Assignment : Existentialism in waiting for Godot

 

Name :Mehal J.  Pandya 

Sem :3

Roll no. 13

Enrollment no. 2069108420200029

Subject :  Modernist literature 

Topic - Existentialism in waiting for Godot 

Date 4/12/2020

Batch:2019-2020

E-mail :mehalpandya252@gmail.com

Submitted to: Department of English 

         M. K. Bhavnagar University 

 Introduction :

      Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett. He was a modernist writer. This play  is absurd play. It is very interesting one and great example of existentialism. So here I want to discuss on this two topic first let's see the definition of Absurd play what is it  and then discuss existentialism in waiting for Godot.  This play with simple words but with deep meaning. It was published in 1952. Waiting for Godot is. The importance of the play as an existential drama lies in the multiplicity of meanings which critics have discovered in it. “Waiting for Godot” is a play in which Samuel Beckett adopted the doctrine of existentialism. Critics call it one of the prominent existentialist plays that demonstrate theme of existentialism as main story of the play. 

  

        However, certain elements are there in it that reveal theme of nihilism too. Nihilism and existentialism are two distinct things still it seems that Samuel Beckett combined them in order show superiority of Existentialism. Some of the critics are of the opinion that “Waiting for Godot” is neither entirely on existentialism nor entirely on nihilism but somewhere in between.

Nihilism in “Waiting for Godot”:

Nihilism means nothing. It determines that humans exist in this world is enough. They should not do anything because everything they do is meaningless. “Waiting for Godot” portrays theme of despair as well as concept of nihilism. Estragon and Vladimir do nothing. Play starts with nothingness and ends with nothingness.

  When we talk about the existence and existentialism, then let's see the meaning of existentialism. There are many philosopher and critic and researcher gave their contribution to explore the existentialism. 

some way we also found that some natural law and element can never allow us to reach 

it. So we have not clear idea but we can give our interpretation and opinions for that,

         Question is what is existentialism? 

    In the waiting  for Godot both characters are waiting for Godot. Now question is who is Godot?  We have eagerness to know Godot is  female or male? Where he/she live and many other questions are raising with the reading of play. It is a topic for thinking upon existentialism. Some  say that, 

   “ There is something misleading about this printed text “

Meanings of Existentialism in “Waiting for Godot”:

Simplest definition of existentialism is that “humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universal 

Above said definition can be divided into three parts.

Universe is irrational

Humans existence in it and

Humans define meanings of life with rational decisions.

     

Samuel Beckett 'S play waiting for Godot has two acts. Act one setting is also like nothingness. No house, no any street, there is one tree but it was also without  leave.The play open like this way… ..

A country road. A tree. Evening. 

ACT  I 

Estragon, sitting on a low  mound, is trying to take  off  his boot. He  pulls at  it  with both hands, panting.   He  gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before. 

Enter Vladimir. 

ESTRAGON: (giving up again).  Nothing  to be done. 

VLADIMIR: (advancing with short, stiff  strides, legs wide  apart).  I'm beginning  to  come  round  to that opinion. All my  life  I've  tried to put  it  from me, saying  Vladimir, be  reasonable,  you haven't  yet tried everything. And  I  resumed the  struggle. (He  broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So there  you are  again…….

    In the play they both waiting for some  inevitable but what is it?  Sometime our thinking tell us that it is just elusive and illustration nothing more then that. 

 

         Vladimir and Estragon,  who are the raw substance so commonly dressed up in accident 

of occupation, role, relationship. They are un-acommodated men  so ‘ Time is stopped ‘ for Vladimir but for  Estragon and Vladimir communnicat and they ask questions each other and Estragon said that  “   we have always find something, to give the impression we exist?  There is a one dialogue that 

   “Never neglect the little things of life”

      Kierkegaard was a philosopher and he gave his contribution in existentialism . So he 

reflect that  “ to exist means to be in process of becoming “so we can say that  waiting is the process for them, a process of becoming through which  they seem to realize that they exist. 

     According to Kenner, “ The play constructa about its two  actors the conditions and the quality of waiting to much so that no one blame the dramatist's perverse whim for the withholding of Godot and the disappointment of their expectations. “

We have also question about the Godot, that who is Godot? Godot is God or not, In which religion?  There is philosopher who gave his opinion about the god. That; 

 Kierkegaard’s  emphasis  that  God’s redemptive  activity  causes  a  person  to  ‘lose  continuity  with  himself’  and  ‘[become]  a new  creation.’36  That  is,  he  fails  to  take  account  of  the  fact  that  the  grace  of  God confronts  the  creaturely  way  of  life  in  an  absolutely  new  way  –  in  a  way  that  is  both creative  and  miraculous.  For  Kierkegaard,  there  is  no  prospective  continuity  and  no possibility  of  any  predetermination  of  the  condition  of  God’s  engagement  with  the human.  Any  continuity  can  only  be  discerned  retrospectively  and  in  such  a  way  that God’s  mediatory,  transformative  and  redemptive  activity  is  understood  to  be  both foundational  and  also unanticipatable.

      The  effect  of  this  on  Kierkegaard  was  to  lead  him  to  encourage  an  atmosphere  of ‘silence’  and  humility  in  the  human  sphere  of  knowing  before  God  But,  as  Dietrich Bonhoeffer  would  so  stress,  citing  Kierkegaard,  this  is  not  a  silence  that  allows  the  mind  to chatter  away  to  itself  It  is  the  silence  that  recognises  and  hears  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Word who  exposes  the  error  of  our  sinful  minds  and  reconciles  us  into  a  faithful  relationship  with God.

    

There  is  only  one  proof  for  the  truth  of  (Christianity)  the  inner  proof, argumentum  spiritus  sancti.’

    The long waiting for Godot  and who does never appear throughout the play, but there is entry of boy who is the messenger of Godot and  he said that 

  

                “  He will come tomorrow. Sir.  .” 

   

        Waiting for Godot” is indeed a play that demonstrates theme of existentialism. Two main characters of the play named as Vladimir and Estragon are put into an absurd situation 

just like humans have been put in the world without any purpose. In whole play they do nothing to change their miserable condition. Existentialism emphasizes on the practice of doing something and creating a purpose while accepting existence in this world. Hence, they have freewill to make their life better. 

      

    They can come out of this situation and can give their     lives a meaning but they do nothing. Estragon’s dialogue is notable in this regard. He says:

“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.”

He knows that his situation is awful.

    Pozzo and Lucky both are important character in this play.  In act 2 pozzo said that ,

When!  When!  One  day, is that not  enough for  you, one  day  he  went dumb, one  day  I  went blind, one  day  we'll  go deaf, one  day  we  were  born, one  day  we  shall die, the same day, the same second, is  that not enough for  you?  (Calmer.)  They give birth astride  of  a grave, the  light gleams an  instant, then  it's night once  more.

           Through out the play Godot is never come. Not appears any time. We don't know Godot is Male or Female .Godot send a boy to this both characters. He said that  

"Godot will come tomorrow, sir". 

     Both time we come to know about Godot  through the boy. But it is also not clear about the boy who is he? As messenger but is he real one? Or just and mere illustration. 

 Conclusion 

BOY: What am  I  to tell  Mr. Godot, Sir?

 VLADIMIR: Tell  him  . . . (he  hesitates) . . .  tell him  you saw me...

     Through the characters In play  Samuel Beckett  draws the picture of human. He gave the example of human mind. In first Act Vladimir said the boy that  tell Godot that you saw us, but in second Act he said to boy that  tell Godot that you saw me. So this way we can see the impact of existence through the  character in play. Waiting is a  desire according to me in this play. Through that they come to know about the life and  absurdity of life. The law of nature will  continues going on.Now with this play we can make many interpretation about the existence. What as human beings our duty? Is religious everything? If yes the  where is a Godot and with this question the waiting of Godot is start again and again for tomorrow and as we know that  Tomorrow will never come. 

        Necessary thing can be absurd and absurd thing can necessary at any time. 

 Work citation

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, 1954.

Brazil, Kevin. “Beckett, Painting and the Question of ‘the Human.’” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 36, no. 3, 2013, pp. 81–99. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jmodelite.36.3.81. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020.

 Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism is a Humanism

 Sharma, Anurag. “‘WAITING FOR GODOT:" A Beckettian Counterfoil to Kierkegaardian Existentialism.” Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd'hui, vol. 2, 1993, pp. 275–280. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25781175. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020.

Søren  Kierkegaard,  The  Moment  and  Late  Writings,  ed.  &  trans.  Howard  V.  and  Edna  H. Hong Princeton:  Princeton  University  Press,  1998.