English Literature

Paper V Assignment
Semester VI 2020
ABSURDISM IN "WAITING FOR
GODOT"
by SAMUEL BECKETT

Jinal Mistry TYBA

Roll number: 3114

Samuel Beckett
Born: 13 April 1906, Ireland
Died: 22 December 1989,
Beckett ,as a young man studied French,
Italian and English at Trinity College. He went
to Paris for the first time in 1928 – he would
spend most of his adult life there – to teach
English. During World War Two, his Irish
citizenship allowed him to remain in Paris and
he worked as a courier for the French
resistance. Following the arrest of members
of the group by the Gestapo, he fled to the
unoccupied zone, where he remained until
the end of the war.
.After the war Beckett settled in Paris and
began a prolific period as a writer. His most
famous play, Waiting for Godot, EN
ATTENDANT GODOT,was first performed in
1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone on the Left
Bank in Paris.
 Context of the play

In his book Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus explains this myth:

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the
top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight.
They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful
punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
However, Camus views Sisyphus as someone who while pushing the
boulder up the hill struggles to achieve satisfaction on reaching the
top. The known fact of the boulder going down only makes him reflect
on what he has done until now, thus, adding meaning to his actions.
This, Camus writes at the end of the novel:
We must imagine Sisyphus happy.
 Introduction to Absurdism
• Derived from Albert Camus s The My of Sisyphus wherein Camus analyses
e reaction of man faced wi e inexplicable.
• It is e basic human nature to reduce every ing around him/her to a
logical conclusion.
• The failure to do so creates e absurd. .
• The absurd arises because e w ld is resistant to its reduction to human
inte igibility:
• “we want e w ld to make sense, but it does not make sense. To s is
conflict is to s e absurd.”
Camus proposes different ways of coping wi is absurdity:
1. Suicide. 3. Religious fai s
2. Denial and distraction. 4. Acceptance
What happens in
the play?

As the title suggests, it is a play about: two

men waiting for a third, who never appears.
‘And if he comes?’ one of Beckett’s tramps
asks the other near the end of the play. ‘We’ll
be saved’, the other replies, although the
nature of that salvation, along with so much
else, remains undefined: for both characters
and audience, Waiting for Godot enforces a
wait for its own meaning.
 Narrative techniques and structure
• The circularity of the play is highly unconventional. Traditional cause/
effect plot development is abandoned in the play.
• The movement of the play is circular and symmetrical. The second act
parallels the first.
• Nothing new happens except the tree grows leaves indicating a
surrealistic passage of time.
• The characters engage in ways that closely parallel the first act; the
key difference seems to be an
• increased struggle in the second act to “pass the time”.
• The setting is economical and universal ,only amounting to a road
with a tree.
• Monologues, silences are precariously used.
 ABSURDISM in the play
The characters attempt the ESTRAGON:
different kinds of coping methods Charming spot. (He turns, advances to
suggested by Camus in the play front, halts facing auditorium.)
1.Suicide attempt in the Inspiring prospects.
beginning of first act where (He turns to Vladimir.) Let's go.
Estragon suggests hanging VLADIMIR: We can't.
themselves but they give up ESTRAGON: Why not?
on the idea as the beach of
VLADIMIR: We're waiting for Godot.
the tree seems too weak to
carry their weight.
2.Denial appears through
Esyragon's tendency to ESTRAGON: I'm unhappy.
forget almost everything that
happens on the day before. VLADIMIR: Not really! Since when?
He has to be constantly ESTRAGON: I'd forgotten.
reminded of their purpose by
Vladimir.
• Vladimir,then men ons
biblical references to pass the
me.
• Distrac ons like ea ng,
exchanging hats or being in
company and singing are
done.
• Acceptance may appear in
lucky who never complains
against his fate (and is
supposedly happy) and
Vladimir, who remembers all
the events that happened the
day before yet endures the
repe on of the boy's ,
Pozzo's arrival , wai ng for
Godot etc. In a du ful manner
VLADIMIR: It'll pass the time.
(Pause.) Two thieves,
crucified at the same time as our
Saviour. One—
ESTRAGON: Our what?
VLADIMIR: Our Saviour. Two thieves.
One is supposed to have been saved
and the other . . . (he searches for
the contrary of saved) . . . damned.
ESTRAGON: Saved from what?
VLADIMIR: Hell.
ESTRAGON: I'm going.
BOY:. I don't know, Sir.
VLADIMIR: You don't know me?
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: It wasn't you came
yesterday?
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: This is your first time?
BOY: Yes Sir.
 Absurdity in e title : e waiting becomes meaningless due to e anonymity of "
Godot"
Absurd characters: "The boy" who arrives each day with a message
from Godot but doesn't remember that he saw them the day before.
This constancy makes the play more paradoxical.
Pozzo becomes blind the second day .
 CONCLUSION

The workman of today, works every day in his life

at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd
[than Sisyphus's].”
 Bibliography
• Camus Absurdity in Beckett s Plays:Waiting f Godot and
Krapp s Last Tape by AbhinabaChatterj , published in Lapis
Lazuli -An International Literary Journal (LLILJ) Vol.3,
Autumn 2013
• THE IMPACT OF ABSURDISM IN “WAITING FOR
GODOT” BY SAMUEL BECKET : Au s-Abdul Bari Khan ,
Volume Sana Manso & Huma Alia published in ACTternational
Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Modern Education
(IJMRME) Volume I, Issue II, 2015
• https://www.nateliason.com/notes/my -sisyphus-albert-camus