Uncertainty In Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot

Superior Essays
Uncertainty is a situation that arouses doubt, apprehension and dilemma thus prompting people to take a reserved stand. The Second World War had an economical, social, physical and psychological impact on people`s lives forcing them to be imprisoned in a sort of bubble, where life was more traumatic than death. Samuel Beckett`s Waiting for Godot is an archetypal post-war play dealing with the uncertainties, which manifested itself through the theme of existentialism and absurdity, the plot, characters, language and actions. This essay will therefore elaborate on the above, whilst also focusing on the nuanced definition of modernism and post-modernism.
It is not clear whether Beckett can be considered as a modernist or a post-modernist because
…show more content…
The war reduced human life to something insignificant, and this left the remainder of the population disenchanted and submerged in an existentialist crisis where they continuously ask themselves if they exist, and if they do, why is it the case. It is probably to know the answer to this question that Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot and the fact that Godot is evasive and does not appear shows that this question will remain unanswered. They exist in a time frame where they eat, drink, sleep and wait and this is done in an attempt to appear “humane.” The characters, representing the whole of humanity, comes around as dehumanized, reduced to the level of animals, as Estragon is eager to have Pozzo`s leftover bones, showing a regression to the primitive, a more atavistic state of man, where basic needs are more fundamental. Left hanging in the void, their life is empty (O.Via, Jr, 1962) and this is clear through Estragon`s comment “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it`s awful,” but what is interesting is that they try to escape the nothingness and boredom by doing insignificant things like waiting for Godot endlessly. These strange characters are unaware of their purpose in life, in fact, they are even unaware of their identity and mood, which frustrates the audience since they are placed at an uncomfortable seat and are forced to ponder …show more content…
The uncertainty about Religion becomes more potent through the ghostly presence of Godot, an absent and indescribable, yet, ever-dominating entity in the play. Beckett gives no clear indication upon the identity of Godot, leaving it to interpretation; nevertheless, it is clear that Godot is paralleled with God due to the increasing similarity in the way they are written. Whether Godot is meant to replace God, who has disappeared, in this increasingly disenchanted world or that he is merely a way for the playwright to question religion is a debatable issue. This parallelism becomes more overwhelming when Godot does not appear at the end, this situation can be juxtaposed to that in the warfront where people kept on hoping that God would intervene in the war and they would be saved. The fact that neither God nor Godot appears gave rise to a sense of nihilism. According to McCoy (cited in O.Via, Jr, 1962) Godot appears in every character of the play such that Godot could represent the intellect in Vladimir or the ignorance in Estragon, the submissiveness in Lucky or the dominating attributes of Pozzo or he might represent hope and a healing power in the form the boy. Many critics consider Pozzo as the personification of Godot; however, if such a hypocrite and confusing character represents an overarching form of power; then Vladimir and Estragon are true to question their existence, since

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    “War does not determine who is right- only who is left,” is a quote by Bertrand Russell. This spectrum expresses the casualties of war. In other words, Russell means war is used as an outlet to define a “winner”, or in this case, someone who is right. The veiled truth is that there are no true winners of war when comparing the damage created and the lives lost. Looking at war through that perspective, John F. Kennedy, among others, also agreed.…

    • 1616 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “You don’t choose what to believe. Belief chooses you” (Galloway 14). These words introduce the recurring theme of the novel. In The Cellist of Sarajevo a delicate reality of the human condition is revealed, that when subjected to certain environmental conditions, people adopt new beliefs. The story is told through the lives and perspectives of four characters:…

    • 1293 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The second passage I chose was not about Yossarian’s character, though it may deal with how frustrated he finds his new roomates, but about the glamorization of war. “They were the most depressing group of people Yossarian had ever been with. They were always in high spirits. They laughed at everything. They called him ‘Yo-Yo’ jocularly and came in tipsy late at night and woke him up with their clumsy, bumping, giggling efforts to be quiet, then bombarded him with asinine shouts of hilarious good-fellowship when he sat up cursing to complain.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As World War I came to an end, there would be a rise in a fascist totalitarian regime that emphasized the need for a strong central government led by a single ruler. “Leaders who embraced fascism, such as Mussolini and Hitler, claimed that they were striving to build a new community on a national – not an international – level. Extreme nationalists, and often racists, Fascists glorified war and the military.” The development of such political philosophy influenced the ideas and beliefs of Adolf Hitler – a German Nazi dictator and National Socialist Party (NAZI) leader and founder. Ultimately, there would be an emphasis on war, nationalism, and even racism, that entailed the purification of the body of the nation.…

    • 1565 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Does age really matter? Many students, and even adults of the 21st century argue that there is no meaning behind studying books and plays dating back to the 1500’s, because the time during which they were written, is nothing like life as they know it. However, many of the themes, problems and struggles in plays and books of the renaissance era share a plethora of commonalities with the challenges and struggles today’s society faces. There are many common themes between Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and Judith Guest’s novel Ordinary People. The three major themes that the two literary works share in common are mental health, fate versus responsibility and family and a sense of belonging.…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    War will take its toll on a soldier. In the novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque, the soldiers of Second Company come out of the war damaged in many ways which are almost unpreventable. Their bodies are hurt, their minds are full of fear and they are eventually molded to think that being surrounded death is a normal day to day thing. The soldiers relationships with people and places are destroyed their generation is lost. War leaves them alone and afraid.…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Security and safety are two very extensive factors in modern day society, and without them, the world known today would be greatly altered. America, as a whole, is built to stand tall and provide this sense of protection as it is called the land of the free. This simple phrase means a variety of different ideas to everyone. An American social critic and citizen himself, H. L Mencken, once said, “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.”…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Savage Deterioration of Man Charles Yale Harrison’s remorseless novel Generals Die in Bed strips war of it’s heroic mirage and examines it, rather, as brutalizing. The myths about war’s glory are destroyed by showing the sheer agony of the soldiers’ experiences in the trenches through factors such as abusive officers, lice and starvation. The aftermath of such hardship results in the psychological and emotional ramifications of desperation, barbarism and insanity on the common soldiers. The final chapter, “Vengeance,” highlights these influences revealing the significant transformation of soldiers to shells of men that they once were. Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes believed that men, when forced out of civilization and into the environment of war, would eventually deteriorate from their honourable and brave manners.…

    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Their attitudes show a great deal of change from the start of the war until the end. The novel shows the powerful effects war can have upon a person. These soldiers start out by feeling patriotic ready to fight for their country, to ending up feeling exhausted emotionally and physically. They are scared about what’s to come for them, and don’t know whether they are going to ever see their families again or not. This novel helps the audience understand the effects of war.…

    • 998 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    World War I was the war to end all wars. Many young men went of to war filled with romantic notions of war and patriotism for their country. In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, we meet Paul Baumer, the narrator of the story. Paul and his friends were convinced by parents and teachers, that they had a duty their country. Their duty was to enlist in the Army and fight in the war.…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Merriam-Webster defines the term motif as a “usually recurring salient thematic element (as in the arts); especially : a dominant idea or central theme” (“Motif”). In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the author Erich Maria Remarque mentions two principle motifs which are comradeship and lost generation. The novel follows a young solider, Paul Bäumer, and his comrades throughout their journey at the front of World War I. The soldiers experience many horrors throughout their time in the war. Consequently, the young men evolve as people.…

    • 1111 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Section two ꞉ Binary Oppositions in play ‛ Waiting for Godot’ ꞉ ‛ Waiting for Godot’ is considered as a masterpiece in world literature ∙ It is one of Beckett’s beautiful plays∙ This astonishing play has two acts ∙ This play refers to the ‛ Theater Of The Absurd’∙…

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What is a truth? One may derive a multitude of definitions for this vague word and may come up with many different truths; and this is no different from how one perceives what a single or several symbols possibly mean. However, one could make inferences or inductions to what a symbol may indicate due to the symbol's usage and context of a given passage. And as such, one would perceive academia, the games, and the baby in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf as having great symbolic relevance as they can be shown blurring the lines of reality and illusion. Academia symbolism is enveloped in this play has a major relevance to the setting as it establishes a context of which the characters fall under.…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This paper analyzes the semiology of art and its traces concerned with revealing the issue of art and the influence of art and artist in man’s life in Henrik Ibsen’s (1828-1906) play, when we Dead Awaken (1899) based on Roland Barthes’ (1915-1980) view regarding the concept of semiology. Norwegian Henrik Ibsen who is considered as the father of realism and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre in his last and shortest play, When We Dead Awaken (WWDA), “a dramatic epilogue”, that was regarded as the autobiographical play in which Aronld Rubek, the artist and the sculptor, his young wife Maia, his former model Irene, and a bear-hunter, named Squire Ulfheim as the main characters in this three-act architecturally structured play concentrates…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The title of the play being Waiting for Godot strips all trace of the characters Vladimir and Estragon leaving behind what the two had done, which was in the beginning and end, wait for Godot to…

    • 1323 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays