Samuel Beckett’s Poetic Drama Waiting for Godot

Write a critical survey of Samuel Beckett’s modern Irish theatrical drama and stage production Waiting for Godot with references to its cultural, theatrical, historical and political contexts.

(Image of two men, one seated and the other standing, with boots and coats, on a rock by a tree.)

Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” is a surrealist and existentialist poetic drama in the anglophone and the francophone traditions. Beckett harnessed the vogue of experimentation by breaking from the stereotypical stylistic forms of artistic expressions but considered concentrating modernism. Vaudeville comedians and archetypal clownish buffoons showcasing their popular slick routines concerning circus antics with props, pratfalls and idiosyncratic discourses bereft of substantive information. This void of meaning is implied in Estragon’s speech-act: “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful!” Estragon and Vladimir are humbugs and chums passing their idyllic time together upon a somber environment that might have caused themselves to be mutated, disintegrated and superimposed. 

Allegorically Becket and Suzanne were desexualized, lackadaisical, lachrymose and lugubrious out of their wits, just waiting for the abominable genocidal holocaust concentration camps to end like the tramps wandering for Godot. Antagonism between Didi and Gogo biographically allegorizes the existentialist antagonism between the symbiotically dependent couple. Counterfeiting dualistic antagonism, Beckett underscores reciprocal friendship in sacrificial subversion of Didi’s earlier response of “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful!” to afterthoughts of “We always find something, eh Didi, giving us the impression that we exist.” Elemental human experience and fundamental truths of human condition concerning time and evanescence, mysteriousness of existence, the paradox of change and stability, necessity and absurdity have been brought into focus by these pauper-like tramps. 

Vladimir and Estragon are the everyman epitomizing archetypes of all humanity; with Vladimir representing the mental spirit and Estragon representing physical spirit exposed to the existentialist dilemma; ie existentialist truths potentially transforming themselves with transcended worldview and manner of living in terms of motivations, ideals, values and behaviour. Thus mind/body duality comprises this composite humanity in these tramps split into two beings with the body and the mind. Their outfits consist of old dress pants, baggy jackets, scuffed shoes and bowler hats. Vladimir is concerned with intellectualist operation upon retrospection and clairvoyance while Estragon is concerned with creature comforts such as materialistic hedonism and sensual gratification. These vagabonds are differentiated selves of a composite being: Vladimir as stalwart of despondency and Estragon as stalwart of presumption. “I’m accursed! …I’m in hell…recoils in horror”, implicates Estragon’s sinisterish hearsay of blasphemy toward the Saviour. On the contrary, Vladimir’s supplication in contextualizing the redemptive quest toward salvation is implied in “It’s Godot! At last, Gogo.  It’s Godot! We’re saved! Let’s go and meet him!”     

“All my lousy life I’ve crawled about in the mud! And you talk about the scenery! Look at this muckheap! I’ve never stirred from it!” exemplifies the admonishment of nihilistic existentialism embodied in the protagonist Estragon. The less spiritual and the less metaphysical but aesthetic containment of consciousness with the more hedonism and the more materialism. Nation and worldly realms are the domain of Judaism of Estragon waiting for the Messiah while otherworldly and extraterrestrial realms are the domain of the Christian Vladimir waiting for the Messiah. Estragon and Vladimir’s ruminations reveal the philosophizing of humankind in accord with the elusive nature of the mysterious Godot figure. In metafiction these biblical allusions are vestiges of culture corresponding to the parables of the fig tree correlating to wilting and then blooming, and the ten virgins correlating to Vladimir and Estragon’s own suspense while awaiting Godot. 

(Image of two people in black coats and black hats and collared shirts surrounding a man in a striped shirt, pants, and a vest, one on each side).

Further Reading

Biography of Beckett and Conception of Godot, Reviews of Godot in text and in production, Beckett’s friends, pp. 8-23, The friendship of Didi and Gogo in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for The friendship of Didi and Gogo in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Student Work 8-1-1994, University of Nebraska at Omaha, University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNODigitalCommons@UNO 

Waiting for Godot through the lens of Christian Existentialism, Master’s Theses and Doctoral Dissertations and Graduate Capstone Projects 2007, Eastern Michigan University DigitalCommons@EMUDigitalCommons@EMU pp. 1-107