Happy Days

Happy Days is a play be Samuel Beckett written in 1961. Here again is a weird one, though possibly even more weird. Well. Gosh. What in the world am I supposed to say? ... Well, maybe if I start off with a summary.

This has two character. Yes, Beckett has finally done it. Endgame had two mains but two others, and Godot had two mains, and three others. Here's two: Winnie and Willie. Really, it's one main and one other though. The play is in two acts, the first with Winnie buried to the waist in sand (we never find out why) and in the second, to the neck (ditto). Willie, her husband, is behind her mound of sand, and in the first act, you see the back of his bald head and his handkerchief covering it (echo Hamm) whilst in the end of the second act, he emerges to try and climb Winnie's mound. So first act: Winnie talks all the way through whilst Willie remains rather monosyllabic. Winnie is unreasonably optimistic and keeps talking to Willie hoping he answers, and when he does, she's very happy. She has a bag out of which she pulls out stuff, including a toothbrush, a mirror, lipstick, a music box, a gun and an umbrella. She keeps saying she'll sing but she doesn't. The act ends with her praying and the second with her waking up with the waking bell, possibly on the next day, but I doubt it (she's buried to the neck). She can't use the bag stuff since she's buried to the neck and thus has no arms. She keeps talking all the way through though,this time a bit more darkly. In the first act, it's mostly about whatever she's doing and reminding herself not to complain and that things are going okay because with 'No change...no pain' but in the second act, she can't actually say any of that, not being able to do anything, so she basically talks about the concept of being alone since she suspects Willie has died or has left but rather prefers the idea of not knowing so that she can imagine that someone is still listening to her. In the end, she gets the surprise that Willie is actually still there when he emerges. He tries to climb up the mound to her, it seems either to kiss her or to grab the 'conspicuous' revolver next to her (maybe to shoot her, maybe himself), but he can't climb all the way up, he stares at her from the bottom of the mound and says 'Win' (his nick-name for her), which makes Winnie very very happy despite her seemingly cold cynicism towards him until this word is spoken. Winnie sings her song about being loved. They stare at each other, Winnie stops smiling, and there's a pause, curtain.

That did help! I know what I'm talking about. So, weird, right? So I'm not even going to touch it being weird. And concerning characters, well, they are the most important aspect of a book, but I can't really do Winnie because that's just way to demanding for a fun blog, and..hmmmm....Willie. Actually, that would be very interesting to write about. Willie...nope. I would really like....ahhhhhh! Alright conflict. I don't want to write about more than one thing since that'll make this blog twice as enlarged, but hear me out.

You see how so many critics can start talking about feminism, or existentialism, or absurdity, or naturalism, or consumerism, or individualism, and stuff like that for this play, like all other Beckett things? Yeah...I'm not going to do that, because this stuff is just soooooo strange and wonderful that I can't even begin to think of what Beckett was trying to say, or whether he was trying to say something. In my mind, anyways, Beckett is on of those great, honest artists that make art without trying to actually say their own ambitions or opinions, but rather to say, 'Hey look everyone, look. Here's a woman...wait for it....in a mound........wait for it.......of SAND!!! SAND!! Huha!!!! So...Deal with it.' Yeah, in my mind, that's what Beckett would say. Probably not the 'wait for it'. Maybe more like 'Hello all. Here is my new play. It is about a woman named Winnie buried in sand. There is a man called Willie living in a hole behind her. That it all. Please, no questions. It is what it is, nothing more, nothing less. Excuse me, I have some people-watching to do and then I am going to catch flies with a jar in a dimly-lit room.' Yes! That is exactly what he'd say. Well! Anyways, what I'm trying to say is screw all the ism's I'm going to talk about props. BUT! darn WIllie.

Willie. Let's talk about Willie. I'll try to weave props into it. So stop! Let me move on with his blog. Let me close my eyes and look away from the other world where I wrote of props and enjoyed it marvellously. Oh, dear Willie, dear Willie.

Willie!!! Why do we have a Willie? Why not just Winnie? OF COURSE we can't just have Winnie. That'd be absurd! (haha) because I really doubt whether Winnie can survive without Willie. I'm not talking about food. God knows where she gets food. She's plump anyways. But surviving as in she is human, and so she needs someone to be with her or she'll go insane. I mean, the second she pulls out the revolver, I was sure she's going to shoot herself eventually. I thought maybe Willie would leave or die and she'd off herself. A whole Chekov's gun thing. The gun doesn't get shot though, I assume, because Willie exists. Here canbe brought in nice comparisons with Endgame and Godot, where in Godot the Didi and Gogo want to leave each other but can't, and in Endgame, Clov keeps trying to leave Hamm but he won't go. Now, I don't know what would have happened to Didi if Gogo left (they try to commit suicide together and refrain because one may succeed and the other fail, so the one left alone may very well hang himself from the tree [the tree here is sort of like the gun, I guess (double-Bracket inception [haha I totally just capitalised bracket because I was used to writing Beckett])])and if Clov left Hamm, well Hamm kept asking Clov how he'd know if Clov left, so I'm guessing Hamm would want then to off himself too, which I guess is more a will-power thing for him to finally let go of the smidgeon of life he has left. To let it all end! I'm jokey today. Well, interesting point about Hamm wanting to know whether Clov is leaving.

So! to expand, Hamm wants to know because if Clov doesn't tell him, Clov may be just too long in the kitchen or even dead in the kitchen. Hamm has to know that Clov is gone because otherwise, hope may impel him to hang onto life, or so I interpret. Same with Winnie. Well, same and opposite. Winnie wants not to know because she prefers to hope rather than be certainly in the black. Grey rather than black, if you please. Willie is then an important character because by his presence and even potential presence, he allows Winnie to continue to live, if I assume the presence of the gun to mean the present possibility of suicide. Life is empty, according to Beckett, and life is redundant, and life is often a pathetic farce, and life abandoned yet refuses to end, but life, if not alone, is bearable. The only intolerable thing is loneliness.

To be straight with you all, if I was a guy and I was going out for a role in a Beckett play, this would be the last one I'd go for. Really. I'd do any tranny trick to land a girl's part just to avoid this. It's very boring to play, I assume. It may be relaxing, but rather boring, really. However, as demonstrated, it is essential for Winnie's existence as well as her psychology. Beyond that though, I think Willie is very interesting in himself. Though perhaps boring to play, he, by many points, can be intriguing to third party viewers. So, let me just say all the things about him I know.

This is literally EVERYTHING.

He is Winnie's husband and he once loved her dearly...it seems.
His hand emerges to hand Winnie her parasol
His head is bald and bleeding. He spreads a handkerchief over it.
He wears a boater at a rakish angle with club ribbon.
He reads the newspaper, at times aloud.
His first words quote the obituary: 'His Grace and Most Reverand Father in God Dr Carolus Hunter dead in tub.'
He also says 'Opening for smart youth.' and 'Wanted bright boy.'
He has hairy forearms and looks at what I think is a dirty postcard.
He blows his nose loudly for a long while.
He answers Winnie's question about calling hair 'them' or 'it': 'It.'
He uses vaseline.
He answers Winnie's questioning of whether he could hear her as he goes into his hole.
He has blue eyes like saucers.
He sleeps in a hole. He has trouble crawling into it as he has to back into it.
He comments that the emmet Winnie finds must have eggs, and when Winnie says 'God', he laughs
He is suicidal, so Winnie keeps the gun from him.
He asks 'Sucked up?' when Winnie asks him whether he feels he is being sucked up into the air
He says a hog is 'Castrated male swine...reared for slaughter'
He says 'Opening wanted' at the end of Act I
He emerges from behind the mound at the end of Act II, crawling.
He wears a top hat, striped trousers, a tie, white gloves, a morning coat. 'Dressed to kill'
He has a Battle of Britain moustache.
He stares at Winnie in a bothering way, climbs the mound but slithers down, not reaching her.
He says 'Win' which makes Winnie happy and after she sings they stare at each other. She stops smiling. Long pause. Curtain.

That's all.

So what shall I talk of? The handkerchief...the hole...the newspaper. That'll do it, I suppose. There's always so much to talk of though, isn't there.

The handkerchief. That'll split into a bunch of things on its own. The significance of handkerchiefs in general. The idea of putting one on your bleeding head (a head that's actually bleeding, that is), connection to Hamm. That'll do.

So the significance of a handkerchief. Well, the uses are really various (to blow your nose, to wipe muck off things, to tie over a wound, to carry things in, to tie coins into, to tie like a bandanna on your head, diapering) so it is something that is useful. Beckett may then have given Willie this handkerchief of all things simply because of this reason. What does a man have that lives in a hole and doesn't seem to have an awful lot? useful things, I suppose, hence a handkerchief. Aside from useful in a practical sense though, handkerchiefs are helpful as symbols. A handkerchief can show your status, based perhaps simply on how nice it is (lace, checkered, silk) or on embroidery which then incorporates a whole other alphabet of coats of arms, famous initials, representative flowers and such. There are handkerchiefs used as remembrances or tokens, like when a dame would give her knight or soldier her handkerchief (remember Othello...Shrek...) So all this then. Well, this handkerchief seems to indicate low status since it's not so much an embroidered identity card but something to dull blood with, and this status thing may still be relevant as it shows more clearly that such an act as dulling your bleeding with a handkerchief can be extended as an act that could define Willie's whole character: he's not refined, he bleeds, but yet he still has a handkerchief to cover the bleeding, hence he is a man close to something bad but not quite at zero. As for remembrances, I suppose you could say Winnie gave him the handkerchief but that wouldn't say much, they're married. She has a handkerchief of her own anyways, which she keeps in her bodice and cleans her glasses with. The fact that she uses them for keeping up her appearance and doing such civilised things as keeping your spectacles clean bears contrast with Willie's dirty handkerchief and so the handkerchiefs can be another way of exemplifying the difference between the two's remaining civility. If you have the kerchiefs be marching, then they could be like those couples that dress similarly. Back to her giving him it though, I guess you could write a pretty interesting prequel to Happy Days in which you see the two in their earlier unburied years and she gives him the handkerchief, which would then make this interpretation massively interesting and deep, but that's a bit of a wander, no? Yes, yes it is. Conclusion: handkerchiefs, being very connotative, opens up for a bunch of speculations on his identity and character and relationship with Winnie, but doesn't say anything concrete, which is fine and sort of expected.

The bleeding head. Wow, I watched 'To Sir, With Love' yesterday and every time I say bleeding anything now, whilst before watching it I was a perfectly normal blogging American just thinking about something that's bleeding, now all I think of is a bunch of rude English brats cursing at each other. Phooey. Well, on with the bleeding head. So first of all, why is it bleeding? Again, speculations. Maybe, since Willie later tries to go into his hole headfirst and Winnie directs him, seeming like this isn't the first time this happened, Willie fell head-first into his hole and cracked his head at the bottom. That was my first idea. I can't really imagine very much else happening, as they are in such a contained area. Then again, it's Beckett, so he could probably have thought up a bunch of other ideas, like Willie going for the revolver, Winnie catching him, taking the revolver, and hitting him a little too hard on the head with it in a scolding. Or maybe Willie scratches his head a bunch (a lot of scratching goes on in everything else Beckett wrote, that I read), or maybe Willie has a fit and hits his own head, or maybe in some really strange accident he gets a paper cut o his head with the newspaper. The possibilities of this play are endless and I could see any of those playing out alright. The important thing is though that it goes unexplained, as most things do in this play, so it provides for some concept of time before, and also the fact that neither of them acknowledge that he's bleeding is interesting as it forces you to imagine they must have had some conversation about it earlier, and neither are very fussed about blood, which is typical. One more thing about him bleeding. Beckett says that his 'bald head is trickling blood'. Now trickling is a creepy word, considering how it's slow, quiet, eerie and not quite anything. It's on a bald head too, so presumably that'd provide for a nice visual effect. If a not-bald head is trickling blood, nobody would notice, maybe with blonds, but still, a bald head provides for a nice contrasted cracking, painful moon effect. As Willie doesn't talk very much, his appearance must contribute very much to how we perceive him. So it's important, and so it's useful to have the strong image of the trickling blood on a bald head to set up for a somewhat eerie character, as he turns out to be.

That went on a while. Well, we're still on bleeding. So at one point, Willie blows his nose loud and long and then spreads it back onto his head. Actually the first time he dons the kerchief Beckett say he 'spreads it on his skull'. So both these again are a it disturbing. The first has snot on his bleeding cut head now. Obviously, a tad gross. Then second, Beckett calling his head a skull is creepy as it is not the skull but the skin covering the skull, and referring to a living head as a skull brings up associations with death, sickliness and therefore makes Willie, possibly, zombie-esque, which really cannot be taken literally but pumps up the eeriness. Now, I think I've proven that this all is a bit disturbing, but then again, the act of covering his wound indicates a lasting idea of self-conservation and even refinement in hiding the blood from others (Others!) He dresses fancily and wears the jaunty boater with club ribbon so he can't be completely beyond style as you imagine the more raggedy Beckett characters to be. So there is a sense of irony I suppose; if you cover your stinking feet with holey socks, well, at least you still wear socks.

I think that's my cue to move on. Hamm. Yes, again with my connections. Honestly, I haven't read enough Beckett play. I suppose I'll read All That Fall next since I've read the three plays I've read so conventionally happened to be the first three he wrote; After would be the fourth. I'd like to take a crack at Murphy too, and the short stories I find very fun to read, i might even like them more than the........let's not go there. Hamm! So Hamm starts Endgame covered with a sheet, and when the sheet is removed, his face is still covered with a handkerchief. This handkerchief he refers to as a 'stauncher', presumably because it is covered in blood and so it staunches the blood he coughs up. By the end of the play the handkerchief seems almost a friend of his since he refers to it as though it i sit's own person. The stauncher is the last thing he keeps when the play ends, after he seems alone, and calls it 'Old stauncher' as though they have a history. Well, so there's the blood connection. They both involve some blood. So to both, the handkerchief is essential. However, Willie doesn't show evidently any connection with the kerchief as Hamm does. This suits both individually, I suppose, Hamm beig a man trying to be independent but actually clinging for things to remain, and Willie, having a clingy wife, ignoring her to look at dirty pictures and read the obituary. One last thing. Both the handkerchiefs hols a part of the owner in them and in that way, prove again that the characters are alive, which seems to be undesirable for both. Interesting, no!? Yes, yes it is, I demand it to be.

Onwards! My gosh. The hole. The hole, of course the hole. Is there anything more blatantly metaphorical than to live in a hole? So many meanings! So first meanings...then...staging...yes, yes that may be interesting. No promises.

A hole! Well, there are animals that live underground...but they tend mostly to be rodents or reptiles, like mice, gophers, lizards and snakes. Those that tend to like darkness, that are nocturnal and that are generally undesirable, like vermin. Then there are the lower living things like insects. We have worms, ants, most insects, really. There again, a bad image. Then you have the hibernators that dig underground to sleep, like bears. That's a bit more complex. Is Willie hibernating? Well, living in a hole can be connected to living in a well, as a phrase. Like telescoping (connect Endgame) since you don't see the big world, big picture or big life. You just opt to live a small simple life. Willie can leave. Sure he's tied to Winnie in marriage and you could say it's noble of him not to leave. It's very reasonable, I think , to argue his nobility. However, Willie seems to need Winnie even more than the other way, in some aspects, as in to keep from killing himself, to direct him like a child towards his hole, and he seems somehow unable to dig her out, or to stand. So Willie lives in a hole, like a toad, oblivious to the world. In contrast to Winnie's mound, again they seem compatible, she being his inverse, a hole for a mound. You'd notice his in the setting. Lets do setting. This is going to be a lot shorter than the hanky. Well. In setting, if the director decided to actually have a bunch of sand on stage and dig the hole himself, he'd find, obviously, that as he dug, a mound would form! Hooray for Winnie and the conventional set. Now, I suppose, if I allow myself to speculate again (I've speculated more in this blog than in any other) then maybe this is exactly what happened. Winnie got buried...by somebody... and Willie saw the hole and decided to live in it. He seeming unable to dig her out, I assume he's also unable to dig a hole himself. Anyways, enough with the hole.

Newspaper! Finally. Now the death of the guy read in the obituary is of course significant as it coincides with the theme, Beckett's endless theme, of life that refuses to end. Very Zeno. And of course Willie wants to die, so I assume he reads these obituaries in envy of some kind. The bright boy wanted, he probably reads because he may be looking for a job, or rather, I think it more plausible that he fancies the idea of leaving and leading a normal life but really can't get himself to, and in any case, it's a bright boy wanted, and he can't grasp the concept of moving backwards into a hole...so. Well, on he subject, I do not think either of the two characters are idiots, considering their vocabulary. I mean, Willie says Castrated male swine reared for slaughter is a pretty witty and catchy answer for what hog is, and the thing about calling hair it, though it may seem like common sense, gets a tiny bit complicated too when considering how, unlike Endgame and Godot, Happy Days was originally written in English, not French, and in English, hair is 'it' but in French hair is hairs and thus 'them' (*shiver* weird, isn't it. Truly a nonsensical language). So Willie isn't an idiot...how did we get here? Newspaper! right. Wow. I summon a fresh paragraph.

That's better. Another cool thing about newspapers, aside from in relation to what Willie reads out is that they represent the outside world. Aside from the frustration of why in the world Willie has a newspaper in the first place (does he read the same outdated news every day or does he manage actually to get the newspaper [I mean the paper boy can't exactly go to the address of whatever normal person and then go to the next address: the hole next to that mound with the woman in it (though it'd give Beckett the chance to put a boy in the play again)]) Aside from that, which we'll allow, I suppose, Willie seems interested in the outside world, which pushes at the question of whether Willie will ever leave Winnie alone and also provides some familiarity to the audience as here is something recognisable, a newspaper that tells about the world we live in, and that then can either make the play weirder, that this can happen in our world, or more normal, that at least it's not on mars... Moving on.

The fact that he bothers to read the newspaper is my final point. Why would people read the newspaper? Well, some get the news because they are genuinely interested, especially if you're involved in the news. If you've got a bet on a sports team, you want to check how they did. You might be concerned generally with your fellow humans or with the Earth, so you really want to know the second there's a tsunami or murder or miraculous dog. You could be scared of being that person that never knows what's going on so is left out of conversation. You could be bored. People have the news built into routine, you read whilst you eat cereal in the morning. Some people want to keep up to minute in order to seem intelligible aware and involved. Some people saw their grandparents reading, they're parents reading, so now they just do, because that's just what people do. Some people can't talk, so they read. Willie. Well, he isn't on the news, for sure, and he doesn't seem very involved, living in a hole. He may read because he's involved in he sense that it's a job he's looking for. Again though, ho realistic that is is ambiguous. Willie doesn't have to worry about company because there's only Winnie and she delights at him saying simply the day 'It.' The boater and fine clothing suggests that maybe, like Winnie, he wants to stay presentable, and that involves him knowing things, if only for himself to know he knows. Family tradition. Maybe. To avoid speaking. That seems more plausible. To stop Winnie's voice from entering his mind - for she would get very annoying before long - he reads the news. I'm tired of this blog. Aren't you? Dragged on far too long. This blog is a terribly written Beckett play between me and my invisible reader who never speaks. Plausible.

Well. Conclude Cecilia. Interesting, huh. That's just three things to do with the enormously minor character. Imagine if I had, perchance - the old style! - said I'd do Winnie. Whoosh. Wow. So, sufficed to say - in the old style! - I did well to - in the old style! - choose Willie as my muse. The old style is something Winnie always says, by the way. So! In the tiniest and vague of nutshells, I love this play because of how much it makes me speculate, I love the ideas of loneliness and company it provides, and I love and hate the importance of the visual in this play: love as it is very multi-layered, very deep and appealing, allowing for greater abstractedness and frustrating even more, which I enjoy; but hate because my limit on frustration is when all that is happening and I'm taking the reading course of drama rather than watching. If you haven't yet, as I haven't, heed this advice - the old style! - go see he play the second you get an opportunity. But still,

Read, folks. Read.

can't complain -[looks for spectacles]- no no - [takes up spectacles] - mustn't complain -- [holds up spectacles, looks through lens] - so much to be thankful for - [looks through other lens] - no pain - [puts on spectacles] - hardly any - [looks for toothbrush] - wonderful thing that.

No better, no worse, no worse, no change. [Pause. Do.] No pain.

Oh this is going to be another happy day!

And if for some strange reason no further pains are possible, why then just close the eye - [she does so] - and wait for the day to come - [opens eyes] - the happy night of the moon has so any hundred hours. [Pause.] That is what I find so comforting when I lose heart and envy the brute beast.

And yes, if only if I could bear to be alone, I mean prattle away wih not a soul to hear. [Pause.] Not that I flatter myself you hear much, no Willie, God forbid. [Pause.] Days perhaps when you hear nothing. [Pause.] But days too when you answer. [Pause.] So that I may say at all times, even when you do not answer and perhaps hear nothing, something of this is being heard, I am not merely talking to myself, that is in the wilderness, a thing I could never bear to do - for any length of time. [Pause.] That is what enables me to go on, go on talking, that is. [Pause.] Whereas if you were to die - [smile] - to speak in the old style - [smile off] or go away and leave me, then what would I do, what could I do, all day long, I mean between the bell for waking and the bell for sleep? [Pause.] Simply gaze before me with compressed lips. [Long pause while she does so. No more plucking.] Not another word as long as I drew breath, nothing to break the silence of this place. [Pause.] Save possibly, now and then, every now and then, a sigh into my looking-glass. [Pause.] Or a brief...gale of laughter should I happen to see the old joke again.

just to know that in theory you can hear me even though in fact you don't is all I need, just to feel you there within earshot and conceivably on the qui vive is all I ask, not to say anything I would not wish you to hear or liable to cause you pain, not to be just babbling away on trust as it is were not knowing and something gnawing at me.

Oh I know it does not follow when two are gathered together - [faltering] - in this way - [normal] - that because one sees the other the other sees the one, life has taught me that...too.

laughing wild amid severest woe.

Paradise enow.

Ah earth you old extinguisher.

Oh no doubt you are dead, like the others, no doubt you have died, or gone away and left me, like the others, it doesn't matter, you are there.

Ah well, not to know, not to know for sure, great mercy, all I ask.

What are those exquisite line? [Pause.] Go forget me why should something o'er that something shadow fling...go forget me...why should sorrow...brightly smile...go forget me...never hear me...sweetly smile...brightly sing...[Pause. With a sigh.] One loses one's classics. [Pause.] Oh not all.

Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett written in 1954. It's the play that made him super famous both as a genius and as a very strange strange person. 'a tragicomedy in two acts', it says on my cover. That's adequate, I suppose, and it's wonderful!!

So summary. There are two acts, five characters and hardly anything happens, though more than in Endgame. The set is just a country road and a tree, and there wait Vladimir and Estragon for some guy they're supposed to meet called Godot. They seem to have been friends for a very very long while and seem incapable of leaving each other though they, particularly Estragon, seem to wish often to part. Estragon calls Vladimir Didi and Didi calls Estragon Gogo. So Gogo and Didi hand out by the tree unsure of whether Godot will actually show up, which he never does, and whilst they wait, they try desperately to keep from getting bored by often forced conversation. Most of what they say is in the whole, meaningless, but Beckett manages to imitate very well what we all actually sound like in idle speech: tangential, repetitive, incomplete and trailing, and at times awkward. The conversation is often uproarious though and when not, filled with chuckles. The main incident in the first act is the entrance of Pozzo and his 'slave' Lucky. Pozzo is this terrible aristocratic old man who is very cruel to Lucky, who he holds on a leash and orders around with a whip. Lucky is silent for the most part except for one moment when he is ordered to 'think' and he goes on a huge tirade of technical legal terms in discussing something that I really can't describe since I can't make any sense of it. The interaction with them ends with their leaving, and the fifth character enters then: the boy. He is sent by Godot to say that Godot will be coming tomorrow. The boy is an interesting addition to the cast. He brings a sense of reality to it all. To be discussed further on. The kid gone, the two decide to sleep and then wait again tomorrow, so they g their separate ways after agreeing that they're beyond leaving each other, thus ending Act I. Act II follows the same sort of nothingness though on a darker note. Pozzo and Lucky come back but Pozzo is now blind. Very strange. The boy comes back too, just to point out the obvious fact that Godot is again a no-show. Gogo and Didi contemplate, again, hanging themselves from the solitary tree, fail to again, talk about tomorrow again, bleakly, suggest parting again, insist that Godot might come, again, and then propose to go away, and they don't move, and curtain.

Bleak, very bleak. Wonder how much that made sense. So what did I say I'd discuss...in the spur...the boy. Yes, the boy. Let me just say first though hat I enjoyed this play very much because I think it's absolutely hilarious. The ending is nice and dark too. There are far less profoundly poetic moments in this than in Endgame though. And the relationship is vaguer. Neither seem very much to have a role. But by he end of the play, you can basically guess which lines Gogo say and which ones Didi say, and that's always good. Pozzo and Lucky, I thought were very interesting, but it's, amazingly, a bit too weird. They come out of no where. I think that's it. In Endgame, Nagg and Nell are very very weird - hey live in ash bins, for crying out loud - but you can tell they've been here for a very long time and that they were more properly human once, as gathered through conversation. Pozzo, on the other hand, just comes out and you just gape at him, and go '.....whaaaat??.....' And you hate him too. He's infuriatingly terrible to Lucky. And Lucky is just weird. He's more of a creature than a human. You might see him in an insane asylum. I bet you could write a great story about how Lucky got to become Lucky, for he once, ostensibly, was garrulous in a good way, not in the terrible way he shows in he play. Well, the characters then are a bit less believable, open to your sympathising with and completed in this than in Endgame, though Didi and Gogo are quite good, but they are very good. Very. They may be too equal. That might be it.

The boy. Because of time really. These blogs have gotten to be very ridiculous. Can you believe I'm the 'Poet of the Month' in my school's newspaper that nobody is actually aware of? Yeah. What are they thinking? My poetry is just as weird as my prose. Onwards. Well, the boy's very good to work with anyways because, as I said, he brings a sense of normality, probably because most all he says is in response to a question. Most his answers are 'Yes Sir' as the questioner, Didi, tends to get it all right, and all the boy contributes himself is really that Godot won't be coming today but will come tomorrow. What we find out through Didi's questioning is that the boy minds the goats, that he has a brother whom minds he sheep, that they sleep together in the hay in the loft, that he, naturally, is scared of Pozzo and Lucky, that he seems amazed by Gogo generally, that he doesn't get beaten by Godot but his brother does, that he doesn't know whether he's favoured by Godot, and finally that he doesn't know whether he is unhappy or not; all of which Didi rounds off by saying 'You're as bad as myself.' That's the first act anyhow.

In the second act, the boy doesn't recognise Vladimir and Didi again questions hi to gain a bunch of Yes Sir's and No Sir's. We find out that Godot has a white beard and that the brother is sick. Godot again will be coming tomorrow. Supposedly. The meeting is shorter this time and Didi ends it when he says to tell Godot that he saw them, and then confirms with the boy that he actually saw them and that 'you won' come and tell me to-morrow that you never saw me!' The boy gets scared since Didi's gone all intense and runs off.

That's it for the boy. Now, what the hell did all that mean???? Gosh, well. I think the boy is very interesting in a combination of the two acts but also in the first separately. In the first act, I think it's important that the boy come in and be scared of Pozzo and Lucky since i acknowledges the fact that they're very very weird characters. Also, because he was scared, the boy delays giving the news to the two. The up-side to Pozzo and Lucky being around, according to Didi, seems to be that 'That passed the time' since they don't want to get bored about waiting around for Godot. After Pozzo and Lucky leave, a weird thing happens: Didi claims that he and Gogo had already met the other two, and that he only pretended not to recognise them, as they pretended not to recognise him and Gogo either. This pretending may be done by both in order to avoid boredom. Pozzo's life, after all, seems nearly as frighteningly empty as Didi and Gogo's. Anyways, so the boy allows this to happen, because plot-wise, if he boy decided to tell Didi during Pozzo's stage time, then what's Didi supposed to do? He doesn't have to wait for Godot then. So what is he to do? It really does seem preferable for the boy's delay than not to have anything to do.

This whole not recognising business adds another layer of interest to the boy. Actually, first let me cover the idea of first the kid answering with Yes Sir and then the thing about the kid not knowing if he's unhappy. So the Yes Sir is interesting because the sir is an honorific you might not imagine Didi being addressed with. Didi's pretty much a hobo. You don't get the whole story, but he's pretty down and out. So the sir is a bit...weird. Furthermore! the kid calls him Albert. Maybe that's his last name. And Gogo calls himself, earlier on, Adam. Adam and Albert then are Vladimir and Estragon, two very normal names alternative for two very eccentric names. That's never very cleared up, but the emergence of 'Albert' here along with Sir helps create a d distance between the Didi we see with Gogo and that we see with the boy because the one we see with the boy may be interpreted as an outward shell, whilst the one with Gogo, may be more raw, uncensored and emotionally naked. Furthermore! the using of very short answers matches the rest of the play with the crippled conversations. They don't flow. It's binary and forced. Didi carries most conversations. So the child doesn't suddenly upstage everyone with conversation even though he has so much potential as a game-changer in this stalemate of a play.

Onwards! He's not sure whether he's 'unhappy or not'. It's a double negative. gasp! I think that's notable, that it's not 'happy or not', as would be customary. The play seems to work on the common assumption of unhappiness that you may, strangely enough, veer away from. What's 'bad' here though, according to Did, is not being unhappy or not unhappy, but being unsure of which. The boy's brother's being beaten, and is sick...perhaps...it gets a tiny bit ambiguous whether the boy in the second act is the same boy or he brother or another boy entirely. Well, anyways, in that situation, plus working for Godot, who seems like a bit of a jerk really, you'd be unhappy. It's a normal kind of unhappiness too. Plausible. Not like you can't sit and are somehow leashed to a tyrranical blind man with TB, but a boy with a situation; simply that. Yet it's important that he is still unhappy. Clearly he's not happy. But imagine if he was. That's be awkward, to in a play like this, suddenly have some ironically happy character enter and smile easily, laugh easily. you need unhappiness to enter this cat, and the boy is another example. He's like the 'potential procreator' in Endgame. He's a youth and must reflect the ideals and situation and atmosphere of the main characters to complete the scene rather than make it hypocritical.

Onwards! Finally! Let's be done after this one, shall we? The boy not recognising. It's weird. Didi wonders if he ought to recognise him or not, and this parallels the shortly preceding question of recognising Pozzo and Lucky but pretending not to. 'It wasn't you that came yesterday?' asks Didi to the boy. Given what just preceded, this question creates doubt towards whether this is all an act. Perhaps this is a really twisted and creepy situation we are witnessing, a creepy little cycle that these characters are stuck in by choice, with life abandoned for empty repetition. I mean, maybe each of these characters are playing a part within the reality of the play, pretending they don't know each other day after day to have special meetings and conflicts day after day, fooling themselves for the sake of getting on. The same question can be asked for Endgame. Nothing happens for certain: Nell may have died, Nagg may have died, Hamm may have died, and Clov may be leaving, but nothing certainly changes and it seems possible, given the staged characteristic of many of Hamm's words (Me to play.) that the play is a glimpse into one of many cycles of performing a dramatic parting that never actually can be. Similarly, Didi and Gogo often discuss leaving each other and never manage to do so, and thus seem to speak of it in vain, and yet do. Certainly repetition is key in both plays, butt perhaps this can be pushed to the extent that the entire play is a repetition. The sombre theme of empty lives in all of Beckett's works can be very well fulfilled by this concept. Perhaps then. Perhaps.

Anyways, the boy fits into this theory even better in the Second Act when he denies knowing Didi even though we just saw them meet. Very very strange and even more so that Didi somewhat brushes it aside, but the bother this causes him is displayed at the end when he implores the child to confirm and do so well, that at that very moment, they are looking at each other and seeing each other. It seems Didi wants to exist.

Now, practically nothing can be said definitely about what goes on in this play, which is both magnificent and frustrating, but I do think, personally, that every character in this play is sad. Including the boy. The boy is very important in the logic of the play as the one link between the guys and Godot. He is necessary to the guys to provide them a direction in life - waiting for Godot - and he is a nuisance to them as he is keeping them on Godot's hook, leaving them in a weird state of unreal existence, which he as well seems a part of. When the potential pro-creator comes out in Endgame (as ambiguous it may be that he really exists) I imagine sixty more years of this wasteland of endgame continuing. Maybe the post-apocalyptic greyness only extends to Hamm and Clov's 'house', but still, the play ends with the word 'finished' and seems ready to end at any moment so sixty years of stalling then creates an issue. Now the world in Godot seems far less dead than Endgame. There are sheep, goats, and a tree, for one, and carrots, radishes, chicken and money. But there is a lack of memory. Nobody remembers anything. In Endgame, a lot of what happens is 'Remember when...' and now, Gogo forgets things the second he says them, and people forget faces the second they leave, and they also seem to pretend to forget. Maybe the only way to experience anything new, to progress and thus to exist is by pretending that your twentieth time meeting Pozzo is the first, as Didi seems surprised to see Gogo in the beginning of the play (Together again at last!) even though they seem to have spent a long time together. The two are very stuck, suicidal even but failed suicidees. How does a boy fit into this world, where you are half dead but without the privilege of being buried and wallowing in greyness and universal despair? A boy doesn't fit, because a boy is young and strong, not lost. Boys be ambitious and all...what happened to this one?

He tends to the goats. his brother to the sheep. Is there significance there? There are a couple Bible references in Waiting for Godot, so Beckett good with scriptures, so maybe that is then present here as well, that Satan was born from a goat and that in inverse, sheep are the loyal followers of Christianity, the lambs of God. The boy also, possibly, holds the fondness of Godot, though Godot beats his brother, the shepherd. Do I make the point that Godot has the word God in it? Well, there's a bunch of ways to pronounce this name, it hardly being a name, but God-oh I've heard, so maybe Beckett is using a surprisingly blatant pun here. Is Godot supposed to be God. That's a whole other essay, I think, but in short, maybe - he promises a second revelation of sorts and expects dutiful followers that he keeps standing up, he leaves them to wait in pretty bad condition, especially psychologically, as hough trying them for a final judgement of sorts, he seems to have more power than anyone else in the play and is silently conducting the actions of the other characters though never himself appearing, and most of all, his followers, Didi and Gogo, follow in doubt but seem intent on believing in him, for if Godot doesn't exist...well, then there's nothing left. So Godot is God? Symbolically, obviously, possibly. Then why beat the shepherd and have the goat tender be his prophet? A Job-esque situation for the shepherd possibly, but really, I think this miss in logic is not actually so much an explainable thing to be forced to be logical, but a mistake with a purpose. Maybe Beckett's being all accusatory of God here, of actually being an ironic satanist that wants to just keep torturing you with empty promises brought by a goat. Maybe. In any case, they aren't consciously waiting for him, but for nothing. So that's all the more frightening and depressing.

One thing though. Big flaw in my idea. This play was originally written in French, hence the pun doesn't work, since God in French is dieu and the French pronunciation of Godot is probably more like Gudoh. So don't just assume I'm enough of an arrogant ass to just claim anything certainly. There are flaws. In translation though, Beckett may have found this all very neat and done it intentionally, like so many other examples that I'll refrain from discussing now. We must be getting on.

Honestly, that was just the boy. If i went for Gogo or Didi or anyone else instead, really, I would have been lost. This blog, as you may notice by now, is one of my more cluttered ones. It's tough to write about a play that has no real motion without getting lost though. So I don't regret the cluttered feature, though you may, my invisible reader. On a side note, of all the things I wish to say about this play, notice the stage directions below. They're hilarious. Beckett can really pull off the obvious joke.

Read, folks. Read.

Didi -Nothing to be done.

Didi - Shall I tell it to you?
Gogo - No.
- It'll pass the time. (Pause) Two thieves, crucified a the same time as our Saviour. One -
- Our what?
- Our Saviour. Two thieves. One is spposed to have bee seved and the other (he searched for the contrary of saved)...damned.
- Saved from what?
- Hell.
- I'm going. He does not move.
- And yet...(Pause)...how is it-this is not boring you I hope - hw is it that of the four Evangelists only one speaks of a theif being saved. The four of them were there-or thereabouts- and only one speaks of a heif being saved. (Pause) Come on, Gogo, return the ball can't you, once in a way?
- (With exaggerated enthusiasm). I find this really most extraordinarily interesting.

Pozzo - The tears of the world are a constant quanity. For each one who begins to weep soewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. (He laughs) Let us noth then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappie than its predecessors. (Pause) Let us not speak well of it either. (Pause.) Let us not speak of it at all.

Gogo - Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful.

Lucky - Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the height of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suggests like the divine Miranda

Lucky - I resume the skull fading fading fading and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara

Pozzo - I don't seem to be able...(long hesitation )...to depart.
Gogo - Such is life.

Didi - But you can't go barefoot!
Gogo - Christ did.
- Christ! What has Christ got to do with it? You're no going to compare yourself o Christ!
- All my life I've compared myself to him.

Gogo - We weren't made for the same road.

Didi - I missed you...and a the same time I was happy.. Isn't that a queer thing?
Gogo - (Shocked) Happy?
- Perhaps it's not quite the right word.
- And now?
- Now?...(Joyous.) There you are again... (Indifferent.) There you are again... (Gloomy.) There I am again.
- You see, you feel worse when I'm with you. I feel better alone too.
- (vexed.) Then why do you always come crawling back?
- I don't know.

Didi - (sententious) To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought) And is forgotten.

Pozzo - The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too.

Pozzo - Dumb. He can't even groan.
Didi - Dumb! Since when?
- (Suddenly furious.) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is hat not enough for you? (Calmer.) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

Didi - You're sure you saw me, you won't come and tell me to-morrow that you never saw me!

Didi - Everything's dead but the tree.