SAMUEL BECKETT
Life and works
Beckett was born in 1906 in Dublin, into a Protestant middle-class family. He was educated at
Trinity College where he was a brilliant student. After taking his B.A. degree in French and Italian,
moved to Paris where came under the influence of existentialism. He also became close to Joyce.
He wrote most of his work first in French, them translated into English. Beckett was one of a group
of dramatist who developed the “Theatre of the absurd”, with the common basic belief that man’s
life appears to be meaningless and that human beings cannot communicate and understand each
other. Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”, written in French in 1952 and translated into English in
1954, was the first play in this style. It was regarded as the most original, influential play of the
time and its protagonists, two homeless, became the emblems of the Absurd. In the following
plays he introduced clowning and mimic language (“Endgame” 1958, “Krapp’s Last Tape” 1959).
WAITING FOR GODOT
Plot
The play is divided into two acts and starts in medias res. In Act I two homeless, Vladimir and
Estragon, or Didi and Gogo as they called each other, are waiting on a country road for a
mysterious Godot, who sent a boy to inform them he will come on the following day. They quarrel
and think about separation and suicide in each act, but remain dependent on each other and
never do anything. As opposed the other characters in the play Pozzo and Lucky, make
purposeless journeys to fill their existence. Act II is similar to the first. The play ends with the two
homeless still waiting for Godot who never comes.
The play has no development in time, since there seems to be a repetitive present. It also has no
setting but a country road and a bare tree, which stand for the inside world of the characters. It
has no plot, because the play does not tell a story but examines a static situation, and it has no
action since the only situation described is that of waiting. There isn’t dialogue because the
characters are unable to tell each other their experiences.
The stage is divided into two halves by the tree, the human races are divided into two, Didi and
Gogo, then into four, then into two again, the mankind and Godot. In addition, the character’s
actions are symmetrical: both homeless need to take off their hat to think, whereas Lucky and
Pozzo need to do the opposite.
Vladimir and Estragon are concerned with questions about the nature of self, world and God. In
Act I, Vladimir speaks as mind, and Estragon as body. He eats, sleep, whereas Vladimir thinks
about spiritual salvation. By Act II, the differences are indistinct. Both involve in mental and
physical exercises to pass interminable time. The difficulty for Beckett of keeping a so long
dialogue is overcome by making his characters forget anything. Estragon cannot remember
anything about his past, Vladimir is suspicious of what he remembers. Both men serve to remind
the other one of his very existence. Pozzo and Lucky are physically linked to each other by a rope
as well as by a tyrannical relationship; Lucky is slavish and stands for the power of the body, while
Pozzo is the oppressor and represents the power of the body. Godot is probably the result of
adding the French suffix ‘ot’, meaning “little”, to the English ‘God’.
