waiting for godot (great authors of the western literary tradition)

7/26/2019 Waiting for Godot (Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition)

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Lecture Eighty-Three

Samuel Beckett

Scope: Born of well-to-do parents in a fashionable suburb of Dublin and educated at private schools, Beckett

graduated with honors from Trinity College, taught literature in Paris and Dublin, and by his late 20s

settled down to write in Paris. After writing a first novel that would not see print until after he died, hepublished a collection of stories (More Pricks Than Kicks) in 1934 and a second novel,Murphy, in 1938.

In 1941, when France was occupied by German troops, Beckett joined a resistance network. When the

Gestapo shredded the network, he fled to a village in Provence, where he worked as a laborer by day and at

night produced his third novel, Watt. In the fall of 1948, in the midst of writing four more novels and four

novellas, he created what became his most famous play, Waiting for Godot, written in French and first

staged in Paris in the winter of 1953. This play dramatizes a process in which nothingin the conventional

sensehappens. But in absurdly waiting for a character who never arrives, the two old tramps of Becketts

play perform a continuing act of faith in the possibility of hope.

Outline

I. In their conversations, the two old tramps of Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot repeatedly enact the absurdity

of waiting for someone who never comes.

A. First performed in Paris in the winter of 1953, this play contains no action of the kind we typically expect

to see in plays.

1. Though one trampEstragon, or Gogosometimes says, Lets go, and though the play is set on a

country road, he never goes anywhere.

2. He and his friend Vladimir (nicknamed Didi) cant go because theyre waiting for Godot.

B. Because Godot never comes, the two men are caught in an endless cycle of repetition.

II. When Beckett wrote this play in the fall of 1948, he was extensively published but still unknown as a

playwright; he turned to drama because it enabled him to reach an audience visually as well as verbally.

A. Born in Dublin and very well educated, Beckett was fully committed to writing by his early 30s.

1. In 1934, after producing a critical study of Proust (published 1931) and a novel that would not be

published until after he died, he published his first collection of stories,More Pricks Than Kicks.

2. His second novel,Murphy, appeared in 1938.B. In the next decade, Beckett produced a formidable body of fiction.

1. After briefly working for a French resistance network during the German occupation of France, he

escaped with his wife to a village in Provence, where he worked as a laborer by day and at night wrote

his third novel, Watt.

2. From 1946 to 1950, writing all in French, he produced four novellas and four novels, including the

trilogyMolloy,Malone Dies, and The Unnamable.

C. Having written a parody of Pierre CorneillesEl Cid in college, Beckett returned to the writing of drama in

the late 1940s.

1. In 1947, he wroteEleutheria, a parody of bourgeois drama.

2. In 1948, he wrote Godotas relaxation, to get away from the awful prose I was writing at that time,

but also because theater gave him the chance to achieve both a visual and a verbal impact on his

audience.

III. The first appearance of Lucky and Pozzo in the play brilliantly illustrates its visual impact.

A. Just after Gogo and Didi agree that they are tied to Godot, Lucky enters with a rope around his neck.

1. The free end of the rope is held by Pozzo, who enters behind him.

2. Pozzo makes Lucky stop by jerking the rope.

B. When this play was performed for the convicts of San Quentin prison in 1957, they instantly saw what the

rope around Luckys neck signified.

1. It staged the idea of being tied to someonethe very idea that the tramps have just been discussing.

2. Bound to their wardens, the convicts recognized themselves in Lucky.

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IV. In its very absence of completed action, the play stages the experience of waiting.

A. The play shows that drama is uniquely equipped to represent waiting.

1. Unlike a novel, which may squeeze a lifetime into a book that can be read in hours, a play represents

an action that lasts just as long as it takes to present it.

2. Typically, the main character of a play is introduced by other characters who talk about him and stir

our interest in him.

3. By talking about someone they expect to appear, the tramps make us identify with their expectation.B. As we wait with the tramps for Godot to come, we gradually discoveras they dothat hes not coming

at all.

1. At the end of Act I, a boy delivers a message that Mr. Godot cant come that evening but surely

tomorrow.

2. At the end of Act II, the boy says essentially the same thing.

3. Doomed in this way to endless waiting, the tramps do not move.

V. By detonating the basic principles of dramatic structureconflict, suspense, and resolutionthe play raises

fundamental questions about the significance of waiting and about the purpose of life itself.

A. We all know how frustrating it can be to wait.

1. Its especially frustrating to wait for an indefinite period.

2. In Kafkas The Trial, Josef K cannot endure the frustration of waiting endlessly for court proceedings

in his case to begin.

B. Waiting is an escapable part of the human condition.

1. Virtually all religions promise an afterlife of some kind that we must wait to experience.

2. By promising an afterlife of reward for virtue and punishment for evil, Christianity tries to compensate

us for our suffering and thus, give meaning and purpose to our lives.

C. But if nothing awaits us in the afterlife, the act of waiting is absurd.

1. Philosophically, absurd means irrationala nut that cannot be cracked.

2. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, the founding father of French existentialism, waiting is absurd if the

object waited forGod, revelation, or salvationis suppressed.

VI. Though it teases us with references to Christian faith, the play represents human existence as a condition of

radical uncertainty.

A. At certain points, the play suggestively refers or alludes to Christianity and divinity.

1. Didi tells Gogo at one point that they made a kind of prayer to Godot, who promised only to think it

over.

2. The tramps discuss the two thieves who were crucified along with Christ, one of whom was saved.

B. But the references are made to signify despair as much as hope.

1. Beckett told his first director that he took the name Godot fromgodillot, the French word for

hobnailed boot; the name may be Becketts subtle way of kicking us all in the teeth with the promise

of a God who makes us wait forever.

2. Because only one of the four evangelists says that one thief was saved, the tramps take no comfort

from the Gospel story and instead propose to hang themselves from the one thing available: a tree.

C. Caught between despair and hope, Didi and Gogo stand on the brink of uncertainty.

1. Beckett took his cue for the play from a statement about the two thieves that he attributes to

Augustine.

a. Do not despair: one of the two thieves was saved.b. Do not presume: one of the two thieves was damned.

2. Paradoxically, Didi and Gogo talk of hanging to keep their spirits up.

a. Nietzsche once observed that the thought of suicide has enabled many a good man to get through

the night.

b. Didi tells Gogo that while they might have jumped from the Eiffel Tower 50 years ago, when they

were respectable, they wouldnt even be allowed to climb it nowas if suicide were a genteel

pursuit.

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VII. The jokes about suicide exemplify the tragicomic mood of the play.

A. The tramps display the kind of humor we typically get from such clowns as Charlie Chaplin.

1. Chaplins portrayal of a sadly funny clown on the silent screen first captivated Beckett in his teens.

2. Like Chaplin, all the characters in the play wear bowler hatsa relic of their faded gentilityand at

one point, they restlessly pass them back and forth.

3. When Gogo says that Pozzos description of the evening is tray bong, he echoes the bad French title

of one of Chaplins music-hall acts.B. This play is a tragedy played for laughs, a play that dares to laugh at anything and everything.

1. The scandal of Pozzos treating Lucky like a dog turns into a joke when Lucky kicks Gogo in the

shins as Gogo tries to comfort him.

2. When Gogo learns that hanging might give them an erection, he excitedly says, Lets hang ourselves

immediately!

VIII. Yet for all their talk of suicide, the tramps choose to remain alive, to help each other, and to go on waiting.

A. Because they arent sure that they can both hang themselves from the tree, they decide not to do anything.

1. Nothing is certain in this playnot even the relative weights of the tramps.

2. Because neither one knows for certain which of them is heavier, they dont know which one of them

might break the tree bough by hanging from itleaving the other one alone.

3. Their conversation on this point shows that they are friends for life.

B. In spite of their differences, they depend on each other and thus, take a quiet stand against despair.

1. Their differencessuch as the sleepiness of Gogo and the nervousness of Didihelp define them as a

comic pair, a music-hall team.

2. But their interdependence keeps them alive.

3. In presenting a pair who cling to each other as faithfully as they wait for Godot, the play takes a quiet

stand against despair and the Modernist preoccupation with the isolated self.

IX. Even though it dramatizes the experience of waiting for a Godlike would-be benefactor who never comes,

Waiting for Godotbecomes an act of faith in the possibility of hope.

Essential Reading:

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot.

,Molloy,Malone Dies,The Unnamable.

Supplementary Reading:

David Bradby,Beckett: Waiting for Godot.

James Knowlson,Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett.

Questions to Consider:

1. How does Beckett complicate our impulse to condemn Pozzo for abusing Lucky?

2. Instead of just waiting for Godot to arrive, why dont Didi and Gogo seek him out?

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waiting for godot (great authors of the western literary tradition)

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