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.