Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot was one of the very best plays of the decade (1950-60). It's two tramps, with their boredom, their fear of pain, their shreds of love and hate, are surprisingly effective version of the whole human condition -a condition for which action is no answer, chiefly because their is no obvious action to be taken, nothing to be done. In this play, Godot's very absence demonstrates his presence, and he dominates the play in which he fails to appear.
The Mysterious Godot:
What baffles us most in reading this play is the identity of Godot. Godot is a mysterious personality. The two tramps wait for him in a state of twilight, occasionally lit up by a fleeting vision rescuer. The have vague notions that they will be taken to his farm where they will be able to "sleep, warm and dry, with a full stomach, on straw." But Godot seems to be a distant mirage. At the end of each day a messenger-boy arrives in his stead with the promise that Godot will come tomorrow. In act-1, we hear that he beats his brother, who is shepherd. The two tramps feels uneasy about Godot. When the time comes to meet him, they will have to approach him "on their hands and knees , and if they stopped waiting for him he would punish them. At the end of Act-II, we learn that Godot does nothing and that his beard is probably white.
Godot, an Empty Promise:
We hear that, once Vladimir and Estragon had seen Godot. But they do not remember him quite clearly, and the vague promises he seems to have given them are treated with a light heartedness born of doubt. I fact, it seems to them as if God, Godot, and Pozzo were sometimes merging into one blurred picture. When, in Act-II, they talk of God, Pozzo appears and is mistaken by Estragon for for Godot. Here the implication perhaps is that religion altogether is based on indistinct desires in which spiritual and material needs remain mixed Godot is explicitly vague, merely on empty promise, corresponding to lukewarm piety and absence of suffering in the tramps. Waiting for Godot has become a habit with them, a habit which is a "guarantee of dull inviolability ", and an adaption to meaninglessness of life.
Godot's ambiguity:
Godot is merely ambiguous. As a farmer who promises food and shelter, he is obviously of the earth. As one who reminds us of the God of the old and the new testaments, he seems to be inclined to rule from above. Furthermore, he beats the guardian of the sheep, that is of the submissive, gentle creatures, and prefers the guardian of the goats, of the wayward, self-willed animals; and he obviously expects unconditional patience and obedience from those who depends upon him and prevents their waking up to an awareness of their own center. In this duplicity of his nature, Godot is the counterpart of her own envelops the world of living beings as womb and tomb.
Godot as seen by the Tramps:
Although Godot fails to appear in the play, he is as real a character as any of those whom we actually see. Godot very much exists for the tramps, and he directs the course of the evening for them. The tramps need Godot to give a meaning to their universe: they depend on his arrival; and so long as Godot does not come to resolve their waiting (and he does not come at all), everything that happens in only provisional.
The Mysterious Godot:
What baffles us most in reading this play is the identity of Godot. Godot is a mysterious personality. The two tramps wait for him in a state of twilight, occasionally lit up by a fleeting vision rescuer. The have vague notions that they will be taken to his farm where they will be able to "sleep, warm and dry, with a full stomach, on straw." But Godot seems to be a distant mirage. At the end of each day a messenger-boy arrives in his stead with the promise that Godot will come tomorrow. In act-1, we hear that he beats his brother, who is shepherd. The two tramps feels uneasy about Godot. When the time comes to meet him, they will have to approach him "on their hands and knees , and if they stopped waiting for him he would punish them. At the end of Act-II, we learn that Godot does nothing and that his beard is probably white.
Godot, an Empty Promise:
We hear that, once Vladimir and Estragon had seen Godot. But they do not remember him quite clearly, and the vague promises he seems to have given them are treated with a light heartedness born of doubt. I fact, it seems to them as if God, Godot, and Pozzo were sometimes merging into one blurred picture. When, in Act-II, they talk of God, Pozzo appears and is mistaken by Estragon for for Godot. Here the implication perhaps is that religion altogether is based on indistinct desires in which spiritual and material needs remain mixed Godot is explicitly vague, merely on empty promise, corresponding to lukewarm piety and absence of suffering in the tramps. Waiting for Godot has become a habit with them, a habit which is a "guarantee of dull inviolability ", and an adaption to meaninglessness of life.
Godot's ambiguity:
Godot is merely ambiguous. As a farmer who promises food and shelter, he is obviously of the earth. As one who reminds us of the God of the old and the new testaments, he seems to be inclined to rule from above. Furthermore, he beats the guardian of the sheep, that is of the submissive, gentle creatures, and prefers the guardian of the goats, of the wayward, self-willed animals; and he obviously expects unconditional patience and obedience from those who depends upon him and prevents their waking up to an awareness of their own center. In this duplicity of his nature, Godot is the counterpart of her own envelops the world of living beings as womb and tomb.
Godot as seen by the Tramps:
Although Godot fails to appear in the play, he is as real a character as any of those whom we actually see. Godot very much exists for the tramps, and he directs the course of the evening for them. The tramps need Godot to give a meaning to their universe: they depend on his arrival; and so long as Godot does not come to resolve their waiting (and he does not come at all), everything that happens in only provisional.