Waiting for Godot

books:

	• Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts Samuel Beckett Grove Press, 1994 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 163 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Hidden Meaning

Samuel Beckett wrote a tragicomedy in two acts called "Waiting for Godot". The play was published in 1953. The play is about two life long friends, Estragon and Vladimir, that spend their days waiting for Godot on a barren country road near a tree with no leaves. Although, in the second act the tree suddenly has four to five leaves. A small boy comes every day to tell Estragon and Vladimir that Godot will come tomorrow but he never does. The two men meet Lucky and Pozzo and they talk about their sad and meaningless lives.
In "Waiting for Godot," Samuel Beckett is trying to get a meaning across to the readers. The play is really about the existence of God and our understanding of Him. Beckett is not questioning the existence of God, but he questions our incomprehensibility to even begin to understand Him. Our understanding is limited and God is outside time and space.
The reason that Estragon and Vladimir wait for Godot is because they think that he might offer some meaning to their lives. Some glimmer of hope as to why they were put on Earth. In a sense, the two men represent all human beings. In the play, the two men talk about hanging themselves from the tree. Then they realize that Godot would punish them if they did. If humans turn away from God then He will punish whoever does. The reason that the tree suddenly has leaves is to show that seasons have gone by, even though no time actually has gone by in the play. In a way, the tree is supposed to represent the tree of life. This play shows the human condition and our incapability to understand God.

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Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett?s play, Waiting for Godot, is ?a play in which nothing happens twice,? as a critic once wrote. This tragicomedy is about two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who are waiting for Godot to come and give their lives direction. During their wait, they are visited only by three other characters. First, they meet Pozzo and Lucky. Pozzo is on his way to the fair to sell Lucky, his slave. The third character the men meet is Godot?s messenger boy. The boy appears in both acts, as do Pozzo and Lucky. In each act, the boy brings the same news, that Godot will come tomorrow. By the end of the play, Godot never comes and Vladimir and Estragon are left waiting.
The two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, are round characters, meaning that they are well developed, plausible, and realistic. Through these characters, Beckett is describing our lives as being silly and pathetic. He is telling his reader that life is neither noble nor grand and that no one, except us, can give life purpose, meaning, or direction. Through these two characters, Beckett undercuts the human arguments of the existence of God. He never discredits God, but he does discredit our rational machinery of explaining God. Beckett is telling his reader that humans cannot come to a final conclusion about God, because He is incomprehensible and cannot be described in language. Other points Beckett brings across through his characters are that we have no control over our lives and we do not have the power to give our lives meaning. Beckett is telling us, as Estragon says in the play, that there is ?nothing to be done.?
The setting of the play is very plain. There is one tree and one road that disappears into the distance. The tree symbolizes time. In the first act, the tree is bare, as compared to the second act when the tree has sparse leaves. The road represents direction and neither Vladimir or Estragon chooses to follow the road.
Beckett does a wonderful job of developing his characters and making them realistic to his reader. However, a weakness of this play is that it was not entertaining, because nothing really happens. But, through this, Beckett makes a powerful statement about life in general, that it has no purpose, meaning, or direction.

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Waiting for Godot

The novel, Waiting for Godot, is about two men named Vladimir and Estragon. They wait near a tree for Godot and communicate on various topics. Soon into the story, a man named Pozzo enters with his slave named Lucky, who he calls Pig. Upon finding out that he was not Godot, Vladimir and Estragon stop Pozzo and talk a while with him. Lucky is ordered to entertain by dancing and thinking. After Pozzo and Lucky leave a boy enters and says he is a messenger for Godot. He tells them that Godot will not be there today; however, he would be there tomorrow.

The next day they met at the tree again, but things were different. Pozzo and Lucky soon enter again as they did the day before. This time, however, Pozzo is blind, Lucky is mute, and they do not remember ever meeting Vladimir and Estragon. When Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and claims he has never seen them before and that Godot can't be there today, but will be there tomorrow. The boy leaves and Vladimir and Estragon continue to wait.

The two characters, Vladimir and Estragon are very round characters meaning well developed and unique. They are also very realistic characters. Though this novel seems as though it is simple to understand, it actually is a very interpretive and original novel. The theme of this novel has to do with how human logic cannot explain God because he is infinite and humans are finite. It also has to do with God creating the world and leaving it alone. For example in the story Didi and Gogo are waiting for Godot to come and tell them there purpose in life.

This novel is a classic and should be read by though who enjoy
interpretive and original works.

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Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is an interpretive and original tragicomedy written by Samuel Beckett. The play has many underlying meanings and can be interpreted in many different ways. The two main characters, Estragon and Vladimir, are waiting for a man named Godot. It is assumed that Gogo and Didi have been coming back to their same spot day after day to wait for Godot. Every day Godot sends a messenger boy to tell the men that He will not see them today but He will surely see them tomorrow.
The theme of this play, along with many of Beckett's other works, present a comically pessimistic allegory of mans condition. Didi and Gogo have the stature of realistic and plausible characters. Their stories and actions can be related to the hardships and temptations faced in the twenty-first century.
Beckett's strengths in writing Waiting for Godot include making the problems of life into something people can laugh about. Beckett does an excellent job of portraying the human condition and vividly describing the bleakness of life. The downside for Beckett's play is its complicatedness and the depth that the reader must go to in order to find the real meaning of the story. Its repetitiveness is crucial for the hidden meanings but tiresome to read.
Waiting for Godot is a book for someone looking to distinguish certain aspects of religion and the choices people face. Godot also discredits the arguments for the existence of God through human reason and logic. However, the humor present in this play makes reading Waiting for Godot an interesting and very unique experience.

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Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot, was surprising entertaining,
though nothing happened throughout the two acts. The two protagonists of the play,
Estragon and Vladimir, two hobo looking men, are waiting on a country road by a tree.
The setting is bare and dark. The two men discuss matters of life and religion while
waiting for a man named Godot who was to meet them there. During the play, they are
visited only by three others, a messenger boy who works for Godot, and Pozzo who has a
servant named Lucky. While Estragon insists numerous times that they leave the place,
Vladimir reminds him they are waiting for Godot. The men remain there for what appears
to be the changing of a season because leaves have grown on the once barren tree;
however, Godot never comes.
While the two men represent all mankind, Vladimir is the more philosophical of the
two. He understands the constant struggle of man to give his life meaning and he knows
that we do not have that power; he knows that they must wait for Godot to tell them what
to do. He grasps the idea that men never accept their own faults and often blame their
society. On the other hand, Estragon, or Go-Go as his friend calls him, is the more
materialistic of the men. When asked if he remembered reading the Bible, he replied that he
remembered the pictures. Both are well-developed, complex, and plausible characters.
Religious themes are often brought into Waiting for Godot. The tree which they

wait beside is a reminder of the two trees in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The road on which they stand symbolizes a
purpose or direction in life, somewhere to go. The general tone of the play is one of
isolation, despair, and loneliness. One of the first conversations between our protagonists
is about Estragon being beaten at night. He says no one was there to help him. There was
no good Samaritan; we do not get much help from our fellow man. Man's inhumanity to
man is constant. Vladimir ignites a conversation about four Evangelists in the Bible of
whom only one spoke of one of two thieves being saved. The two thieves are an ironic
parallel between the two hobos, Vladimir and Estragon.
Waiting for Godot ventures into the universal human conditions of life. Beckett's
Christian Existential beliefs shine through in the essential idea of his play: there is nothing
to be done. Humans do not have the power to give their lives meaning. It is a play about
hope, waiting, and meaning in our lives, mixed with irony (the existence of the name God
in Godot) and humor. Although Beckett never discredits God, he does discredit human
theories for explaining the existence of God. Our lives are unfinished. We can never
come to a final conclusion about God because language and reason fall short of
explanation. We may have certain assumptions about God, but we can never come to
logical conclusions. Nothing is ever established beyond all doubt and we must live with
doubt. Doubt becomes a motif of the play. Beckett also touches on the point that life is
short. We can never be sure of anything.
Reading Waiting for Godot is an eye opening experience. Because of the things
our society has taught us for so long, we have excepted them as truths when in reality,
there are no truths. Men were born sinners. The play's themes are both well-developed
and implied. Beckett's original, interpretive fiction deals with more than just human
conditions, it explores the consciousness of man as well as concerns beyond man.

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