Simmilarities and Differences between the Vladimir and Estragon and Pozzo and Lucky Pair

by irinuzzzza (student)

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Popescu

Name: Popescu Irina Adriana

Lect. univ. dr. Ludmila Martanovschi

English - Spanish, 3rd year

English Literature

Simmilarities and Differences between the Vladimir and Estragon and Pozzo and Lucky Pair

Samuel Beckett is an important representative of the theatre of the absurd. One of his most famous plays is “Waiting for Godot”. “In Beckett’s plays people exist in gloomy, empty, alien environments. They are paralysed by their hopelessness and inability to take action. Their alienation is expressed in concise, syncopated language that dose not help them achieve meaningful communication” (Delaney and Ward 162). The characters wait for Godot at the beginning of the play, wait for Godot in the middle of the play, and wait for Godot at the end of the play. Godot never comes. So they continue to revolve–but never evolve. They are caught in the absurdity of continuously moving but never progressing.

“I know no more about this play than anyone who just reads it attentively” (14), Beckett wrote. “I don't know what spirit I wrote it in. I know no more about the characters than what they say, what they do and what happens to them . . . everything I have been able to learn, I have shown. It’s not a great deal. But it’s enough for me, quite enough. I’d go so far as to say that I would have been content with less . . . Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo, Lucky, I have only been able to know them a little, from far off, out of a need to understand them. They owe you some explanations, perhaps. Let them unravel. Without me. Them and Me, we’re quits.” (Beckett 14)

The names of the four main characters indicate their pairing: Pozzo and Lucky contain two syllables and five letters each; Estragon and Vladimir contain three syllables and eight letters each; but they address one another only by nicknames: Gogo and Didi, childish four-letter words composed of repeated monosyllables. Even the fifth character, the nameless boy, has a brother. Beckett was fascinated by mathematics and especially by the paradoxes that can be made by (mis-)using mathematical principles. He knew that in mathematical theory the passage from 0 to 1 marks a major and real change of state, and that the passage from 1 to 2 implies the possibility of infinity, so two acts were enough to suggest that Vladimir and Estragon and Pozzo and Lucky and the boy will go on meeting in increasingly reduced physical and mental circumstances but will never not meet again.” (Bloom 74)

When Beckett started writing he did not have a visual image of Vladimir and Estragon. They are never referred to as tramps in the text. Estragon is given perhaps the most minimal description in the play. He is only described as wearing "rags", walking with a limp and being lighter than Vladimir. Because of his rather gluttonous nature, however, he is often played as being short and slightly fat, in comparison to the often tall and lanky . His clothes are usually a bit dirtier than Vladimir's as well, and seem to be in far worse condition.

On the surface Pozzo ...

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On the surface Pozzo is a pompous, sometimes , aristocrat. Cruelly using and exploiting those around him, specifically his , Lucky and, to a lesser extent, . He claims to live in a manor, own many slaves and a . He wears similar clothes to Vladimir and Estragon, but they are not in the dire condition theirs are. He sometimes wears a heavy "greatcoat" that is usually carried by Lucky. His props include a , a pipe, a breath freshener, and a . His pipe is made by , Dublin's best-known which he refers to as a "briar" but which Estragon calls a "dudeen" emphasising the differences in their social standing. Beckett indicates in the stage directions that he is completely bald, although this direction is rarely taken in most productions of the play.

Vladimir and Estragon are complimentary characters, as are Lucky and Pozzo, with the only difference that Pozzo and Lucky are an extreme form of the relationship between Didi and Gogo, and thus extreme forms of those very characters. In Act I, Didi usually speaks as mind, and Gogo speaks as body. “Gogo eats, sleeps, and faces beating while onstage, whereas Didi ponders spiritual salvation. Didi is the more eloquent of the two, with Gogo sitting, leaning, limping, falling. Gogo relies on pantomime, while Didi leans toward rhetoric. Gogo wants Lucky to dance; Didi wants him to think. Gogo stinks from his feet, Didi from his mouth. By act 2, the distinctions are blurred. Both Gogo and Didi engage in mental and physical exercises to pass interminable time, and Didi seems to be more agile in each domain. At the end of Act I, it is the active Gogo who asks, ‘Well, shall we go?’ and the meditative Didi who assents, ‘Yes, let’s go.’ Act 2 closes with the same lines, but the speakers are reversed” (Cohn 171). The difference between them is that Pozzo starts to assimilate information to extent that he acts and appears to be superior to his partner, while Estragon continually asks for information he is not able to remember.

Lucky taught Pozzo all the higher values of life: beauty, grace, truth. Lucky is mind and spirit. Pozzo is body and material. “Intellect is subordinate to the appetites of the body,” but they are tied together” (Esslin, Search 28). “Since the first appearance of the duo, the true had always been Pozzo.” (Alvarez) He credits Lucky with having given him all the culture, refinement, and ability to reason that he possesses. His has been learned by rote. Pozzo's "party piece" on the sky is a clear example: as his memory crumbles, he finds himself unable to continue under his own steam.

Vladimir and Estragon depend on each other to survive. Although they exchange insults from time to time, it is clear that they value each other's company. “Vladimir is more emotional, more easily hurt, and more dependent on friendship than is Estragon. He is also rather more hopeful, not quite convinced that there is nothing to be done. He is the relatively practical one. Vladimir, too, is the one who has a sense of time. Estragon has very little sense of time and hardly any memory; and when asked about what was said at the beginning of this very evening he can only reply: ‘don’t ask me. .’” (Barnard, 109) On the other hand, one could imagine Pozzo without Lucky – until the second act, when the audience learns he has gone blind. Unable to find his way, Pozzo is totally dependent on Lucky. Lucky, of course, is tied to Pozzo by a rope and by fear of being abandoned. The analogy between the two pairs is also suggested by the part when Vladimir and Estragon try to imitate Pozzo and Lucky. Vladimir immediately assumes Lucky’s role “Curse me! [...]Tell me to think![...]Say, Think, pig!” (Beckett 73), letting Estragon act as Pozzo even though Estragon has no memory of their encounter with the other pair.

Vladimir stands through most of the play whereas Estragon sits down numerous times and even dozes off. "Estragon is inert and Vladimir restless." Vladimir looks at the sky and muses on religious or philosophical matters. Estragon "belongs to the stone" (Cronin 382), preoccupied with mundane things, what he can get to eat and how to ease his physical aches and pains; he is direct, intuitive. He finds it hard to remember but can recall certain things when prompted, e.g. when Vladimir asks: "Do you remember the ?" (Beckett 50) Estragon tells him about the coloured maps of the Holy Land and that he planned to honeymoon by the ; it is his that is poorest and points to the fact that he may, in fact, be suffering from . writes: "But perhaps Estragon's forgetfulness is the cement binding their relationship together. He continually forgets, Vladimir continually reminds him; between them they pass the time." They have been together for fifty years but when asked – by Pozzo – they do not reveal their actual ages.

Pozzo is often compared to Estragon, just as Lucky is to Vladimir, as being the impulsive, right-brained part of his character duo. Pozzo, like Estragon, has an awful memory, and since he cannot rely on Lucky for memory, he is even more in the dark. Vladimir claims that he and Estragon know him, but this is naturally not corroborated by Estragon, and the nature of their former relationship remains unknown. He occasionally comes up with poetic metaphors for the current situation, again, just as Estragon does.

With Waiting for Godot, Beckett expands the concept of the 'pseudocouple', also returning to the problem of the self as a succession of always subverted beings, ever subject to the process of a continually decanting time. The playing at master and servant, the switching of roles, and the manipulation of props in order to achieve mastery do not concern him here as much as the sense of failure and incompleteness that these activities, so feverishly engaged in, seem to evoke.