live forever as to see what future generations would interpret the play as. In conclusion, this text is written to make the readers think and participate as active members in the reading of the play.
Life is made up of different routines and schedules that are followed by the ordinary human being daily. In ‘Waiting for Godot’, Samuel Beckett uses time and repetition consistently throughout the play to demonstrate how these routines and habits are key elements in the course of life itself. The three main devices Beckett uses are the illogical pass of time, the lack of a past or a future and the absurdity of repetition in both dialogue and actions within the main characters and their surroundings.
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.
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.
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.
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.