What is the Theatre of the Absurd, with reference to "Waiting For Godot"?

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Q 9) WAITING FOR GODO

What is the Theatre of the Absurd, with reference to “Waiting For Godot”?

“Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose .. Cut off from his religious metaphysical and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.”

- (From: Ionesco’s – essay on Kafka)

Absurdism is an exciting and creative movement in modern drama. The word “Absurd” meant “out of harmony”, i.e. something incongruous. Moreover, “Theatre of the Absurd”, as aptly labeled by Martin Esslin, makes the audience consider the meaning of their existence, in a world which itself is meaningless or orderless. Such absurdity of the human condition is what the existentialist writers, like Jean Sartre, Albert Camus, followed by Samuel Beckett and others, deal within in their plays.

We could consider the “Theatre of the Absurd” to be based on three rules : firstly, the play is not based on any real story line but is merely a river of freely floating images’, influencing the spectator’s interpretation; secondly, it focuses on rationalizing a disorderly world; and finally, incommunicability which in turn isolates the individual (as we see in Lucky’s speech – Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot”).

Thus in the drama of the absurd we see clown-like isolated characters, who are “blundering their way through life” (a critic).

The aim of such absurdist drama is to bring the audience closer to reality and understand their own “meaning” in life. The central idea of the “Theatre of the Absurd” is that life has lost all its meaning. Therefore, a kind of senselessness is felt in life. Expression of such absurdity of the human condition makes it way through Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot”.

The suffocating reality of “Waiting For Godot” is comic but when it is connected to the life of modern man, we see the tragedy of it all. So the play is a ‘Tragi-comedy’.

This two-act play, violates all norms of theme and plot. In fact, one may question the leitmotif of the play. One may ask – is ‘Waiting’ the theme or ‘Godot’? Nonetheless, its strange and new conventions had an enormous impact on the spectators. Throughout the play nothing happens as we see that the situation in the beginning still remains at the end as well. That is, the play begins with two tramps on a lonely, country-road, waiting for the figure that never comes i.e. Godot and even ends on the same premise. In this sense, the second act is a mere recapitulation of the first one. So Beckett gives a meandering, coiling effect to the play.

The structure of the play is more important than the ‘message’, for the communicative functioning of a play. Such an arrangement, involves an adequate description of the setting, language, characters and also the style of the play.

The stage merely depicts a bare road, which suggests movement, but actually remains motionless. The only permanent scenic prop is a barren tree. We also see a moon, but this appears only in act two. Such an empty, arid yet dream-like scene :

“A country road. A tree Evening.”

focuses on the innerness of the landscape.

This is a preview of the whole essay

“A country road. A tree Evening.”

focuses on the innerness of the landscape.

The ‘tree’ is a very symbolic prop of this play. In act one, it is a barren leafless tree. But in act two, the four – five leaves grown on the tree indicate passage of time and also symbolize life and hope. Here we have a more promising condition than in act one. Nonetheless, this is questionable, because the play repeatedly denies any hopeful movement in time. However, there are umpteen references to the tree. It may be that which is supposed to provide shade, but does not, it is also a paradoxical symbol of changes and stability and many more. As a result of so many connotations of the ‘tree’, it finally is left with no single meaning. It is neither an arbitrary figure, nor a symbol of hope. In fact, it does suggest a kind of lifelessness and meaninglessness this is characteristic of the Theatre of the Absurd. In fact, in the philosophical sense, “Absurdity” implies confusion, irritation and absence of meaning and purpose.

“Waiting For Godot” is modeled on the antics of the circus, where the characters Vladimir and Estragon are clowns. It is amusing to see Beckett make his characters comment on the meaninglessness and tedium of his play.

The characters in this setting, lack their own individual identity and so they always appear in pairs: Vladimir and Estragon; Pozzo and Lucky. Each one in these pairs depends on the other. Their expectation from life is minimal and hence they have no illusions. The single character in the play is the ‘boy’, who plays Godot’s messenger. Through his character, Beckett makes a reference to the legendry ‘Cain and Abel’ representing God as the unkind ‘someone’ – originally as well as today. The other character is ‘Godot’, the figure that never arrives and is thus assumed to be God.

The relationships are all bound in friendship. Each character needs the other to be present as proof of existence. Some critics suggest that Vladimir and Estragon have complementary personalities and so each fulfils the quality that the other lacks. The sad comment made through these relations is that grief unites people.

e.g. Vladimir and Estragon compliment each other only when in distress.

All these four characters though individual are yet representatives of the universe. In fact, Vladimir and Estragon could be said to represent all humanity. Besides, Estragon is compared to ‘Adam’, the first man, and this further stresses that he represents all mankind.

The monotonous, dull lives of the characters of the play, serve as metaphors for a world we live in. We too, like Vladimir and Estragon, seek to understand and know what is the purpose of our existence? But this question remains unanswered. Furthermore, the play states that life is about waiting. But for whom ? In fact, the play itself is about waiting and nothing virtually happens but yet the audience is cajoled into the act of waiting to see the bitter – sweet end. The characters in this play especially Estragon and Vladimir are not engaged in anything but the mere act of ‘waiting’ for Godot, with the hope that some time he might arrive and they will be “saved”.

‘Godot’ is a character who is an absence. According to some critics, ‘Godot’ is ‘God’ while some others assume ‘Godot’ to be society. In such a situation, our life is a waiting for this society or God, who would judge us by our patience. Nonetheless, ‘Godot’ has no meaning but he functions like a chain, which binds the characters to existence. He represents hope in a world sans hope. Hence, we too must learn to accept uncertainties of life. ‘Godot’ is a justification for life as a waiting and in this sense all existence is a waiting.

Beckett shows us that time does not pass in this world and so like Vladimir and Estragon, we too need to find ways to pass the time. These characters engage in mindless repetitions, re-enactments and other games but these games are not played for fun but as a defence against time, which seems stagnant.

The repetitive text of the paly indicates the repetitiveness in the lives of Vladimir and Estragon and in a way even our lives. Such repetition is best illustrated by Estragon’s repeated requests to leave, each time followed by Vladimir telling him that they have to wait for Godot. Reiteration of these lines reinforces the idea that the same actions occur again and again, making it all dull with repetition.

Moreover, the play’s conclusion is an echo of the end of act one and even stage directions reflect this recurrence of action, seen in the repetition of the final two lines:

Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?

Estragon: Yes, let’s go.

They do not move.

Thus in “Waiting For Godot”, we see continued repetition and parallelism. The continuous reference to leave but ultimately remain where they are, is another leitmotif of the Theatre of the Absurd, wherein you say something and do another.

The hat-switching incident is another example of endless, meaningless repetition, which characterizes the play.

The speeches made by these characters throw light on human life. In fact, speech is the highest form of mechanical degradation of humanity. For instance, Lucky’s speech, works on three themes, i.e. the absence of God leads to man shrinking and thus the world is at chaos. Lucky is a senile professor speaking in fragments about a degraded man in a degraded world. His speech ahs no punctuations further making it grotesque, spasmodic, incoherent, inconclusive and this is the condition in the Theatre of the Absurd.

The use of Protasis is seen in Lucky’s half answers to half questions. Martin Esslin calls this speech a “Word Salad” which is a dressing but is not blended. Such incommunicability is a strong aspect of the Theatre of the Absurd. Moreover, through this very powerful speech we realize how man seeks God who is unsympathetic and incommunicable. He is mute yet He loves man though sometimes He may not. This is a paradox. There is no hope for humanity.

Further, Lucky’s fragmented speech is indicative of man’s constant hope for coherence in life but man is lost in this very search. Lucky’s speech is, therefore, the crux of the play.

It is a comment on the Theatre of the Absurd. Though the rest of the speech is gibberish, it does have shades of theological and philosophical thoughts. Hence this is a vision of the future, from a decayed scholar Lucky, talking of God who ‘somewhat’ loves humanity.

This play has a tone of poetry and legality and the various references to Shakespeare, legal language, biblical references, etc. are jumbled advancement of language. Such incoherence is the greatest parody on learning because Beckett reduces style and language to absurdity in Lucky’s speech. In fact such incoherence is also seen in Vladimir’s speech right at the commencement of the play, when he says:

“Hope deferred maketh the something sick”

Here Vladimir forgets the most crucial ‘heart’ replacing it with ‘something’.

Now, the language of the play is elaborative. The tone, repetition and rhythm in the play, further enable the words to gather force. Words as simple as ‘help’, used throughout the play, need to be looked into for implicit significance. For instance, Estragon asks for help with his boots, Pozzo asks for help when he wants to get up. Now the repetition of ‘help’ stimulates the human inclination to minimize the pain of others. Pozzo’s melodrama and literary mannerism separates him from the other pair, whose colloquial speech appears so natural. Nonetheless, the repertoire between Vladimir and Estragon ranges from colloquialisms to slang to biblical allusions to rhetoric to soliloquy and so on. The dialogue between this pair of characters shows their bilingual knowledge as they move from the French – “Que voulez-vous?” to the use of Irish idiom. Moreover, their speech is full of literary echoes and unfinished quotes. Throughout the play the dialogue maintains an adequate balance between humour and deep feeling as also stated by Katherine Worth (1990).

Rhythm being an extraordinary aspect of the play brings about a difference in the respective second act. The first act marks a slow rhythm, which attains rapidly in the second one. Everything in the second act moves at a faster pace and the rhythm becomes dynamic. Frantic activity takes course in the second act of the play. Here the frustration of ‘waiting’ mounts and the characters’ panic rises. Thus we see a great deal of dramatic tension on the stage, in act two. The rhythm in the second act is a repetition with a higher pitch. It is an asymmetrical, high-pressure repetition in act two. Here we could talk of Vladimir’s song about the dog, who stole the crust of bread. This song has a repetitive, nursery rhyme, rhythm marked by a tone of light, delicate lyricism.

Thus we could say that the second act is a reverberation of the first.

Beckett says and conveys a lot through silences and pauses, which form the most crucial elements of his play. In fact, the Theatre of the Absurd is the Theatre of Pauses. Absence of rhythm in language is compensated by the rhythm in silence. The silences in the play are of inadequacy, which occurs when the characters lack adequate vocabulary; silences of anticipation i.e. when one character awaits the other’s reply; or silences due to repression. These pauses in fact enable the individual reader to make creative meaning of the silences. They leave the reader – spectator space and time so that the audience can explore and intervene clearly and creatively into the blank spaces. Moreover, these gaps give time to the spectator to understand the spoken dialogues and establish a meaning in the play. The gaps in dialogue may also indicate gaps in existence. By writing in this manner, Beckett does not merely impose his own views, but demands that the receivers perceive the dominant idea.

Samuel Beckett thus gives us a comic and highly powerful piece of theatre. The entire concept of Godot is a game that these characters play to pass the time. We live in a world of chaos and so we must wait for that which might never come. Thus “Waiting For Godot” and this waiting is what one must endure.

“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!”