Waiting for

Godot
Grace
Mavis
Carol
Yvonne

Image source:http://www.timil.com/tft2/godot/Godot.jpg

Samuel Beckett
1906-1989

An Irish playwright
A novelist
A poet

Image source: http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/lettres/projekte/galerie/10.htm

Becketts background
1906~Samuel Barclay Beckett
Born in Dublin, on April 13, 1906.
Solitude and loneliness.
1923-1927
French, Italian and English at
Trinity College.
1928-1936
In Paris, Beckett was introduced
to James Joyce.
Ireland, France, England and Germany.

Image source: http://www.susa-literatura.com/emailuak/beckett/godo03.htm

Becketts background

1937
settled down in Paris.
1947~
Beckett began to write in French.
1961
married Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil.
1969
Nobel Prize for literature.
1989
Becket died in Paris on December 22.
Image source:http://www.kennysirishbookshop.ie/categories/nobelprize/

Becketts dramatic works

Becketts

dramatic works dont

reply to the traditional elements of
drama. For Beckett, language is
useless; he creates a mythical
universe peopled by lonely
creatures who struggle vainly to
express the inexpressible.
human nature and human condition.

Samuel Becketts grave

, Montparnasse Cemetery

James Joyce

Waiting for Godot

1952
written in French, and
published.
1953
premiered at the Babylone
theater in Paris.
1954
the English translation
appeared.

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Characters
Vladimir
-Estragon calls him Didi,
-the boy calls him Mr.
Albert
-responsible and mature
Estragon
-Vladimir calls him Gogo
-weak and helpless
-has a poor memory

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 Pozzo

- passes by the spot where Vladimir

and Estragon are waiting and then
provides a diversion.
-blind, and forgets meeting Vladimir
and Estragon before (Act ii).
Lucky
-Pozzos slave
-Carries Pozzos bags and stool

 Boy

-Appears at the end to tell Vladimir

that Godot wont be coming that
night.
Godot
-The man that Vladimir and Estragon
wait perpetually.
-Never appears in the end of the play.

Plot
Act One
Vladimir and Estragon are near a tree to
wait for Godot. Pozzo and Lucky enter.
Pozzo talks with Vladimir and Estragon,
Lucky, dancing and thinking, makes them
happy. After Pozzo and Lucky leave, a
boy tells Vladimir that Godot will not
come that evening. Vladimir and
Estragon decide to leave, but they do
not move as the curtain falls.

Act Two
The next day, Vladimir and Estragon again
near the tree to wait for Godot. Pozzo
and Lucky enter again, but Pozzo is blind
and Lucky is dumb. Pozzo does not
remember meeting the two men before.
After they leave, Vladimir and Estragon
continue to wait. And then the boy
enters, he tells Vladimir that Godot will
not come. He insists that he did not
speak to Vladimir yesterday. After he
leaves, Vladimir and Estragon decide to
leave, but they do not move again,
ending the play.

Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy (or dark comedy or black
comedy) refers to fictional works that
blend aspects of the genres of tragedy
and comedy. In English literature from
Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth
century, tragicomedy refers to a
serious play with a happy ending.

Tragedy

A tragedy is a drama, movie or sometimes

a real world event with a sad outcome.
Based upon Greek tragedies, it is a form
of drama characterized by seriousness
and dignity, usually involving a conflict
between a character and some higher
power, such as the law, the gods, fate, or
society.

Comedy

Comedy is the use of humor in the

form of theater, where it simply
referred to a play with a happy
ending, in contrast to a tragedy. A
recognized characteristic of comedy
is that it is an intensely personal
enjoyment.

Symbol
hat: reason? intellect?
boot: body?

It may suggest that humans try to earn a

living and struggle for their life.

tree
nature? hope for their future?

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Theme

Waiting for something?

Two tramps are waiting for Godot.

For

example, we're waiting for nicer

weather, the end of exams, etc.

Were waiting all the time.

We should create the goal and

the value of existence.

Theater of the absurd

The Theatre of the Absurd

The term theater of the absurd derives from the

philosophical use of the word absurd by such
existentialist thinkers as Albert CAMUS and
Jean Paul SARTRE. Camus, particularly,
argued that humanity had to resign itself to
recognizing that a fully satisfying rational
explanation of the universe was beyond its
reach; in that sense, the world must ultimately
be seen as absurd.

The Theatre of the Absurd

The playwrights loosely grouped under the label

of the absurd endeavor to convey their sense of
bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face
of an inexplicable universe. They rely heavily on
poetic metaphor as a means of projecting
outward their innermost states of mind. Hence,
the images of the theater of the absurd tend to
assume the quality of fantasy, dream, and
nightmare; they do not so much portray the
outward appearance of reality as the
playwright's emotional perception of an inner
reality.

The Theatre of the Absurd

Thus Beckett's Happy Days (1961) expresses a

generalized human anxiety about the approach
of death through the concrete image of a
woman sunk waist-deep in the ground in the
first act and neck-deep in the second; and
Ionesco's Rhinoceros (1960; Eng. trans., 1960)
demonstrates the playwright's anxiety about the
spread of inhuman totalitarian tendencies in
society by showing the population of a city
turning into savage pachyderms. (source)

The Theatre of the Absurd

One of the most important aspects of absurd

drama was its distrust of language as a means
of communication. Language had become a
vehicle of conventionalised, stereotyped,
meaningless exchanges. Words failed to
express the essence of human experience, not
being able to penetrate beyond its surface. The
Theatre of the Absurd constituted first and
foremost an onslaught on language, showing it
as a very unreliable and insufficient tool of
communication.

The Theatre of the Absurd

Absurd drama uses conventionalised speech, clichs,

slogans and technical jargon, which is distorts, parodies
and breaks down. By ridiculing conventionalised and
stereotyped speech patterns, the Theatre of the Absurd
tries to make people aware of the possibility of going
beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating
more authentically. Conventionalised speech acts as a
barrier between ourselves and what the world is really
about: in order to come into direct contact with natural
reality, it is necessary to discredit and discard the false
crutches of conventionalised language.

The Theatre of the Absurd

Objects are much more important than language

in absurd theatre: what happens transcends what
is being said about it. It is the hidden, implied
meaning of words that assume primary
importance in absurd theatre, over an above what
is being actually said. The Theatre of the Absurd
strove to communicate an undissolved totality of
perception - hence it had to go beyond language.

The Theatre of the Absurd

Absurd drama subverts logic. It relishes the unexpected and the

logically impossible. In trying to burst the bounds of logic and
language the absurd theatre is trying to shatter the enclosing
walls of the human condition itself. Our individual identity is
defined by language, having a name is the source of our
separateness - the loss of logical language brings us towards a
unity with living things. In being illogical, the absurd theatre is
anti-rationalist: it negates rationalism because it feels that
rationalist thought, like language, only deals with the superficial
aspects of things. Nonsense, on the other hand, opens up a
glimpse of the infinite. It offers intoxicating freedom, brings one
into contact with the essence of life and is a source of
marvellous comedy.

The Theatre of the Absurd

No dramatic conflict in the absurd plays!

Dramatic conflicts, clashes of personalities
and powers belong to a world where a rigid,
accepted hierarchy of values forms a
permanent establishment. Such conflicts,
however, lose their meaning in a situation
where the establishment and outward reality
have become meaningless.

The Theatre of the Absurd

However frantically characters perform, this only

underlines the fact that nothing happens to
change their existence. Absurd dramas are lyrical
statements, very much like music: they
communicate an atmosphere, an experience of
archetypal human situations. The Absurd Theatre
is a theatre of situation, as against the more
conventional theatre of sequential events. It
presents a pattern of poetic images. In doing this,
it uses visual elements, movement, light. (source)

Discussion Questions

Discuss the relationship between Gogo &

Didi and Pozzo & Lucky.
How is the play's title "Waiting for Godot"
related to its theme?
Point out religious allusions and linguistic
references in the play.
How is Waiting for Godot an absurdist
play?

Works Cited

Samuel Beckett. 3 Mar. 2006

<http://brainstorm-services.com/weu2005/godot-note-05.html>.
Samuel Beckett. 3 Mar. 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett>.
Samuel Beckett. 3 Mar. 2006
<http:www.sparknotes.com/lit/godot/index.html>.
Samuel Beckett. 6 Mar. 2006
<http://www.fli.com.cn/Article_Show.asp?ArticleI
D=433>.

Works Cited

Samuel Beckett Resources and Links. 2

Mar. 2006 <http://samuel-beckett.net/>.

The

Theatre of the Absurd. 2 Mar. 2006

<http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/Absurd.htm>.

Waiting

for Godot. E-text. Act 1

<http://samuel-beckett.net/Waiting_for_Godot_Part1.html>.

Act 2 <http://samuel-beckett.net/Waiting_for_Godot_Part2.html>.