Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

Waiting for Godot was dubbed a "tragicomedy" and there doesn't seem to be any other word better suited to describe this play. The random and wandering personalities of Vladimir and Estragon, the main characters, lend an amusing air to the entire work. However, their inability to accomplish anything or even grasp what is really going on around them inspires some sympathy (and irritation), though it may be weaker or stronger depending on how strange the book strikes the you. Unless one goes into Waiting for Godot expecting the existentialism it can be somewhat confusing, and may seem a bit more pointless than it is meant to be. Knowing a little bit about Beckett and his beliefs will probably make it more enjoyable, but it is interesting and well written enough to stand on its own. What I love the most about this book is Beckett's ability to make the absurd seem so close to reality. Vladimir and Estragon are most certainly not your average Joe, but a lot of what they say seems familiar and most of the time rather humorous. Waiting for Gogot is really what you make it, because while at its core it is a just a story of two confused homeless men, it is also a meaningful and slightly endearing tale. Go in looking for a meaning, and knowing how Beckett means to get things across, and I think that this play will end up reading much better than if one goes in just cold. A short read, and worthwhile, I would say, at least for its originality and humor.

Samuel Beckett's play seems to endlessly perplex reviewers: they want to see in it concrete associations that it generally denies them. Is Godot God? Are Didi and Gogo heroes for their seemingly indefatiguable faith he will arrive, or fools for hinging all their hopes and dreams on a man who never seems to arrive to help alleviate their suffering?

Waiting for Godot, in proper Modernist fashion, strips away all the layers of narrative and form and leaves nothing but the naked husk of a play, which Beckett no doubt felt revealed the human condition at its most basic. But the play's power doesn't really come from that. Rather, what makes Waiting for Godot so compelling is its wide applicability: it's a story about random oppression, brutality, and dreams deferred by harsh realities. It has been performed as an allegory of apartheid South African, the Jim Crow South, the horror of the war in Bosnia and about every other possible situation imaginable. Why? Because as Benjamin Kunkel pointed out in a piece in The New Yorker not so long ago, "[N]ot everyone has a God, but who doesn't have a Godot?"

Beyond the metaphysical implications of the play, though, it's popularity stems from its near-perfection: for all the philosophical meaning people see in it, the action progresses with virtually no direct reference to it, and every line which seems to suggests some sort of grand significance has a very concrete meaning in the action. Take the infamous opening: Estragon, the first of the tramps, struggles to pull off his boot to relieve his swollen foot. Unable to get it off, he gives up and announces "Nothing to be done." Vladimir, wincingly wandering onto the stage and grasping at his crotch (precious few readers and actors for that matter seem to grasp that one of the play's running jokes is Vladimir's venereal disease, which causes him immense pain when urinating), thinks Estragon is commenting on his own ailment, and announces, "I'm beginning to come round to that conclusion myself. All my life I've put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything! And I resumed the struggle."

On the one hand, the lines relate concretely to the action of the play; on the other, they have become representative of modern man's ambivalence towards a cruel and uncaring world, and such clever cynicism has linked Beckett to the French Existentialists in whose circles he moved after the Second World War. But seen merely as declamatory statements of world-weary cynicism, the lines lose all their power; Beckett's achievement comes from his ability to link such nihilistic sentiments to extremely comic moments, and it is the humor that carries the reader or the theatergoer through what would otherwise be an unbearably cynical play. Steve Martin, who played Vladimir in a famous 1982 production at the Lincoln Center in New York, put it best when he said that he sought to serve the humor of the play, because the meaning could carry itself but the humor could not. That's a lesson which, sadly, precious few theater directors seem to grasp, but which the careful reader discovers in Beckett. Definitely a must-read, but read it before seeing it, because few productions do it justice.

Some think Waiting for Godot is an argument for existentialism. Others believe it is about man's eternal struggle for the answer to the ultimate question. Neither seem correct.

In short, this is a play for those who prefer to strip everything down to the most basic form of language, to strip life down to a mere game of waiting. That is, in essence, what this is all about. We have two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who both wait for a man who may or may not ever show up. They don't know why. They don't know exactly when he will be there. Still they wait, eternally, by the tree, by wherever they think he said he would show.

This isn't an absurdist play, although it has been labeled as such. Absurdism, though, seems such an insulting way of labeling such a masterpiece. We oftentimes go thorugh our readings with the idea that everything has to be complex, that there has to be a theme placed deep within a convoluted story, but with Waiting for Godot, we have a simple theme: waiting.

The two characters symbolize nothing. They are, quite simply, not waiting to be analyzed. They become, in effect, victims of Samuel Beckett's own game: they are his quotation, and he only says what needed to be said at the time, and so he wrote it, whether people would catch on or not, whether they would label it absurdism or not.

If you were to take every line of this play and utter it aloud, very slowly, word by word like a robot in a very monotone fashion, you would probably capture the idea. If it's any indication, he wrote everything in French first--his second language--and then translated it in to English, just so it can be simple. I don't assume, of course, that this work should be cherished simply because it's an exercise in simplicity. But I submit that it should be cherished because it's a genuine, themeless--somehow--masterpiece about two people waiting for the most unimportant, unknown thing that may or may not ever come. It is frequently hilarious and constantly frivolous, but somehow, it manages to charm. It is like one of those songs that you can listen to over and over again, and it has no lyrics, and no meaning--as far as you know--but it still makes you feel good under glaring adversity.

I'm not a big fan of existentialism to start out with, but I began this play expecting at least to find an interesting theme or philosophy concerning the nature of life and existence. This work, however, is pure tripe. Critical appraisal should not even be attempted for this drivel- it's akin to the random scribblings of a two-year old or a mud-splattered canvas. The drawing on the front cover has more artistic value than this play. In my mind, it doesn't merit serious consideration and analysis, because it is by nature pure absurdity and nonsense. Beckett sure accomplished his goal though- look how many reviewers commented on the "extremely difficult themes" and "brilliant artistry" of the play.

WAITING FOR GODOT is somewhat akin to a conceptual artwork, in which the concept behind the artwork is more important than the sensual aesthetic experience or the entertainment value. In this case, however, what is behind the artwork is a non-concept, the impossibility of creating a masterpiece. After the monumental impossibility of Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE, what remains for the serious artist? WAITING FOR GODOT is about the impossibility of a masterpiece in the modern world. In that sense, this play is the last masterpiece of "high art." The torch has now passed to movies and popular forms.

Many critics have tried to convince us that WAITING FOR GODOT is very funny and entertaining. I remain skeptical. There are a few moments of wry humor, but not enough to make up for the emptiness of "waiting." There is literally "Nothing to be done" in this play. "Waiting" is a non-action. What's interesting about the play is that the inconsequential dialogues and trivial actions are presented as significant; there's something like an "alienation effect," or a "defamiliarization," as we are invited to ponder how and why this drama is meaningful.

Why is there "Nothing to be done"? Is it simply because it's all been done before? Or is it because life in the modern world is without any serious purpose or meaning? In many ways, WAITING FOR GODOT is a reaction to the Holocaust and Hiroshima. The characters who have "something to do" in this play are Pozzo and Lucky, who by their stupidity illustrate the futility of action in the modern world.