With no apparent meaning, people attempt to impose meaning on it through patterned behaviour and fabricated purposes to distract from the fact that their situation is hopelessly unfathomable. Samuel Beckett’s 1950s play Waiting for Godot captures this feeling and view of the world, characterising it with archetypes symbolising humanity and its behaviour when faced with this knowledge. The protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly for an unchanging situation to change, wasting time with mindless distractions. Beckett’s play is arguably the most known of the Theatre of the Absurd, a movement emerging after the Second World War and found artists struggling to find meaning in devastation (TED-Ed, 2018). The Theatre of the Absurd strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of conventional literacy standards within its plays (Esslin, 1991). In the Theater of the Absurd, multiple artistic features are used to express tragic theme with a comic form. Through use of conventions of the genre, specifically minimalistic yet symbolic set design, nonsensical dialogue, and non-specific stagnated characters, Beckett forces audiences to confront the ideology that life is just marking time until death, time too often squandered and wasted. Through the effective use of these conventions, Beckett causes viewers to question their existence and promotes thoughts on how they spend their lives.
As a rule, every type of theatre has its own artistic features influenced by the context and social demands when formed (Zhu, 2013). Influenced by the feelings produced by two World Wars, the settings of plays from the Theatre of the Absurd are often minimalistic though bleak (Cash, 2015). “A country road. A tree. Evening” (Beckett 1955, p. 7). The barren set pieces barely denote location nor the flow of time, two essential aspects by which people organise their lives and memories, creating uncertainty within viewers that only contribute to the feeling of meaninglessness within the lives of the characters. The setting is so ambiguous that when asked to describe if he recognised it, Estragon replied: “Recognise! What is there to recognise?” (p. 61). The empty setting causes audiences to focus on only what the characters are doing, providing no distractions. This is juxtaposed by the characters who go to great lengths to fill their time with distractions over inconsequential objects. Following on, the two identifiable set designs Beckett allowed become highly symbolic. It is noteworthy that the two protagonists are on a road, an item universal for choice and journey. However, the road might as well lead nowhere as it becomes clear the two will never progress along it. On a road, the only logical options are to retreat or move forward, yet absurdly the two refuse to move, preferring to remain in inaction and wait for the elusive Godot, highlighting their want for distraction instead of confrontation. The tree offers another means for escape from the endless waiting but again they cannot bring themselves to leave their predicament, preferring not to take the risk it can’t support both and thus leave one man alone. Even after the tree has been determined useless, the characters come back to it again in Act Two, highlighting their refusal to cease distraction and move. Filled with open spaces and limited props, Beckett has created a world largely emptied of meaning, emotion and substance. This deliberate use of the Absurdist convention forces viewers to remain in the moment, ironic considering no characters can. This juxtapositioning serves to reinforce the central message as audiences watch these characters deliberately waste their purposeless lives despite escape being nearby.
Language is an important constituent of literary work, yet in the Theatre of the Absurd, language is reduced to a subordinate role (Zhu, 2013). Absurdist plays are filled with nonsensical and illogical dialogue that fails to provide any insight into the minds of the characters. Like the critical speculation and maddening plot, the dialogue in Waiting for Godot remains cyclic as the two protagonists struggle to find ways to pass the time, ending up conversing back and forth about nothing at all simply to occupy themselves while waiting (Beckett 1955, p. 63);
Long silence
Vladamir: Say something!
Estragon: I’m trying.
Long silence
Vladamir: (in anguish) Say anything at all!
Estragon: What do we do now?
Vladimir: Wait for Godot.
Estragon: Ah!
Silence
Vladamir: This is awful!
The most important means of communication no longer conveys any coherence message and so it follows viewers do not focus on the dialogues but on what is unfolding on stage (Speri, 2011). In this manner, it becomes evident to the audience that the dialogue serves as a distraction for the characters from the confronting truth of the purposelessness of life. Instead of actively living their lives until their ultimate deaths, the characters would prefer to endlessly wait, “blathering about nothing in particular” (Beckett 1955, p. 66). Beckett uses dialogue as a tool to demonstrate how people will distract and waste their short lives with mindless actions, promoting audiences to consider what they, like Vladimir and Estragon, are distracting themselves with, to distract from our purposeless existence.
In the Theatre of the Absurd no heroes have their fate displayed on stage, instead basic situations of the individual are presented on stage and carried out with a type of alienation effect (Speri, 2011). As is the convention of the genre, characters lack motivation and rational thought, yet this essential for Beckett to convey his central message (Cost, 2015). The characters on stage act in a way mostly unintelligible for audiences as they are lost in an incomprehensible world. The aim is viewers cannot identify with the characters on stage, because only then can they see the whole play from a critical perspective (Speri, 2011). Audiences observe each character’s method for dealing with the hopelessness of their situation - all of them being patently absurd and ineffectual. People all experience a desire to have meaningful lives, and this is what Godot represents for Vladimir and Estragon. Yet, despite despair in not having this meaning, they remain passive observers, whiling away the hours for something to come rather than taking action (Beckett 1955, p. 18);
Estragon: Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer.
Vladimir: Let’s wait and see what he says.
Estragon: Who?
Vladimir: Godot.
Estragon: Good idea.
Although the two agree there is “nothing to be done”, they work absurdly hard to fill the time while they wait (Beckett 1955, p. 11). Instead of leading fulfilled lives, the two protagonists decide to waste time by filling their lives with distractions; waiting for an unknown someone, mindless conversations and, absurdly, boots. Even Pozzo, who exercises some relative power, must distract himself from his purposeless life with endless wandering, Lucky and his vaporizer that plays the same role as Estragon’s boots: an everyday object that occupies an absurd amount of time. Interestingly, Pozzo explicitly links his blindness and his refusal to deal with time, choosing to go blind to stop thinking about time and is own inevitable death after a life wasted. In Lucky, Beckett created the only character who has a purposeful life, one truly fortunate - at least compared to the others. Partaking in no distractions, Lucky has recognised the inherent purposelessness of life and has made his own purpose in choosing to carry bags of sand. Beckett uses the character as a remainder to viewers of the importance of consciousness and certainty. The fact that the life of a slave is desirable is testament to how bad off everyone else is. All the characters are trapped in their purposeless roles by little more than habit, called “a great deadener” by Vladimir (Beckett 1955, p. 91). These characters are hurtling towards their graves and yet fill their lives with so much emptiness. By utilising the alienation felt by audiences towards absurdist characters, Beckett distances viewers, allowing them to critically analyse the actions of the characters. Following, viewers can compare the themes found in the characters and apply it with their own lives.
Waiting for Godot is arguably the most significant play of the twentieth century, dealing with the illogical and irrational aspects of life to emphasise its innate pointlessness (Scott, 2013). Samuel Beckett has created a play featuring two protagonists hurtling towards their graves yet fill their lives with so much emptiness. This deliberately constructed play allows viewers to realise the insignificance of their own lives and therefore the senselessness of human existence in general. Beckett has done this using the conventions of the Theatre of the Absurd, notably minimalistic yet symbolic set design, nonsensical dialogue, and non-specific stagnated characters. All the conventions together provokes the audience to feel confused and curious, questioning their own existence and the absurdity of life. Beckett’s central message leaves viewers with two suggestions moving forward; firstly we must gather courage and make choices in our life; and secondly, we must always be ready to bear the consequences of our actions rather than live with the horrific illness of self-denial. Beckett reminds viewers that like our daily lives, the world onstage does not always make sense, and although a tidy narrative still appeals, the best theatre keeps us thinking.
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The Purpose of Human Life in Waiting for Godot.
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