Symbolism of waiting and the significance of Godot

 

The uncanny figure Godot and the endless waiting are the central concern of  Samuel Beckett’s existentialist play ‘’Waiting for Godot’’.  As it is one of the most representative plays for the theatre of the absurd.  It is completely open ended and complex play meant to question the purpose of the existence which is seen as a pointless waiting.  The process of  waiting understood as the modern man’s condition, as the life itself, as the passing of time, as hope and also the waiting perceived from a religious point of view.

 

First of all, the title of Beckett’s play is the one to assess the main theme of the text, namely the waititng. Waiting represents rather than an action, but expecting something to happen. After reading the play, one can notice the lack of the traditional plot which means that the action in the play is almost absent and Beckett’s tragic-comic sense of humour. The two acts of the play seem to be identical as the background does not change(the only difference that the leafless tree from the first act grows leaves in the second one) and also the plot can be summarised as presenting two tramps staying on the edge of a road, by a tree, waiting for Godot. The fact that Godot fails to meet the two men suggests the pointlessness of waiting. However, this waiting is very suggestive in this play as it stands for the tragic waiting. The critic Martin Esslin, in his essay “Samuel Beckett: The Search for the Self” states that’’ Waiting for Godot does not tell a story; it explains a static situation’’, suggesting that the purpose of this  play is to describe a state, the waiting. The plot of this play is created by means of the accumulation of details and images, not through actions. It is this gradual accumulation of symbols that leads to the tragic dimension of the play and not the action.

The waiting can stand as a metaphor for the modern man’s condition. Taking into consideration the historical context, namely the two World Wars, the  rise of the techonolgy meant to replace manpower, all the threatening new weapons, the different diseases, the human being becomes to feel alienated, to lose their trust in this world. The feeling of futility makes people believe they live an absurd life, a pointless life and, just as Camus argues in his essays, there are some attitudes that a man can embrace in order to confront the Absurd of existence. The one that best suits the modern man is acceptance. The modern man is aware of the meaninglessness of this absurd existence and despite this, he chooses to live this life. The consciousness of the futility of this life is tragic. From this point of view, the theme of waiting in the play can suggests the acceptance of this existence. Vladimir and Estragon are vainly waiting for Godot who, in this case can represent  the meaning of life. And the fact that Godot is not coming suggests that life has no sense and that living is a pointless act. Even if Vladimir and Estragon think of suiciding by hanging themselves, they do not do it as they want to wait for Godot. This means that their waiting is pointless. The two days presented can also be just a part of their waiting. As they seem to remember having been in this place before (déjà vu), this fact suggests that this is what they usually do: they are waiting for the mysterious  Godot to come. However, their effort proves to be in vain as, by the end of the day, a boy comes and tells them that Godot is coming tomorrow. The two tramps seem to be disappointed, but they are naive enough to think that Godot is really going to come tomorrow. Their destiny can be compared with the Sisyphus’s as he was punished to uselessly roll up a boulder to the peak of a mountain. Pointless as this task may be, Sisyphus accepted it and the meaninglessness of his destiny. From this point of view, the character’s destiny in Waiting for Godot and the Sisyphus’s one are the same. They all adopt the same attitude, the acceptance. Even if Vladimir and Estragon also thought of suiciding, they did not do it, they accepted their condition. The irrational waiting seem to become their purpose. The impossibility of the communication is also a mark of the presence of the absurd.

 

 This state of waiting can also symbolize life itself as life can be perceived as a line of habitual events. People obey the rules imposed by society, they have their own priorities. They feel the necessity of balance, of constancy, without understanding that their lives has turned into an incredibly boring routine. Vladimir and Estragon seem to feel that their lives took this path and this is the reason why they see it as a state of waiting. As this waiting implies no action, it represents a good metaphor for life. This state is the one which becomes the new reality in the play. This routine is the one which leads to the feeling of pointlessness, as one can get to think that there is “nothing to be done” in this life. This waiting is triggered by the meeting with Godot, the one  who keep postponing the moment: “Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won’t come this evening, but surely to-morrow”. This statement which has two reccurences in the text suggests that Godot is the one who postpones their meeting, meaning that Godot himself represent this routine. The routine of their lives is also suggested by the way the two acts are created as they seem to mirror each other. They are created through a sort of parallelism or an analogy suggesting that nothing new happens. The characters seem to be caught in a time loop. This is why Vladimir and Estragon feel that they confront the absurd of this life, the impossibility of the real communication in this irrational existence.  Martin Esslin also points out that the “routine of waiting for Godot stands for habit, which prevents us from reaching the painful, but fruitful awareness of the full reality of being”. Godot, as he represents the habitual , is the one who represents hope, their hope that at a certain point in the future something meaningful is going to happen. This hope is the one that prevents them from hanging themselves or from giving up living.

This point leads us to another interpretation of the waiting, namely waiting perceived as hope. This quiet waiting is meant to anticipate Godot’s arrival. However he is not coming. The comic situation in the play, apart from the characters, is the fact that those two people seem to be helpless enough to think that Godot is going to come after so many times when they failed to do this. But this comic reality soon becomes a tragic one. Godot is not coming and he was supposed to help them. This waiting represents the hope, even if they have to wait for so long time, they know that this would lead to a beneficial fact for them, as they hope for Godot’s help. This can also be related to the mundane, suggesting that people always wait for something, they always wait for a moment to come and after coming, they wait for another moment. Even if that moment is so important, the waiting is the one that makes it special. Hence, the moment when they would met Godot would be a very important moment because of this endless waiting.

 

From a religious perspective, this waiting can be understood as a struggle to find God. Even if Beckett himself denied that the play would have any religious connotations, Godot’s name can represent a derived word from ‘’God’’ . As Christianity  teaches, the afterlife is a better place to live than this. As this life is just a transition to the afterlife, to Heaven, Estragon and Vladimir only have to wait to get a better life. As they are two poor tramps, they put all their trust in God.

 

 Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for God, for Heaven, the place where they hope to be safe, the place they would finally be happy, the afterlife. In this world, they are only two wanderers who wait to get home, to a safe place. On the other hand, taking into consideration the author’s assertion and the fact that this literary genre, the theatre of the absurd denies the existence of God.