Waiting for Godot - Meaningless of Life

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Meaninglessness of Life

“Waiting for Godot” is a famous tragic-comedy play written by Samuel Beckett. This book exposes the painfulness of human beings, which is actually the situation of contemporary world after the Second World War. “It is living that produces pain and suffering, not sin, which is the theologians’ invention.” (Hayman 1968: 17) Meaningless and Nothingness, uncertainty, tying of life is suggested to be the main source of painfulness in the play. This play was new in the way that it ends the presentations of heroic stories, instead, there is no action in the play that brings out the message of absurdity of life.

The writer believes the meaninglessness and nothingness of life. In the play, “Nothing to be done” appears several times to show the nothingness of the two actors Vladimir and Estragon. The couple is waiting for Godot, but “the act of waiting itself a contradictory of combination of doing nothing and doing something.” (Hayman 1968: 4) The act of waiting is itself meaningless, the couple does not have anything to do when they are waiting, their waiting seems to be foolish and irrational, they are just keeping a promise to wait, and they do not leave, nor doing anything.

The hope that the couple’s believing is also meaningless, Godot does not come at all, he does not fulfill his commitment. The couple also realizes their meaningless of waiting, but they do nothing to change the situation. They just continue speaking and speaking, but there is no interaction at all because they are just speaking, but not communicating.

Vladimir: It’s pass the time. (Pause) Two thieves, crucified at the same time as our Saviour. One-

Their conversation shows how meaningless their waiting is. They also try to do something, such as hanging:
Vladimir: ……What do we do now?

Estragon: Wait.

Vladimir: Yes, but while waiting.

Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?

…….

They think of hanging themselves, but they also do not hang themselves, they have totally nothing to do when they are waiting. It seems that life is just waiting, while it is meaningless. The enter of Pozzo and Lucky let the couple has something to do, but they are also meaningless, because they just help the couple kills some time, but nothing changes, the couple is still waiting for Godot.

What the couple did in the two days was very similar, the same people, at the same place, doing the same things. They waited for Godot, trying to hang themselves, Pozzo and Lucky passed, and then a boy told them Godot will not come! It is just a repetitive of actions, and so as life. The couple repeated fussing with his boots, repeated taking off and examining his hat, exchanging the hats, Lucky repeated picking up and putting down the luggage, etc. All these actions are routine, meaningless and unconscious. It is suggested that our daily life is just repetitive, every day is the same, they are doing the same things, that is why life is meaningless.

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Vladimir and Estragon are actually trapped and tied, because “there is nothing force them to stay but there’s no incentive to make them go.” They hope that Godot will come next day to save them, but they cannot know whether he will really come or not. (Hayman 1968: 5) Their lives seem to be decided by Godot, and they have lost their will and power to decide not to wait. The exclamation of waiting and meaningless can be expressed from Vladimir’s saying “We are no longer alone, waiting for the night, waiting for Godot, waiting for…. waiting.(p.77) The couple has tried to escape from meaningless of life, so they sing, they keep on talking, they suggest to hang themselves, Gogo want to sleep. However, what they do become futile as Godot did not come, and they have to wait another day. It seems that they can escape from waiting only when Godot comes, if they die, or when the nights come. “So in effect waiting for Godot is waiting for your life to be over, waiting for night to fall, waiting for the play to end.” (Hayman 1968: 5)

The misery of the couple can also be shown by their conversation (P.60):

Vladimir: Say you are, even if it’s not true.

Estragon: What am I say?

Vladimir: Say, I am happy.

Estragon: I am happy.

Vladimir: So am I.

Estragon: So am I.

Vladimir: We are happy.

Estragon: We are happy. (Silence.) What do we do now, now that we are happy?

Vladimir: Wait for Godot…….

Their conversation is just an affirmation of their happiness, but there is no real happiness when they are waiting, they are just cheating and comforting themselves. They said this because they are totally boring and void that they cannot endure any silence. They keep on talking to hide their misery, but still ,“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!” (P.41).

Uncertainty of life itself is another reason why life is meaningless. It seems that in the contemporary world, people are in the situation of uneasiness and indifference. People felt lost when everything is uncertain, they lost their target and purpose of living, and life is only repetition.

In the play, the couple and the passer by are never certain of anything. Forgetfulness makes everything seems to be uncertain, “memory depends on a sense of time. But in an absurd universe, time doesn’t exist: it is only one more human, subjective way of trying to impose meaning on the meaningless.” (Birkett : 1987: 38) Gogo and Didi are waiting for Godot, but they cannot recognize him even if he comes, they are not certain whether Godot will come that night, whether they are waiting in the right time and right place, they can even forget what they did Yesterday. Just as Estragon said “That’s the way I am. Either I forget immediately or I never forget.” (P.60) When everything is uncertain, life becomes meaningless, and the waiting of the couple in the play is also meaningless.

Godot itself is also full of uncertainty, it is still controversial about who is Godot. Godot can be a symbol representing anything that people are waiting for in their life, which is uncertain and unknown. It seems to be the hope of the couple, because they can be saved only when Godot comes. Godot can the meaning of life, then it is meaningless itself.

Many critics would say that Godot represents God, because he has an image of authority which gives hopes and salvation to human beings. He is also the only thing that worth human to wait in their whole life. If Godot is God, then it seems that it is a meaningless God, because “Justice and love don’t seem to come into Godot’s arbitrary beatings……” (Birkett 1987: 51) This God also did not fulfill his promise to come. Waiting for the God is the only meaning of the lives of the couples, and is also the only thing that they can do, however, this God is itself meaningless. It is the misery of human being.

Estragon: I can’t go on like this.

……

Vladimir: We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause) Unless Godot comes.

Estragon: And if he comes?

Vladimir: We’ll be saved.

Regarding the meaninglessness of life, Samuel Beckett seems to share similar ideas with Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre that “An absurd world is a frightening one. It has itself no norms, no absolutes, no consoling certainties, no direction. It simply exists. Nothing or nobody living in it has any pre-ordained sense or purpose.” (Birkett 1987:36)

In Camus’s famous work “The myth of Sisyphus”, “The God had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight.” (Camus 1965: 510) From this story, Camus suggests that “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisphus happy.” (Camus 1965: 512) Life is itself meaningless, human cannot reach the ultimate meaning of life, but it is already the meaning of life itself in the process of searching for meaning. In Waiting For Godot, Vladimir and Estragon have nothing to do but waiting, they are waiting for Godot (meaning), and waiting makes their lives meaningful, because they can do nothing !

Sartre suggests in his “Existentialism is a Humanism” that although life itself is meaningless, but we can create our meanings to make our lives meaningful. “Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.” (Sartre 1947: 525) In Waiting For Godot, the couple tries to do something to kill the time, for instance, they keep on talking and they suggest to hang. As their waiting is regarded as meaningless, then what they do to pass the time is already their meaning of life.

The idea of existence in Waiting For Godot suggests that the existence of anything depends on other’s believing. For example, when Gogo and Didi forgot the events in Yesterday, then all these events seem to be not existed. “To be sure of the reality of your own existence, you need to be sure of what’s happened to you. Which is impossible without an independent witness. This is why Vladimir and Estragon spend so much time arguing about what happened yesterday; And if you can’t be certain about yesterday’s events, how can you be certain of today’s? Are they really happening or is it all in the mind?”( Hayman 1968: 17) When everything is forgotten, everything becomes uncertain, then everything is again meaningless! It also shares some similar ideas with George Orwell in his book “Ninety eighty-four," which suggests that history is memory. When people do not remember the past events, then the events have not happened at all!

The writer suggests that as everything is uncertain, life is meaningless. I believe that the world if full of uncertainty, but uncertainty itself is not sufficient to make life meaningless, because uncertainty and certainty is only a matter of relativity, when everything is certain, life would be even more meaningless. Because when you are certain of everything you have no need to put any efforts, you would not have any hope, your life would become dull. I always remember the famous saying of Descartes “I think, therefore I am," that is already my meaning of life, and that is why I know I am living. Thinking itself is not meaningless despite there is no action involved, because through thinking, you can realize your meaning of life. Nowadays, people do not think anymore, they just blindly chasing fortune and fame from womb to tomb, and at the end, they would find their lives meaningless.

In conclusions, this book( play) tell us about the emptiness of lives, “Waiting for Godot is dramatic re-enactment of the unrecognized absurdity of the world that is lived and perceived by Beckett’s contemporaries.” (Birkett 1987: 36) I f we are all blind to the absurdity of the world, then life is not only meaningless, but also a nightmare. People try to escape from meaninglessness, therefore they find all kinds of excitements to make their bright and colourful. People find something to make themselves busy, so that they can forget their sorrows. However, all these are illusions only, these excitements are also meaningless because all people will die anyway.

Great books should always raise questions to people, and lead people to think by themselves. Just like this “Waiting For Godot” as a great book, it has no definite ideas, nor any definite interpretations, the writer does not give answer to the questions and doubts. People cannot get any answers from the books, but instead, they would even have more questions to think.

Bibliography:

Beckett, Samuel (1956). Waiting For Godot. London : Faber.

Hayman, Ronald (1968). Samuel Beckett . London : Heinemann.

Birkett, Jennifer (1987) . Waiting For Godot. London: Macmillan.