Waiting for Godot is a two-act tragicomedy written by Irish author Samuel Beckett that was originally staged in 1953 after being published in French in 1952 under the title En attendant Godot. It was the Theatre of the Absurd’s first theatrical hit and a remarkable breakthrough in post-World War II Europe. In this paper, I intend to give a brief description of the absurd theatre and draw on the roots of its emergence in the 1950s.
Relying on Samuel Becket’s play, Waiting for Godot, I will highlight the use of repetition by the author through various elements, including the circular structure of the play, the use of language, the similar characterization in the form of Estragon, Vladamir, Pozzo, and Lucky, and the circular narrative of the play that revolves around a repetitive physical space.
The theatre of the absurd was a brief but major theatrical trend that emerged in the 1950s in Paris. The origins of absurdism can be traced back to avant-garde theatrical experiments in the 1920s and 1930s. The form’s proponents were a disparate group of playwrights whose works were founded on the idea of existentialism. Among them were Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov.
Illogical storylines inhabited by characters that appeared out of sync with their own existence were common elements in absurdist plays. The average theatregoer had never seen anything like this on a European stage. The theatre of the absurd will be remembered for many things, the most important of which is Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece Waiting for Godot, which is now acknowledged as one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century.
Waiting for Godot (1954) has an unusual structure; it is a circular narrative and does not have a logical exposition or resolution. The situation is usually static, as nothing changes and nothing is resolved because there is no solution to man’s issues on this miserable planet. This very idea can be broadly found in Albert Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus, which symbolizes the constant struggle of an individual against life’s inherent absurdity.
Camus uses the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who is doomed by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill again and again until he reaches the summit, as a metaphor for the individual’s steadfast struggle against the fundamental folly of life. The first step, in Camus’s view, is to acknowledge the absurdity of the situation.
The only option for Sisyphus is to rebel by joyfully pushing the boulder up the hill; committing suicide is not an option. Camus goes on to say that the person acquires meaning and identity through the joyful acceptance of the struggle against defeat. The framework of modern plays, particularly ludicrous ones, is vastly different, as it has more leeway.
Theatrical plays frequently reject traditional form; they lack resolution or any clear description of the situation. Their structure is crucial to the play’s thought since it symbolises life’s absurdity and meaninglessness. The situation is frequently stagnant; nothing changes and nothing is resolved because there is no solution to man’s issue in this desperate world.
Waiting for Godot is not constructed along traditional lines with exposition, development, reversal, and denouement; it has a firm structure based on repetition and balance. The play is summarised as tramps sitting by the roadside, waiting for a man named Godot to come and hire them. They exchange weird ends of conversation that are as nonsensical as. Godot does not appear; instead, Pozzo and his servant, Lucky, appear.
They both appear to be inhuman, one through dictatorship and the other through servitude. Pozzo and Lucky return in the second half of the play and are seen again, but the first is now blind and the latter cannot talk at all. Meanwhile, the two tramps remain in wait for Godot. They can’t even commit suicide because they don’t have a rope to hang themselves with, but Godot doesn’t appear. As previously stated, the structure of Waiting for Godot is centred on repetition, the return of the principal character patterns, as well as the precise balancing of variable factors.
The drama is divided into two acts of varying lengths, each of which is set in the same location and starts at the same hour, “early evening.” Pozzo’s example can be used to demonstrate the use of repetition. After finishing his lunch and lighting his pipe, he says clearly, “Ah, that’s better.” Estragon makes his appearance two pages later, making a similar comment on the discarded chicken bones of Pozzo.
Although the circumstances are comparable, they are not the same because Pozzo has eaten to the fullest, whereas Estragon has only had a small amount. In order to draw a comparison between Vladimir’s unselfish spreading of his own coat around Estragon’s shoulders in Act II and Pozzo’s selfish command to Lucky to give him his coat in Act I, the repetition of the phrases is used as an ironic tactic.
Additionally, Vladimir’s song at the start of Act II is just a real-life example because the play’s entire structure is circular and based on repetition.
“A dog came in the kitchen
And stole a crust of bread
Then cook up with a ladle
And beat him till he was dead
Then all the dogs came running
And dug the dog a tomb
He stops, broads, and resumes:
Then all the dogs came running
And dug the dog a tomb
And wrote upon the tombstone, “
Vladimir’s song is, hence, cyclical and repetitious.
Becket uses repetition of the physical space throughout the play as the same location for both acts; it is only a country road with a lone tree, but no precise location is specified. The entire action takes place in one setting; the audience is never taken to another. Additionally, both acts take place in the evening at the same time of day. Act II is meant to take place the day after the first act, but as described, there is no real change between the two days.
The play’s action can benefit from the same propensity for repetition. Both acts share the same kinds of commonalities in the order in which the characters’ events occurred. The action starts off in the same way in both acts. In Act I, Vladimir comes, and Estragon remarks, “So there you are again.”
When Vladimir first sees Estragon in Act II, he screams, “You again!” There are other instances in the play that define the use of repetitive physical space, like Estragon’s defeat being discussed in both acts, Estragon’s feet and boots being an issue all throughout, the humorous exchange regarding carrots, turnips, and radishes in both acts, and Estragon and Vladimir considering the likelihood of killing themselves by hanging.
The play also marks a repetitive use of language, especially with both acts ending in the same tone. At the conclusion of Act I, Vladimir says, “Yes, let’s go.” Estragon makes the same offer at the conclusion of Act II: “Yes, let’s leave.” However, they make no attempt to move in either scenario. The obvious intent behind such recurrence in the play’s action is significant and highlights how Waiting for Godot’s circular form differs from standard action structure.
The same form of repetition can also be explored in Becket’s contrasted portrayal of characters: the four main characters in the play, Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo, and Lucky, come together and are involved in a complicated sado-masochistic relationship for a long time. However, their personalities are obviously at odds: Estragon is the positioned intuitive person, while Vladimir is the neurotic intellectual type. Lucky is the reserved introvert, while Pozzo is the intimidating extrovert. Vladimir naturally empathises with Pozzo as a result, while Estragon shows some sympathy for Lucky. Estragon and Lucky, as well as Vladimir and Pozzo, are at opposite ends of the poised poles.
These characters have been styled to lack a distinct identity. The way the play’s text constantly switches from one tone to the opposite is another standout aspect of its structure. Pozzo’s speech on the subject of night is a good example of such a drastic shift in tone from one to the next. It almost violently shifts from the false sublime to the prosaically absurd, and after soaring to dynamic highs, it slides to dreary depths and finally to inescapable quiet. Estragon and Vladimir finally strike up a conversation with Ramji after several lengthy pauses and silences.
“Estragon: So long as one knows.
Vladimir: One can bide one’s time.
Estragon: One knows what to expect.
Vladimir: There is no further need to worry.
Estragon: Simply wait.
Vladimir: We’re used to it.”
Waiitng for Godot’s dialogue and the nature of language serve as an illustration of the cyclic patterns of structure that have been thoroughly explored. Much of the speech in both acts is repetitious and leaves room for interpretation. Estragon and Vladimir come to an understanding after a disagreement about a trifling issue, and then there are brief pauses. Vladimir becomes anxious and wonders, “What do we do now?” One word sums up Estragon’s response: “wait for Godot.”
The same exchange happens in the second act when Vladimir says they must wait for Godot, following a similar silence. This conversational trend occurs frequently and explains how many times the characters have used up all of their minor conversations with extended pauses. If they run out of things to do, they consider leaving to help them pass the time. However, the result is that they must wait for Godot, which is always the same.
The conversation is like drawing a circle from one point, moving outward, going around, and coming back to the same spot. Lucky is yet another excellent example of the play’s repetitive use of dialogue. At his master’s request, Lucky delivers a protracted and justly well-known speech in the first act. It takes the form of a theological lecture, which, at its core, eliminates comical repetitions and irrelevant, nonsensical statements to get to the point. Lucky starts to say something along the lines of:
“dearly… And suffers… with those who…
are plunged in torment.
it is established…
Beyond all doubt, that man”
Lucky’s speech or monologue takes the form of an open-ended query that begins with the supposition of a personal God and concludes with the image of a vacant petrified skull. Inside Lucky’s skull, Thomison, Gortesianism, and Itegelianism are all weirdly mingled. The speech ends there from the standpoint of coherence and logic. The final meaning is obscured in a maze of inconsistency and irrelevance, and the logical conclusion of the assumption is never expressed. As a result, Lucky’s speech might be seen as representative of much of the repetitive use of dialogue in Waiting for Godot or any other ludicrous drama.
The play dramatises boredom and repetition, two themes that recur frequently in Beckett’s writings. These themes relate to the cyclical framework that the play presents to us. Everybody has a lot of issues, but they don’t always seem to get resolved. As a result, the play is tragic in that it shows how man is a victim of his own limited nature. Waiting for Godot’s Structure by Beckett is entirely dissimilar from a traditional structure play. This play has repetitions and rounded incidents when nothing is resolved or changed and the world is stagnant. In this bleak world, there is no remedy for man’s troubles.
The circular structure in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot serves to accentuate and reflect the play’s core idea, which is that existence is ludicrous and pointless. All of the play’s other aspects, including the characters, themes, setting, and dialogue, also serve to reflect and reinforce this idea. Becket closely examines the idea of existence in a highly organised, controlled, and systematic way, presenting an image of a humanity that can find no place or identity in it, as well as a vision of a fragmented, decreasing, unseeable, purposeless universe.
His play does depict the chaos in which we all live, but it also succeeds in giving form, if not meaning, to the things he is trying to reflect. To bring the disparate parts of his dramatic universe together into a firmly structured, aesthetically beautiful whole, Beckett has developed a new vision, or one might even say a new perspective.