Bodor Annamria

Waiting for Godot:

Symbols and Difficulties of Interpretation

The play Waiting for Godot is said to be one of the most important works
belonging to the Absurd Theatre of the 20th century. Its writer, the Irish dramatist
Samuel Beckett is considered to be the greatest playwright in English literature in this
genre. His work revolutionized our understanding of the nature and potential of both
literature and drama, and provided some of the most resonant images of human
existence in a troubled and confused historical period.(Pattie, 5 ).
The name of this genre is used to refer to a number of works of drama which
have in common the sense that the human condition is essentially absurd. The absurd
movement emerged after the Second World War as a reaction to traditional beliefs and
values. Writers of the absurd rejected the notion that man lives in an intelligible
universe, that he lives in an orderly social structure, and that he is capable of heroic
actions and dignity. The universe depicted in their work is alien and meaningless and
mans existence is both anguished and irrational. (Delaney, Ward and Fiorina)
Suggesting all these ideas Waiting for Godot has shocked the audience but
also became a great success when it was first presented in 1953.
After an uncertain start, Godot become one of the most fashionable plays in Paris,
even though, every night , a proportion of the audience left well before the end. This
pattern was repeated in London and in America too. With each restaging the play
seemed to provoke the same questions-chief amongst them the question of Godot
identity. (Pattie, 34)
Beckett generally refused to engage in such discussions. Once he said:

if Id known more I would have put it in the text if by Godot I had meant
God I would have said God, and not Godot (qtd. In Pattie 37).

Related to his plays Beckett instructed the actors not to look for symbols in the text
and told them that the information they needed was already in the play itself.
Linked to his intentions with his plays he said:

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I want to bring poetry into drama, a poetry which has been through the void
and makes a new start in a new room-space. I think in new dimensions and
basically am not very worried about whether I can be followed. I couldnt give
the answers that were hoped for. There are no easy solutions (qtd. in Pattie,
40).

Becketts reluctance on discussing his works did not stopped the speculative
interpretations.
Because of all these this play cannot be analyzed as a traditional play.
It has no traditional plot, real heroes, characters, the time is quite unusual, the
place of the events are also hard to be interpreted. There can be said much about all of
these, but almost none of those can be seen as certainty.
As Martin Esslin suggests us it would be wrong to try to reduce this play to a
simplified explication. (16) It is possible to analyze the structure of the play to group
the themes and motifs and in this way to find at least the right questions to lead us
closer to the meaning of the play or intentions of the playwright. (Esslin, 16 .)
The central image of the play is the image of two tramps waiting by a tree in
the open country for Godot to come. In this bare location Vladimir and Estragon pass
the time before Godots expected arrival, in each act they meet Pozzo, a landowner
and Lucky, his servant. In the end of each act a boy comes to say that God will not
come that day, but he certainly will come the next day. After this they decide on going
but they remain there:
VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
Curtain.

It is not a story but a static situation. This is not a traditional plot, there are no real
events.
In comparison with traditional plays Waiting for Godot it is not based on a
conflict between two equilibrated value systems of the heroes which represent these
values.
The characters are no real heroes and they hardly can be seen as real human beings
either.
The conflict which makes a play dramatic is present between the stage and the
audience. The heroes have lost the qualities which made them human. They become

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almost interchangeable, sometimes they act as if they were parts of the same person.
They seem to be only a scheme of a human being.
Despite of the difficulties of giving a concrete meaning to the symbols and to
the features of this play certain statements can be done.
This play is a non-linear play in which the repetition of the basic situation
defies the whole structure of the play. The dramatic structure of this type of non-linear
plays is given by the interaction of the following motifs: the incapability to take
action- the pseudo-actions, the deformed and irrational time and space, the change in
the function of the language- the inability to communicate. (Varga, 78)
The lack of the real plot does not exclude the abundance of the events on the
stage, always happens something with no real relevance to the characters and this
multitude of unimportant events emphasises even more the inexistence of real
development in the state and personalities of the heroes.
The only real activity is a psychological one: the waiting. There is an apparent
logical coherence related to the deeds of the characters, but these insignificant acts are
present in the lives of almost abstract human beings, in an irrational time and space.
In this way these events are getting a different meaning , but it is hard to interpret
what are the exact senses of the symbols.
Beside waiting, the uncertainty is one of the most certain element of the
drama. Just like Estragon and Vladimir cannot know if Godot comes or not, we
cannot guess for sure the real identity of Godot, the significance of the deeds, or
what are the characters symbolizing , why greens the tree out in the second act
The time of the drama seems to be unreal, cyclical, there are no causes and no
consequences, and there is no link between the causes and the effects. (Bcsy, 322)
There are to levels of the time and the space. Bcsy Tams compared this drama with
the medieval type of plays in which there are present two levels, symbolizing the two
supposed worlds, the earthly life and the afterlife. The characters are abstract ones.
(Bcsy, 218) The stage and the setting and the events which happen on the stage are
symbols of the real, earthly life and the events, places which are not present in the
stage but they are talking about them represent another level of being. (Bcsy, 219.)
These kind of dramas do not have a linear structure, there is no past and no
future. The past what is remembered by Vladimir seems to have no real connection to
the present, the expected future also seems to be as unreal as the past events. Not
even the first act can be considered the past of the second one, because it is a copy of

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the first one, and some of the changes which occur until the second act suggest that
not only one day has past since the first act. (Bcsy, 314)
This makes us realize that we are dealing with a totally different kind of
time-perception, it is not a chronological time not even a subjective perception of
time, it is an unspecified time going on in an unspecified space. (Balot, 414). It is
uncertain whether it is day or night, we cannot figure out in which season they are.
The answer of Pozzo is illustrating this very well. To the question since when? he
gives this answer:
POZZO: (suddenly furious.) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed
time! It's abominable! 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. (She jerks
the rope.) On!

The questions related to the characters are also interesting. Beckett developed the
literary anthropology of the waiting humans. His humans are similar to the image of
man created by Pascal, but without the dignity of the human misery, instead his
characters are grotesque. (Balot, 414) They are homo vagabundus and homo
viators- being only passengers thru life- was considered in the Middle Ages a basic
state of being human. (Balot, 415) They are only through passengers in this life,
searching for a meaning, searching for something unknown even for themselves.
Difficulties of explanation are there in the case of the characters too. For example
Pozzo can be compared with the image of God. In the first act he could symbolize the
image of god from the Old Testament , and in then second act he has similarities with
the image of the suffering God from the New Testament. (Bcsy, 341) As Martin
Esslin believes he also can be seen as a symbol of the body, and Lucky as a symbol of
the soul, Estragon as a symbol of the unconscious and Vladimir as the conscious half
of one person. (qtd. in Bcsy, 341)
They were also believed to be the two thieves crucified together with Jesus and
about whom redemption is Vladimir wondering at the beginning of the play.
The tree and the change in its state gives us several possibilities to understand
it. It is a possible tree of life or it might be the tree of knowledge. (Bcsy, 341). Its
growing green, just like the other symbols, has no only one possible meaning. It
could be a sign of hope, a sign of changing, a sign of rebirth. The indifference of
nature towards the suffering of humans and their condition is a totally different

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interpretation which is possible too. A more neutral meaning of the behavior of

the tree could be given too: it might suggest the fact that everything is all right with
the world.
The question of Godots identity can be answered in various ways, but none
of them would be the certainly right answer. As one of the possibilities Pozzo was
thought to be Godot. The explanation for this is: Pozzo had forgotten what he
promised to Vladimir and Estragon, thats why he doest recognize them. Vladimir and
Estragon had misunderstand his name.(wikipedia) However conform to this
interpretation the boy should know about Pozzo.
A more viable but less concrete identity of Godot could be the transcendental,
could be God. They (only Vladimir) have a memory about a promise what Godot
made, they also remember him as a white-beard person, ( but we cannot know if their
memories are real), we know Godot has as messenger a young and innocent boy so
these circumstances do involve a stereotypical image of the Christian God. Other
Christian and potentially Christian elements are present.
An even more vague definition of Godot is given as the mythical waiting,
grown by the absurdity of the human condition.( Balot, 417 )
However, all these uncertainties in interpretation, these multiple possibilities
of doing this, suggest us not to try to give one possible meaning of the symbols, and
the elements of this play, but to accept the fact that there cannot be solved these
multitude of problems, there can be given only uncertain answers. Instead of
searching for the exact meanings of who Godot could be or the other elements could
symbolizes, the interpretation focus around the question what is the role of
uncertainty, or why are there so many unknown, indefinable elements.
Uncertainty has an immense role in humans lives just like the search for
meaning. And these two are certainly present in this drama. Not the identity of
Godot is really important, but the absence what makes the heroes want to fill in.
Paradoxically, despite of their thoughts related to suicide, despite of incapability to
act, despite of a hostile, aggressive and apparently pointless world this strong desire to
find a meaning, to fill in the absence is the last human value they have got, and this
ability makes them human, actually gives their life a meaning, (and gives us hope. )
And this is how an absurd drama demonstrates the absurdity of the absurd.

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WORKS CITED

BALOT, N. (1979): Abszurd irodalom, Gondolat, Budapest.

BCSY T. (2001): Drmamodellek s a mai drma, Dialog Campus Kiad,

Budapest- Pcs.

DELANEY, D.WARD, C.FIORINA, C. R. (2005): Fields of Vision, Vol. II., Longman,

Edinburgh.

ESSLIN, M. (1967): Az abszurd drma elmlete, Sznhztudomnyi Intzet s a

Npmvelsi Propaganda kzs kiadvnya, Budapest.

VARGA L. (2002): A nem lineris drma rtelmezse, Balassi Kiad, Budapest.

PATTIE, D. (2000): Samuel Beckett, Routledge, London- New York

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzo_(Waiting_for_Godot)