Essay Who Is Godot

Their actions consist of ritually inspecting their hats. Estragon and Vladimir symbolize the human condition as a period of waiting. The tragicomedy of the play illustrates this, as two men are waiting for a man of whom they no little about.Nothingness is what the two tramps are essentially fighting against and reason why they talk. Most of society spend their lives searching for goals, such as exam or jobs, in the hope of attaining a higher level or advancing. The anti-climaxes within the play represent the disappointment of life’s expectations.Many critics put the first theory forth as the true meaning of Waiting, and there are many aspects of it by which they can make their point. Everything we do, say, feel, experience, etc., is just passing the time until our lives come to an end. Likewise, through our lives we mistake people and occurrences for Christ. The fact that Godot never comes also helps to prove the second theory about the meaning of Waiting. Beckett may have used the play to illustrate how pathetic Humanity seems as it strives toward a nonexistent goal.

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Waiting for Godot has been a subject of my thoughts for about two weeks now.

While considering the work, its author, and the comments I have found about the play, I have come up with three hypotheses as to the meaning and overall theme. He is someone who will come to make a great change in the Vladimir and Estragon’s lives, a great change for the better.

The third and final theory about the meaning of Waiting for Godot is that it has no meaning.

When questioned repeatedly on the matter, Beckett was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “I know no more of this play than anyone who manages to read it attentively,” and, ”I do not know who Godot is.

Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit. Vladimir expresses this idea at the end of the play, ‘Habit is a great deadener’, suggesting that habit is like an analgesic – numbing the individual. Since his subject is habit and boredom, he has dispensed with plot; since his characters are without much history.

The play is mostly ritual, with Estargon and Vladimir filling the emptiness and silence. 12), explains Vladimir, offering to tell the story of the Crucifixion. Even the scenery is minimal – consisting of a tree and the road.Beckett suggests that activity and inactivity oppose one another: thought arising from inactivity and activity terminating thought. Beckett suggests that no-one advances through the inexorable passage of time. For example Pozzo and Lucky’s first arrival is mistaken for the arrival of Godot.In the second Act they admit that habit suppresses their thoughts and keeps their minimal sanity: ” Estragon: we are incapable of keeping silent. These points reinforce Kierkagaard’s theory that all life will finish as it began in nothingness and reduce achievement to nothing.Beckett expresses in the play that time is an illusion or a ‘cancer’, as he referred to it, that feeds the individual the lie that they progress, while destroying them.Estragon and Vladimir through the play end as they begin, have made no progression: waiting for Godot.The few leaves that have grown on the tree by the second act may symbolize hope but more feasibly represent the illusive passage of time.Beckett wrote in his Proust essay that time is the ‘poisonous’ condition we are born to, constantly changing us without our knowing, finally killing us without our assent. The fantasized prospect of an erection – a by-product of hanging – makes Estragon ‘highly excited’ (p. The dread of nightmares plague Estragon during the day; ailments and fears become more agonizing.Estragon and Vladimir attempt to put order into their lives by waiting for a Godot who never arrives. Beckett conveys a universal message that pondering the impossible questions, that arise from waiting, cause pain, anxiety, inactivity and destroy people from within. This could explain the inactivity of both Estragon and Vladimir. Beckett infers that humans ‘pass time’ by habit or routine to cope with the existentialist dilemma of the dread or anxiety of their existence.They continually subside into the futility of their situation, reiterating the phrase “Nothing to be done. Note that both Vladimir and Estragon ponder suicide, by hanging themselves from the tree, but are unable to act through to anxiety, as Estragon states, “Don’t let’s do anything. Both characters are aware of different choices they can make but are hesitant, anxious and generally inactive, as shown at the end of Act one when they decide to leave but are immobile. Beckett believes that humans basically alleviate the pain of living or existence (which is at the crux of Existential philosophy) by habit.A process of dying seems to take place within all four characters, mentally and physically. It is an example of Beckett using ‘ordinary’ images to depict mankind’s decay.Estragon and Vladimir may be pictured as having a great future behind them. Time destroys Pozzo’s sight and strips the previous master of almost everything.