Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

Waiting for Godot

-        Samuel Beckett

          Beckett was an Irish playwright and novelist. Beckett’s works offers tragicomic outlook of human existence with black comedy. One of his most popular works was “Waiting for Godot”. It was first published in French as “En attendant Godot” in 1948 and then in 1954 it was translated in English.

    

       “Waiting for Godot” is a tragicomedy in two acts. It was majorly seen as an allegory of cold war and French resistance to the Germans. Psychological description presents the conflict of Id, Ego and Super ego as the name of Characters are Gogo – ego and Didi- Id.

    

      This is an absurd play. The term ‘Absurd’ is connected with foolishness, senselessness, opposed to reason and something ridiculous but ultimately it reaches to the question of existence and meaninglessness of life. The play is also connected with ultimate state of ‘waiting’ for something or someone whom we don’t know. Both the characters Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for Godot whom they don’t know. They want to leave the place and state of waiting but they time and again reminds that they are waiting for Godot.

Estragon – Let’s go.

Vladimir – No. We can’t.

Estragon – Why?

Vladimir – We are waiting for Godot.

         There are different meaning of ‘waiting’ in the play, for characters there is a waiting for Godot but we can also connect Godot with different waitings of life like, waiting for death, waiting for direction in life, waiting for change in life and many more. The play contains themes like meaninglessness of life, suffering, nothingness, absurdity, choice and morality and existence. There are different characters who present different hierarchies of society and condition of nations like England, France and Germany.