Existentialist Absurdist Theatre in Waiting for Godot

Existentialist Absurdist Theatre In Waiting for Godot

The atrocities of the two World Wars brought great misery for countless years after their conclusion. Numerous literary works expressed a contrasted pessimistic and optimistic view on life; people had begun to feel as though life attained no purpose and everything was complex. Even though the Industrial Revolution brought a sense of moving forward as the society enhanced and progressive facets came about in everyday life, the Second World War threatened the safety of this modern era; the technological developments seemed too foreign and the disadvantages overshadowed the advantages. The disturbances of living during 1945 under various hazardous bombardments of atomic explosions seemed to have a significant influence on the rise of Theatre of the Absurd. (Shobeiri & Shobeiri) Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is regarded as one of the great classical plays of the Absurd Theatre. The play has this sense of exceptionalism when it comes to the sly wittiness it carries, alongside the amalgamation of dreariness, odd experiences, and, recurrent anguish, while challenging an unavailing world verifies it as a masterwork of Absurdist Theatre in any era. (Scott) Ultimately, Samuel Beckett uses Waiting for Godot to illustrate the fundamental principle of existentialism in which regardless of whichever actions an individual may take, the end is always inevitable.

The Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle in the Victorian Prose and Poetry portrays the image of the post-war times as “despair itself,” and the different aspects of war as “hell dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day worker. (Bloom and Trilling) World War II influenced the intellectual sphere through reflecting the amount of distressing occurrences that the people encountered during that time; it produced absurdist philosophy and Theatre of the Absurd. This custom of drama denotes a form of particular plays in which the human circumstances are viewed as futile, and argues that the world is an absurdity. Additionally, the Theatre of Absurd targets a picture of perplexity, which curtails from the element that it is exceedingly strenuous to uncover fundamental existential issues. (Burnham and Papandreopoulos) Keeping this in mind, the manner in which Beckett presents this topic is laid out through Vladimir’s monologue in which his illustration of humanity’s demise is summarized by the statement “In an instant all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness!” (75) To further Beckett’s grasp on existentialism in Waiting for Godot, the character Pozzo (a man representing a slave’s master) states “The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.” (461) The significance of Pozzo stating this lies in the parallel that Beckett draws between the circumstance of the protagonists’ (Vladimir and Estragon) wait for Godot, with humanity’s placement of faith in a religion or a higher power in order to guide their lives. ("Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot - An existential play.")

Beckett’s approach to providing as detailed depiction of all the facets of humanity through his portrayal of the characters Vladimir and Estragon is essential to the point he attempts to make throughout this play. This is mirrored when Vladimir says, “all mankind is us.” (74) From the opening of the play, and many times throughout, Estragon immediately represents the philosophy of pessimism as well as nihilism, whilst Vladimir is the embodiment of optimism and deeply rooted faith in the unknown. (Shobeiri and Shobeiri; Jani) “Nothing to be done,” a phrase that Estragon opens the play with, and which both he and Vladimir repeat several times throughout the two acts, is the way in which Beckett solidifies the personification of pessimism in this character. Vladimir, on the other hand, always manages to be the force of hope and optimism as he is constantly reminding Estragon that they are “waiting for Godot”, an unseen character in the play who is actually a representation of a deity or God. (Jani) Furthermore, the spelling of Godot is similar to ‘God,’ therefore the significance behind the extended delay in ‘God’s arrival is symbolic to a core concept of existentialism in which individuals must take initiative of their own lives and creating their own destinies, as opposed to waiting for (and praying to) a higher being to bestow upon them their deepest wishes. It is because of Vladimir’s permeable demeanor that allows Estragon’s pessimism to seep through, thus causing Vladimir himself to utter “nothing’s to be done” several times as well. (Jani)

Vladimir ultimately gives up on waiting for Godot, as Estragon’s incessant repetition of “Let’s go” makes Vladimir want to leave by the end of the play. The symbolism behind optimism’s defeat by an existentialism-fueled wave of pessimism highlights the message that Beckett aims to carry across through this play; mankind is much better off being proactive, as opposed to being reactive towards any situation. (Shobeiri and Shobeiri) An example of that in Beckett’s play is when the characters Pozzo and Lucky come by the tree that Vladimir and Estragon are waiting under. Pozzo, a rich man accompanying his slave Lucky, are both a representation of classical theatre, which Beckett mocks in the second act of Waiting for Godot. Pozzo arrives as a blind man and Lucky is dumb. Lucky’s misfortune is ironic in the sense that during his monologue, regardless of the important points he was trying to communicate, his word choice was poor, therefore rendering his character as ‘dumb’, and not in the physically handicapped sense. However, since Pozzo was afflicted with blindness, Lucky now has control over Pozzo’s movements yet cannot hear his commands, which illustrates a role reversal of sorts. (Esslin) The essence of this misfortune is highlighted by the fact that even though Lucky was a slave, he was gifted with a beautiful mind and yet becomes “an incoherent babbler” (Jani). Pozzo was bestowed with “wonderful sight” (63) yet “[he] woke up one fine day as blind as Fortune.” (63) To tie all the aforementioned back to the initial point of mankind’s proactivity towards any situation, Beckett shows how Lucky did not act proactively in his new predicament, yet allowed himself to still become a slave. In contrast, Vladimir and Estragon inevitably gave up on waiting for Godot.