BREAKDOWN OF LANGUAGE IN

MODERN LITERATURE WITH SPECIAL

REFERENCE TO SAMUEL BECKETT’S
WAITING FOR GODOT

Submitted By
UMAR AWAIS

Submitted To
Department o f English Literature
International Islamic University
Islamabad (Pakistan)
A DISSERTATION IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT FOR THE AWARD OF
MASTER’S DEGREE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

December 2003
!l l ^ i / ^ u ‘’^ C . SOilife.\fi
0
lat/^0U‘^A
0 7 TT^
ot^c^ /cti^x.

u
 BREAKDOWN OF LANGUAGE IN
MODERN LITERATURE WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO SAMUEL BECKETT’S
WAITING FOR GODOT

Submitted
UMAR AWAIS

Submitted To
Department of English Literature
International Islamic University
Islamabad (Pakistan)

December 2003
 BREAKDOWN OF LANGUAGE IN
MODERN LITERATURE WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO SAMUEL BECKETT’S
WAITING FOR GODOT

Submitted By
UMAR AWAIS

Submitted To
Department o f English Literature
International Islamic University
Islamabad (Pakistan)
A DISSERTATION IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT FOR THE AWARD OF
MASTER’S DEGREE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

December 2003
I certify that all the material in this dissertation borrowed from other sourc^^has been
identified and that no material is included for which a degree has b ed upon
anybody.
Signed
 DEDICATED
TO
My respected Father

CH. GULZAR AHMED

Who is to me as soil is to seed

And

My Dear

MOTHER
Whose prayers are not less than oxygen for me
 Acknowledgement

First of all I am grateful to Almighty Allah who created me and manifested in me the

qualities that enabled me to produce this dissertation. After that I acknowledge that

Prophet’s (SAW) life worked as a beacon, especially whenever I was lost.

At the achievement of this important academic milestone, I feel like going down

the memory lane a bit far as I have to thank a lot of people. My family has always been

helpful throughout my life towards my studies. My grand parents will ever haunt my

thinking as my little questions were satisfactorily answered by them. I do justice in

paying sufficient homage to my parents both Abu Jee and Ammi Jee. They always helped

me beyond their means throughout my career. My father always encouraged me. My

■V,

mother always provided me a safe haven from the hardships of life. My Chachoo, Hafeez

Ahmed, contributed a lot in the development of my personality. How can I forget my

Younger uncle, Javed Iqbal (late), (may God rest his soul in peace) who always wished

and prayed for my high rank.

-I have never thought my self apart from my sisters and cousins. They all provided

me every thing I desired. My younger sister is every thing to me. My cousins Zahid,

Tanveer, Nadeem, Naveed, Jamil and Zohaib have given me a boost always by praying

for me. Rest of my relatives love me a lot and want to see me a successful person. I pay

respect to them and thank them all.

 I pay tribute to ail my teachers for their untiring efforts, which they put in making

all of us knowledgeable. Anwar Sahib, Ch M. Ali Sahib and Shah Din Sahib taught me

how to read and write. Prof Ahsan-ur-rehman, Prof S.M.A. Rau^ Prof Rauf Jamal,

Prof Manawar Iqbal Gondal, Mr O.S.K. Tarin and last but not least Mr. M. Azam

introduced me to different genres of literature. I am equally grateful to Prof Habib-ur-

Rehman Asam who taught me Arabic in a friendly environment.

Among my teachers at I.I.U, I would like to extend my very special debt of

gratitude to my very friendly supervisor; Mr. M. Safeer Shakaib. I am lucky to have the

guidance of such a knowledgeable person whose consistent encouragement and

scrupulous analysis of what I learnt, conceived and wrote were of great worth and value

for me. I am lucky too for studying in such a prestigious institution (International Islamic

University Islamabad) which inculcated many religious and moral traits in me.

My friends are my treasures. Mazhar Chohan, Zia-ur- Rehman, Abdul Rauf and

Tahir Watto have become an essential part of my life. My classmates Akram, Waqas

(Doctor), Azfar and Asif had made my studies easier with their sweet company and

-^OTC^r^ment. Usman Ghani is beyond all thanks. Waseem, Waqas (Langah), Suleman

and Azhar helped me in different forms.Ch Saeed is highly thankful for his services in

typing and printing. I once again express gratitude to all o f those who contributed in my

studies. May Allah fill their lives with all His blessings! Ameen.

Umar Awais
n
 CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION 1
2 SAMUEL BECKETT; HIS LIFE AND WORKS 3
3 TRENDS OF AGE AND INFLUENCE ON BECKETT 13
4 BREAKDOWN OF LANGUAGE IN WAITING FOR GODOT 29
5 CONLUSION 51
6 BIBLIOGRAPHY
7 APPENDICES
 INTRODUCTION

Right from the beginning of human history man has been curious to know more about his

life and he creates new ways to find out the answers to his questions- regarding both

physical and metaphysical worlds. It is this curiosity of man that created mythology,

which was developed into religions and science. The disintegration of social, moral

political and religious values are the main concern of the twentieth century literature. The

humanity has already suffered a great deal in the wake of two World Wars. Political and

economic instabilities had only added to the distress and hardships of the world. Man, in

the modem world, has become a mere commodity. The process of self-estrangement has

reached its climax in this modem age. But even the material prosperity could not prevent

man from maladies and spiritual dissatisfaction.

None of the philosophical movement in the West became so popular and

interesting as a literary phenomenon as Existentialism did which not only drove people

out of interpersonal relations leading them to isolation but also brought about a revolution

into the world of arts. The wartime mood not only gave a new turn to theatrical activities

but also resulted in a series of revolts and efforts that paved the way for the new Theatre

of the Absurd. Luigi Pirandello, Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Annouilh, Camus, Arthur

Adamov, Harold Pinter, Eugene Ionesco and above all Samuel Beckett, these are the

writers, who led the way to introduce new trends in literature that show the breakdown of

human ties. They were the new thorough rebellion against conventional drama. It was in

fact the French theatre that seemed to serve as a catalyst to speed up this Absurd

movement, which later on, dominated the modem dramatic science.

 The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the disintegration of human

communication and ties, as shown by these writers. What are the reasons, which

compelled the proponents of the Absurd dramatists to ponder over the haunting questions

regarding ‘Being’ and ‘World’? It was, in fact, this obscurity of philosophy as well as the

techniques of Absurd dramatists, particularly that of Samuel Beckett, which compelled

me to choose this topic. When I first read Waitingfo r Godot, I could not understand what

the play was about. Rather, I was extremely bored as there was no action in the play.

However, later on, I came to know that this is the technique of Samuel Beckett to convey

his message by evoking boredom in audience. It created in me an urge to explore more

and more the features of modem drama and through it, modem European society in

particular.

The dissertatioiTconsists of three chapters. The first chapter deals with the life and

works of Samuel Beckett. The second chapter examines the trends of Ages and its impact

on Beckett and other writers who belonged to Theatre of the Absurd movement. Third

chapter deals with one of the major concerns of Absurd dramatists, with special reference

to Waiting fo r Godot, the breakdown of human communication through language. A

summing up of the whole dissertation follows this.

It is sincerely hoped that this dissertation, if nothing more, will, at least, provide a

kind of platform or starting point for the students of modem drama at LI U, to build up

their future research and study fi'om these humble beginning.

CHAPTER 1

Samuel Beckett; His Life and Works

Samuel Barclay Beckett, the great author, critic and playwright, winner of Nobel Prize in

1969, was bom in a suburb of Dublin on Good Friday, the 13^ of April 1906. He

belonged to the Protestant family and was the youngest of his two brothers. At the age of

14, he went to the Protora Royal School that developed his thoughts to the Anglo-Irish

middle class. He studied classics in high school and from 1923 to 1927, Modem

Languages at Trinity College, Dublin, where he received his bachelor’s degree. After a

brief period of teaching in Belfast, he lectured in English at the Ecole Normale

Superieure in Paris from 1928 to 1930. Here he fell in with literary expatriates including

James Joyce who became a friend and inspiration. Beckett noted, “Joyce tended toward

omniscience to omnipresence in his narrative voice, whereas I work with impotence and

ignorance.”* He returned to Ireland in 1930 to take up a post as lecturer in French at

Trinity College. In December 1931, he resigned and embarked upon a period of restless

travel in London, France, Germany and Italy. In 1937, Beckett decided to settle in Paris.

'After his settlement, he joined an underground resistance group in 1941. The Gestapo,

secret police of Germany, arrested some members of his group and he moved to the

unoccupied zone of France. He worked as an agricultural labourer until the liberation of

the country. The rest of his life, which is more creative, was spent in France.

Samuel Beckett’s long life (1906-1989) brought him fece to face with two worlds:

one in which he lived, examined and worked and the other in which he sought refuge.
 inspired him to write and carried him through diflRcuk times. He honoured both;

the first provided him with the canvas and the brush and the second blessed him with

colours and contours. He stumbled upon many treasures, which 1^ shared to balance both

the outside, and inside worlds. He started writing at the age o f 23 and kept on writing

until his death.

A writer divorced fi*om his society places himself in a precarious position. An

artist, a musician, can work under any circumstances, but a writer, one of whose sources

of material is the society into which he was bom, risks, in turning his back on that

society, cutting himself off both from that source of material and from his rightful literary

heritage. Moreover, by prolonged contact with a foreign environment, he risks tosing his

mastery of idiom. As in the instance of James Joyce, he is strong enough to take his

country with him, or, as in the instance o f Beckett, he is ads^jtable enough to assume the

obligations of his new environment.

Samuel Beckett began to write with poetry, and devoted the first half o f his career

to a series of major experimental novels written between 1934 and 1951: Murphy and

Watt (written in English), Mercier and Camier, the trilogy Malloy, Malone Dies and The

Unnamqble. His turn to the theatre was only a diversion to clear a block in his novel

writing. Waiting fo r Godot began after Malone Dies in 1948, specisilly “as a relaxation, to

get away fr*om the awfiil prose I was writing at the time”.^
 James Joyce has much influence on Beckett’s novel writing. Becket switches

from third person narration to first person narration in his pre-war fiction, which

corresponded with the change o f his thoughts from English to French. Indeed to some

extent Beckett’s novels are interchangeable with his play scripts. Becaxise o f this

interchange, Beckett bhirs the distinction between literary genres. The unusual

consistency o f his voice; a narrow focus of his work makes his vision immediately

identifiable. These qualities gave his woric a unique influential position not only in British

but also in European and American drama. His play Waiting fo r Godot had almost

immediate impact when appeared in London in 1955 two years after its Paris premiere.

As late as 1938 he was still an Irish writer working in English. Murphy, his

second novel, was published in that year. With More Pricks Than Kicks, his first novel,

published four years earlier, it will remain his sole contribution to English literature. At

the same time, Beckett’s drama can be seen as an extension o f the symbolist line in

British poetic drama fix>m W.B, Yeats to T.S. Eliot. His starting point in writing was to

reject “the grotesque fellacy of realistic art”. ^

It is unfortunate that no English edition o f either More Pricks Than Kicks or

Murphy is available, aiui we can judge the latter work only fi^m the French translation,

vdiich was published in 1947. Both books passed almost without notice. The only

commentary found in this regard which mentions them is Mr. W.Y. Tindall’s remark, in

Forces in Modem British Literature, "^More pricks than Kicks and Murphy^ by Samuel

Beckett, the best of Joyce’s followers, are precious, elegant and absurd.”^ The volume
More Pricks than Kicks contains ten stories describing episodes in the life o f Dublin

intellectual, Belacque Shuah, Beckett’s first independent work was published in 1930 -a

poem called Whoroscope- clever but with many obscures references. A number o f short

stories and poems were scattered in various periodicals. During his years in hiding in

occupied France, Beckett also con^)leted a novel. Watt, which was not published until

1953.

The novel Murphy, 1938, depicts a destitute Irishman living in London who

spends his days in daydreaming in a rocking chair imtil a gas plant e?^lodes and turns

him into shreds. Murphy is at places a valuable work yet it is not a fiilly mature work.

Beckett’s intellect sometimes clutters the novel like imnecessary though colourfiil and

often humorous bric-a-brac. It is ‘absurd’ only in the sense that Albert Camus’ V

Estranger or Le Malentendu are a t ^ d , that is, to use Sartre’s terms, “nothing less than

the relationship of man to the world.”®

After his return to Paris, between 1946 and 1949, Beckett produced a number of

stories, the major prose narratives, Molly (1947; English translation, 1951), Malone

Meurt, (1948; Malone Dies, 1956), m i L ’Innommable (1949; The Unnamable, 1958) and

two plays, tlK unpublished three act Eleutheria and En Attendant Godot, It was not vmtil

1951, however, that these works saw the light of day. After many refuseils, his friend,

who had been in Beckett’s resistance group during the war, finally succeeded in finding a

publisher for Molly. When this book proved not only a modest commercial success but

was also received with enthusiasm by the French critics, the same publisher brought out
the other novels and En Attendant Godot, It was with the amazing success of this play,

however, at the small Theatre de Babylone in Paris, on 5* of January 1953 that Beckett’s

rise to world feme began.

The progression from Murphy through Molloy^ to Malone is evident. The

movement is away from the world of the body towards the world o f the mind. Murphy

moves with the past and is still recognizable as landmarks of Hyde Park, Marble Arch,

and West Brampton. MoUoy’s city has become anonymotis; Malone’s is no more than a

cry beyond his window, a light in the window across the street. The movement is away

from external precision towards Hhe increasing autonomy o f consciousnesses’.

Beckett did not sp ri^ into feme all at once. His fame was slow to be acquired but

it came to rest on solid foundations. His first woric to be accorded some recognition was

not a play but the novel Molloy. The production o f Waitingfo r Godot brought this writer,

who had been writing for many years before this play was produced, suddenly into the

limelight. The play proved to be as successful in its Ei^Iish translation as it had been in

French. Later it was translated into almost every major European language.

Waiting fo r Godot is the most admirable play of Beckett. It comes between

Malone Dies and The Unnamable. As the title implies. Waitingfo r Godot is about all that

happens while waiting. It was with his drama Waiting fo r Godot especially that Beckett

gave the best known expression to his pessimistic philosophy of ‘‘Nothing to be done”.

As to Nature, a single tree in this world, bare in the first act and sproutii^ a few leaves in
 second act, as though to show that in the kingdom at least some life still stirs,

represents her.

Before this tree, the sole scenery, two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, converse

and perform various restricted movements. They are awaiting the arrival o f a certain Mr.

Godot, with whom they have an ^pointment in this vE^ely desolate place. They are on

the stage for the entire two acts of a play, which runs for about one and a half hour.

Diversions are provided by the entrance in both acts of Pozzo, a seedy landowner

accon^)anied by his slave. Lucky, and by two £q)pearances o f a messenger-boy to tell

them each time that Godot will not come this evening “bm surely tomorrow.”®They

consider hanging themselves, but their only rope is the piece of cord, which holds up

Estragon’s trousers, and it is not strong enough. At the final curteiin of both acts, they

stand feeing the audience and uttering the words, “Let’s go.”’ but in feet, they remain

motionless.

The very first words o f Waiting fo r Godot, Estragon’s “Nothing to be done,” were

acconq)anied by a large gesture, which seemed naturalistic one. The line characterizes the

entire drama. The opening line o f the play sets its thenae with the result that the action is

continuous: suffering, fear, uncertainty and long waiting. The full effect is of comedy and

tragedy fiised in a dialogue o f evocative powerful words in an economical style. This

> style introduces a strange notion o f time. At one place, Vladimir and Estragon said that

they were bom and may die on the same day but later on, the change is notable that we
are bom before we die. In the conq)ressible but irreversible time that Vladimir and

Estragon fill up their time in a monotonous way, Pozzo and Lucky evolve.

Vladimir: How they’ve changed!

Estt^on: Who?
Vladimir; Those two.
Estr^on: That’s the idea. Let’s make a little conversation.
Vladimir: Haven’t they?
Esti^on: What?
Vladimir: Changed.
Estr^on: Very likely .They all change. Only we can’t. *

The play reveals a universal significance. The m et^hor o f waiting is the best

form o f ejq)ression for the conflict, which is Beckett’s definition o f man. Waiting fo r

Godot is not an allegory, but a concrete and synthetki equivalent o f our existence in the

world and our awareness o f it.

Likewise, the opening words of Endgame (1957), “Finished, it’s finished ...” set

the theme for this drama. These are the last words that Christ murmured on the cross: “It

is finished”. It is the end o f the game. Beckett himself once described Endgame (1957) as

being ‘r a tte difficult and elliptic’ and as ‘more inhimian than Godot’. In Endgame

Beckett’s femiliar themes and situations are revealed. The difficulty of the play lies in the

condensation o f the langu^e. Act Without Words 7(1958), of course, has no language in

it, but in Endgame Beckett reduces langui^e to its smallest dominator.

What q>pears to the superficial view as a concentration on the sordid thus

emerges as an atten^t to gr^ple with the most essential aspects o f the human condition.

Critics for instance, frequently refer to tlK two tramps o f Waitingfo r Godot, as heroes yet

they are never described as such by Beckett. They are merely two human beings in the

most basic human situation of being in the world and not knowii^ why they are here.

9.
 In Watt, the last of Beckett’s novels written in English, the environment is still

recognizably Irish, but most of the action takes place in a highly abstract, unreal world.

Watt, the hero, takes services with a mysterious enqjloyer, Mr. Knott, worfcs for a time

for this master witlwut ever meeting him face to fece, and then is dismissed. Most of

Beckett’s plays create a similar level o f abstraction. In Krapps Last Tape, (1958) an old

man listens to ihs confession, he recorded in earUer and happier years. This becomes an

image o f the mystery o f tl^ self, for to the old Krapp the voice o f the younger Krapp is

that o f a total stranger. It is Krapps Last Tape that most movingly reveals the life of an

old man trapped in memory and nearly impotent, the problem o f his early middle age still

unsolved. Nonetheless, it is Winnie in Happy Days (1961) who remains perhaps

Beckett’s great theatrical invention. Persistent and brave in a futile world, her very

ordinariness seems to take on an appearance of the heroic.

In 1959, Trinity College honoured Beckett with an honorary doctorate of letters.

Part o f the citation is notable in Beckett’s recognition.

Mr Samuel Beckett has established his right to be

named among the outstanding m«i of letters educated in
Trinity College Congreve, Farquhar, Swift, Goldsmith, Wilde
and Synge to mention only some of them. The citation also
mentions that Beckett was celebrated throughout the literary
world as playwrights, novelist, poet, satirist, critic and
translator.’

The citation in Latin was translated by AJ.Leventhal who had taken Beckett’s place at

Trinity College after Beckett resigned.

 Technically, Beckett is a master craftsman, and his sense of form is perfect. Molly

and Waiting fo r Godot, for example, are constructed symmetrically, in two parts that are

mere images of one another. His radio plays, such as A ll that Fall (1956), are models in

the combined use of sound, music, and speech. Eh Joe} (1965) a short television play,

demands a technical camera work for a particular character of a small-screen drama.

Finally, his film script Film (1963) creates an unforgettable sequence of images of the

observed self-trying to escape the eye of its own observer.' Writing in both French and

English, and translating his works 6*0111 one to the other, Beckett was an incomparable

stylist in both. His output in verse was small, but his narrative and dramatic prose was so

delicately phrased, so subtle in his rhythms, and so intricately structured that it,*^too, must

be considered poetry.

His new writing generated controversy as much as the old had. Some, after seeing

brief pieces in which voice talk, arms flap and a few lines are uttered, declared that was

not theatre. Others have found his comments on the human condition very moving.

However, whatever he has written, Beckett’s themes continue to centre on the

relationship of twentieth century man.

Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1969. He was one of he few

noble choices about whom nobody argued. His right to this honour was unquestioned and

obvious. He was a recognized world figure, an authority and a major influence. In the

late 70’s, Beckett had arthritis and the muscles of his hands were so bad he could not

shake hands or hold a pen. He spent the last months of his life in a nursing home where
he died on December 22, 1989. He was buried four days later in Paris at a private

ceremony arranged by his publisher, Lindon with only close friends present. Lindon’s

words on Beckett sum up what many, from diverse background, have felt about him; “I

have never met a man in whom co-exist in such high degrees, nobility and modesty,

lucidity and goodness.”

ENDNOTES

* James Knowlson, Demand to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsburg
Publishing, 1996), p.78.
^ CoHin Duckworth, Godot-Genesis and Composition^ in Casebook Series, cd. Ruby Cohn, (New
York), p.89.
^ Beckett, Proust, (New York, 1970), p,57.

^ Samuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage, (London, 1952), p. 80.

^Ibid; p. 81.

^ Samuel Beckett, Waitingfor Godot, (College Book Depot, Lahcnre) p.50.

^ Ibid; p.54.

* Ibid; p.48.

^ Dcfa-dre Bair, Samuel Becket: A Biography. (New York, 1978), p.504.

Alan Schneider, Working with Beckett, (Paris, 1990), p.253.

CHAPTER 2
Trends of Age and its Influence on Beckett

An artist is a product of his age. The modem writer is especially conscious of his age and

does not fail to reflect it in his work. The writing of an artist is his personal experiences

of the external world.

As behiml every book lies the personality of the author and as behind eveiy
national literature lies the charter of the race which produced it, so behind
the literature any period lies the combine forces personal and impersonal
which made the life that period, as a whole what it is.‘

Therefore, it is important to know about the contemporary modem civilization, its

social, political, economic, and literary tendencies which put a tremendous influence on

the mind of a writer.

Before talking about Samuel Beckett's creativity, we should know about his age

in which he lived. We see a continuous struggle to restore ‘pristine purity’ from the very

first day. Industrial Revolution, French Revolution, Darwinian Theory and criticism of

religion. Colonialism, Marxism are different notions, which have been influencing

writers since the 19* century.

The scientific discoveries and Darwin’s o f Species (1859) have changed

the outlook of modem man especially European, about the creation of man. The

Industrial revolution in Europe had given the West immense advantage throughout the

world in weaponry, shipping and invention. Modem age has made unprecedented

progress in all walks of life. However, in spite of all high-sounding philosophies, man is
still living in great anxieties. The condition of modem man is miserable because this

process of industrialization is not pure blessing. It has made life artificial and, thus, given

rise to hypocrisy. The after effect of industrialization can be noticed in modem literature

as well

The 20^ century, due to scientific knowledge, led to an era of moral perplexity

and uncertainty and it led to a questioning of accepted social beliefs, conventions and

traditions. Scientific development also caused spiritual disturbance, which carried people

into the grip of scepticism, agnosticism, above all atheism. Modem man has to face

barriers between man and man, man and society, man and God, and man and his inner

self He is facing loneliness, monotony, boredom and stagnation. He has no awareness of

his present situation and no milestone for future. He wants to get rid of the hard realities

of life because his life is like a pathless wood, having no faith in religion.

One of the most deplorable features of modem society is the breakdown of human

ties. Modem man has become selfish and self-centred, and in this regard, the impact of

the two World Wars is worth mentioning. Materialism became the main object and broke

apart human relationship because after the two World Wars man found himself

religiously, socially, politically insecure and sought protection in materialistic pursuits.

Martin Luther King rightly says, “War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity; it

destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.”^

T .S. Eliot presents a very bleak and grim picture of war in the following lines;

What is that sound high in the air murmur of maternal lamentation

Who are thcwe hooded herds swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked
 Ringed by the flat horizon only ^
Cracks aai reforms and burst in violent air
(The Wasteland, II: 366-372)

Modem man became pessimistic as the result of the two World Wars. He filled

the space of his life with doubts, frustration, boredom and disillusionment. Izetbegovic

says, “After the World Wars, in just those countries of prosperity and abundance, a sad

young generation appeared, having everything but wanting nothing.”^ In Freud’s

Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), he holds the view that civilized life is threatened

by the anti-social and irrational elements. The overall tone of post-war literature is

pessimistic. There is little hope of change in the present state of affairs.

Modem psychologists have shown that the majority of people are abnormal. The

worries and the challenges of modem life cause many sufferings. Man feels tension and

fhistration when he is not able to face a challenging situation. Man has witnessed and

suffered the great havoc caused by the World Wars. Deaths and destmction through the

scientific weapons in the modem world caused frustration. All this makes him

psychologically unfit, promoting a pessimistic view of life. Post-war literature is full of

such examples.

^Post-war man lost faith in God, which further aggravated the situation. The

change in moral codes and values of life is another salient feature of post-war society.

When man lost faith in God, he became fhistrated and depressed. Spiritually, the

encroachment of agnostic science created a state of crises for the age, “which was

actually time-conscious: a great many things seemed to be happening...It had, for the
most part no hold on permanent things, on permanent truths about man and God and life

and death.”"*Spiritually man has become so barren, that for consolation and relief, he goes

for drugs and is reduced to nothing.

After the Second World War, because of experiments in the world of theatre, the

Theatre of the Absurd emerged in the 1950’s. The writers belonging to this movement

rejected all the rules and ideas of conventional drama and gave a new turn to the world of

arts. The Second World War that had curtailed all the activities and progress in theatre

also gave rise to various doubts about the world and man. People had started questioning

issues regarding the world and existence. However as a result of these doubts and

questions, new experiments were performed which rejuvenated the theatre. As compared

to others, French playwrights were more active in conducting the new experiments.

The feeling of the absurd which dominates the Theatre of the Absurd is closely

linked with the philosophy of Existentialism, hence it would be appropriate to explore

Existentialism before the Theatre of the Absurd One surely feels perplexity when one

has to give a clear explanation of Existentialism. Existentialism, as a philosophy, is

against all sorts of babbling and tagging which tends to simplify human beings and

human life into easily comprehensible system of thought and behaviour. Moreover, as

such Existentialism itself eludes all clear cut definitions. It can more aptly be termed as a

unique attitude or, a particular way of looking at things, which defies all previous

philosophical systems. It more adequately encompasses our age of crises in which we feel
all established modes of behaviour either moral or religious to be crumbling under an

impending sense of doom.

Existentialism as a mode of thinking cannot be confined in one single ambit. It

has a vast circumference and a long history. It has its roots in both philosophy and

literature. Its genesis can be traced much earlier than Sartre. However, after the Second

World War, it gained prominence. The reason perhaps was the condition of general

environment. The scene was set, the stage was laid; that is why there was general decline

of all established values and system; the moral crises depend upon a sense of agony with

the loss of all religious and time established values.

The roots of Existentialism can be traced in the early philosophies put forth by

Hegel, Socrates, Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Karl

Jasper, Marcel, Jean Anouilh and Descartes, while its formal beginning took place with

philosophical treatises of Kierkegaard. However, it is out of the scope of this research to

cover the entire field of existentialism and to discuss its philosophical connotations

putting them in historical perspective. Fundamental principles of Existentialism are

absurdity, existence of God, notion of fi-eedom and anguish of being and nothingness.

If there is no God in this world, then, the existence of the world is not for man.

Therefore, man is alienated fi'om this world. Under these circumstances, man suffers a

terrible ordeal of loneliness and alienation fi*om all around him. Ultimately, what happens

is that man becomes convinced of his meaninglessness and absurdity of existence.

 The existentialist notion of crises is better expressed in Kafka’s novels and short

stories or in Sartre’s plays than in actual philosophical treatises. The other eminent

scholars and prophets of the movement also hold similar views. Edmund Hussler, the

more orthodox scholar ^ e e s to the fact that “Existentialism is but a growing series of

expression of set of attitudes which can be r^ognized only in a series of portraits.”^

In fact. Existentialism also changed its faces and meanings to cope with new

requirements of the time. However, we can accept a definition that gives a broad and

general meaning, in order to understand the significance of Existentialism as a

philosophy of life. Mrs. Grene, an American author has written a following sentence

about Existentialism, “Existentialism is an attempt to grasp human nature in human terms

without resorting to the super human or to what could be called sub-human.” ^ It means

that existentialism rejects the excuses and explanations of both materialism and religion.

“There is no materialistic and religious explanation for our action, hence no excuses for

our irresponsibility, as such there is no refijge outside this world.” ^ said by James Wahl

The writings of Sartre and his contemporary Camus form the basis of plays

performed by the Theatre of the Absurd. As compared to others, French playwrights were

more active in conducting new experiments. The most renowned playwrights of this new

form of theatre are Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter, Eugene Ionesco, Pirandello and

Samuel Beckett. ~
 The inability of human beings to relate to each other meaningflilly is amongst the

major concerns of these playwrights. This dilemma has various aspects, which are

manifested in the use of an enclosed form of language and closely related to the

assumption of social roles by people within highly subjective worlds. The interaction of

these factors results in non-communication. Martin Esslin says, “When we see those

plays which are theatrically effective and melodramatic according to the French

revolution, we fmd in them mistaken identities.”* Waiting fo r Godot proves a milestone

in the history of absurd drama.

This group of writers shares a common outlook about man and life. We must

ignore the theatre of coherently developed situation in viewing the plays that are included

in this movement. We must forget setting and obvious relationship to the drama as a

whole. We must forget the use of language as a tool of logical communication and its

cause and effect relationship found in traditional dramas. Audiences were accustomed to

a new kind of relationship between theme and presentation by using a number of puzzling

devices. The world seems incoherent and strange, but at the same time, it also seems

poetic and familiar. There are some rea^ns which instigate the critic to classify them

under the heading ‘Theatre of the Absurd’, a title which comes not from the dictionary.

This title was taken from Martin Esslin’s book The Theatre o f the Absurd. He maintains

that these dramatists developed a sense of “metaphysical anguish” at the absurdity of

human condition.
 The term ‘absurd’ is used to describe something, which is not in accordance with

the rules of logic and reason. Camus has implied this term to describe the feelings of

Absurdity in terms of irrational nature of the world. When Camus found no logical and

reasonable interpretation of the existence of world as well as human life, he was

convinced by the meaninglessness of this life and called the world Absurd. Because when

an individual cannot perceive the aim in his life and is unable to find the direction, then,

such pointlessness eradicates all the zest and enthusiasms to grapple with life. Hence, this

chaos and indifference of universe are the consequences of this Absurdity. In addition,

man, completely unaware of his past and future, is bound to live in this absurd world. For

the modem Absurd dramatists, who have concentrated on the exploration of the

irrationality and chaotic state of the world without suggesting any solution, chaotic nature

of world can best be presented by chaotic dramatic form or structure, while Sartre and

Camus have been striving to impart order to this chaotic world.

Among other French playwrights who were busy in new experiments, the most

prolific was Jean Anouilh, who, for the first time, dwelt on the problem of maintaining

integrity in this world in his plays Beckett (1960), The Grab Fair (1962), The jUirA: (1953)

etc. However, even these plays could not be considered as reflecting the philosophy of

Existentialism in true sense. Jean Paul Sartre could be considered as the true forerunner

of the theatre of the Absurd. This process of mesmerizing the minds of modem

playwrights started, when' Sartre, previously a philosopher and a novelist emerged as a

dramatist in 1943 and concoctecl some rather striking plays such as The Flies (1943), No

Exit (1944), Dirty Hands (1948), 77i^ Devil and the Good Lord (1951) and The
Condemned o f Altona (1959). In these plays, Sartre delineated the individual’s urge of

freedom and the denial of any social responsibility. By denying the existence of God and

the moral and social standards, Sartre seems to suggest that to Hve by standards imposed

or set by others is “the immoral response of a robot rather than the responsible act of a

true being”.*®So man must set standards for himself and live by them. Most of Sartre’s

characters suffer from tranquillity and is the only quest for new standards that can release

them from anxiety and confirm their freedom.

No wonder then why the modem dramatists heeded to this new form of drama. It

is obvious, because these philosophers, by moulding their intricate and ambiguous

philosophy into dramatic form, have made the facile task for the coming writers. Eugene

Ionesco has rather more enthusiastically advocated the Absurdist view. He is considered

to be a thorough rebel against conventional drama and his first play has been pronounced

as “anti-play”.” The Lesson{\9S0\ The Chairs{\952\ The Killer{\959\ The New

Tenant{\9Sl), and The Aerial pedestrian{\963\ all vehemently depict the picture of

world as perceived by the philosophers of the Absurd.

However, no other playwright has gained so much popularity in depicting

Absurdity as Beckett has. If Adamov and Ionesco concentrated on personal and social

relationships, Beckett has concocted his plays to portray shagged individual unable to

find any meaning of his existence and his place in the whole scheme of existence. In

contrast to Beckett, Eugene loneseo’s characters are seen in terms of singularity, whereas

Beckett's characters stand in pairs outside of society, but converse vwth each other.
Ionesco’s characters are placed in the midst of society but they stand alone in an alien

world with no personal identity and no one with whom they can communicate. These

dramatists are all concerned with the failure of communication in modem society, which

leaves man alienated. Moreover, they are all concerned with the lack of individuality and

the over emphasis on conformity in our society, and they use the dramatic elements of

time and place to imply important ideas.

The dream of existentialist philosopher such as Sartre, Camus and Hedegger, who

have wholly committed to invite the modem generation for self-examination, seems to

come true when Beckett’s Waitingfo r Godot was first staged on January 5, 1953. Perhaps

Beckett himself might not have imagined that this milestone of the Theatre of the Absurd

would be translated into twenty-five other languages, and would bring a revolution in

dramatic world and revive the Absurdist movement. The way he has dramatised the

philosophical ideas in Waiting fo r Godot is not even presented by Camus and Sartre in

their place with such a great success. In his characters there is always yeaming to know

about their self, the world and God. His characters are always hunted by the question

raised by Socrates on the nature of the self, the world and God.

In this respect, the notion of the freedom, the only means of alluring self, is

central to his play. In reply, to Estragon’s question that if they are tied, Vladimir says:

Vladimir But to whom. By whom?

Estragon; To you man.
Vladimir To Godot? Tied to Godot? What an ideal No
question of it. {Pause) For the moment. ^
 Vladimir says five times to Pozzo about Lucky, “You want to get rid of him?”

(Act I, p-31). Nobody can claim any right on them, not even the one called Godot and for

whom they are waiting. Moreover, if they are waiting for him, it is only because they are

going to get something at the end. Finally, it will be the decision of these free being

whether they will accept or leave it.

Vladimir: I’m curious to hear what he has to offer. Then

we will take it or leave it ^

These two tramps, who represent all humanity, utter remarks that any one of us

might utter. These two men are feeble and energetic, cow^dly and courageous, they

bicker, amuse themselves, are bored, speak to each other without understanding. They do

all this to keep busy, to pass time, to live or to give themselves the illusion that they are

living. They are certain of only one thing: they are waiting for Godot. Who is Godot?

They don’t know. In any case, this myth has not the same form, the same qualities, for

each of them. It might be happiness, eternal life, the ideal and unattainable quest of all

men, which they wait for and which gives them the strength to live on.

In the second act, on the same spot, beneath that tree fi-om which they

occasionally feel like hanging themselves, now, it seems, sprouting a few leaves, the

vagabonds are still there. They are waiting for Godot. Moreover, Pozzo reappears. So

does the little boy, and, as in a nightmare, everything begins all over again: waiting, hope

and disappointment.

The concept of Godot is the hope of man in Waiting fo r Godot. Godot has been

equated with God or if not really with God," at least with the concept of God whom
Estragon and Vladimir expect but Godot never comes. Though there is no evidence in the

play which v^^holly demise the existence of God, the attitude of the two tramps does give

the impression and image of God as a wholly figure no longer exists. “Our what?” (Act I,

p. 12) Estragon asks surprisingly when Vladimir speaks of “Our Saviour”, implying that

Godot seems to be a kind of distant mirage, a vague figure.

What does Godot do? What does he look like? How is he going to behave with

the two tramps? What we all know about him is that he is the one who has kept the two

tramps waiting but fails to make any appearance. Godot's disappearance has been taken

as nihilistic view. If we take Godot's inability to come as the absence of God, then we

can visualise the universe presented in Waiting fo r Godot. If God does not exist, who is

only reasonable for giving meaning to this hope and this hope is futile. Then Estragon

and Vladimir seems to be right in declaring;

Estragon: No use struggling.

14
Vladimir: One is what one is.

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting fo r Godot (1954) is the hallmark of the Absurdist

drama. Though Beckett’s other plays such as Endgame (1958), Happy Days (1961), and

Back and Forth, (1965) are based on such post-war doubts, none of them equals the

impression Waitingfo r Godot has left on the public.

The 'absurd’ element in Waiting fo r Godot is nihilism. Sometimes it smiled at

itself and protested against at the same time but almost the whole time presented as the

reality. Beckett suggests a state of things, which is so appalling that it must be

meaningless. If it had a meaning, it would be unbearably horrible. This is the anti-tragic

side of his work, in which human existence is assimilated to the earthquake or the act of

God. It is, in fact, another natural disaster, and perhaps the greatest of them all.

Beckett’s work dealt with a fundamentally absurd universe and broadened its

implication. Beckett did not describe meaninglessness; rather the words that he habitually

employed themselves come close to meaninglessness. That is what Beckett’s characters,

with some difficulty, attempt to do. At least they have the right idea:

Estragon; I’ll go and get a carrot.

He does not move.
Vladimir: This is becoming really insignificant
Estragon: Not enough. ^

As Esslin stresses, the rapid comprehension of Beckett’s drama was based on its

technique and formal properties. In the second edition of his book, as in the essay The

Theatre o f the Absurd Reconsidered, Esslin insists that his concept did not depend on

attributing a common philosophy, or a shared group of themes, to the writers involved.

He merely supplied a working hypothesis with which to discuss works in a new

convention, which mirrored a new attitude to the world in our time.

Another English playwright influenced by the philosophical movement is Harold

Pinter. The influence of Beckett and also to some degree of Ionesco can be felt in the

work of Harold Pinter. His early plays. The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1965),

and The Birthday Party (1958), were written under the influence of Beckett. Like

Beckett, “The world o f Harold Pinter (which) is the shadowy, obsessed, guilt-ridden,

claustrophobic, and above all, private. You are expected to find your way through it
without signposts, clues, or milestones.” Most of Pinter’s characters are left in a single

room to grapple with unexplored ambiguities of the world.

A panorama of the post war generation is to be found in modem English Drama.

There is no plot or action in the ordinary sense of the word. The themes of triviality and

boredom of human life, ignorance, meaninglessness of space, time and identity are used

to reflect the utter meaninglessness of modem existence. For example, Samuel Beckett’s

play Waiting fo r Godot lacks a clear-cut meaning. Estragon and Vladimir do not know

how to pass their period of waiting for Godot. They begin to follow boring and trivial

ways such as criticizing and abusing each other and to think about committing suicide.

The leading modem post war writers Yeats, Eliot, Beckett, Shaw, Virginia Woolf, and

Golding form a significant and valuable place in the literary history of post-war era. They

represent, in their works, various ways of stamping upon literature, the mark of

contemporary life.

The attitude of these playwrights’ characters to the outside world is invariably one

of fear and hostility. According to certain sociologists, this is a particular aspect of the

modem mentality. Characters shut in their own worlds, follow their own line of thoughts,

hardly taking into account what others may be thinking or saying. Dramatic dialogue is

hence reduced to a fragmented monologue, while others contribute to the conversation in

occasional monosyllables. The desire to speak and get a response suggests intricate

pattems that lie beneath the trivial chatter. It relates closely to the hidden fears and

obsessions of the characters, expressed obliquely through what they say. The growing
complexity of society has led to the creation of a particular kind of impersonal, non­

specific language.

In Beckett, absurdity and the irrational taken to an extreme as dramatic devices,

tend to become as dogmatic as the tyranny of logic and rationality. Our apprehension of

the characters is circumscribed by the fact that one can only take them at the levels of the

absurd and the irrational. As in Pinter’s writing, instead of widening the area of

imaginative sympathy and dramatic vision, this interpretation of human beings rebounds

in a sense of limitedness. One can only feel sorry for the characters if the element of the

ridiculous totally dominates their presentation. Furthermore, a release from the traditional

conventions of form and attitude results in not more freedom but in the sense of a void.

St

Taken overall the dramatic and emotional range of Beckett is greater than Pinter’s

and Ionesco’s. There is a sense of the affirmative in his interpretation of men with one

another, which one does not find in the other two dramatists. He also presents the terror

and despair inherent in a breakdown of meaningful relationship between people. He

enlarges the area of his concern by relating to a variety of themes and dimensions of a

single situation. In so doing, he indicates an ability to transcend the bleakness of the

modem dilemma.

Each dramatist, therefore, presents a critique of modem society by showing the

total collapse o f communication. The technique used is that of evolving a theme about

communication by presenting a series of seemingly disjointed speeches. The

accumulative effect of these speeches is a devastating commentary on the failure of

communication in modem society. In all of these playwrights’ dramas, the sense of

repetition, the circular structure, the static quality, the lack of cause and effect, and the

lack of apparent progression; all suggest the sterility and lack of values in the modem

world.

Hence, this brief survey of English and French theatre before and after the Second

World War helps us to show how Existentialism as a philosophical outlook attracted

modem writers, particularly the absurd dramatists. The French theatre gave impetus to

the absurd dramatists who, for the first time, tumed their wrath against the conventional

drama and over tumed twenty-five centuries traditions. However, the credit of bringing

the philosophical movement into public arena goes to Sartre and, later on, to Beckett.
ENDNOTES

'w .R Hudson. An Introduction to the Study o f Literature, (London: George G. Harrap and Co.
Ltd. 1910), p.37.
^ w i s C. Henry (Ed) Best Quotationsfor All Occasions, (New Yoiit: Fawcett, 1991), p,364.

^Alija Izetbegovic; Islam between East and West, (Indianapolis; American Trust Publication,
1984), P-55.

"*T.S. Eiiot, hiMemoriam in Selected (London; Faber & Faber Ltd 1960), p.33.

^Edward Welch, The Origin and Development o f his phenomenology. The philosophy of Edmund
Husserl, (New York Columbia University Press, 1%3), p. 391.
^Mrs. Grene,^ Critique o f Existentialism, Dreadful Freedom, (Chicago, Chicago University Press,
1963), p. 4.
^Janies Wahl, Being and Nothing^iess, A Short History of Existentiahsm, (New Yoik
Philosophical Libraiy, 1950) p. 143.
^Martin Esslin, The Theatre o f the Absurd, ( New York, Doubleday, 1961), p.44.
9
Ibid; Preface p. ix.

________ , History o f the Theatre (USA; AUyn and Bacon, Inc, 1964), p.647.

Small is Beautiful, (Quoted by Schumacher, (London, 1973) p.470.

^^Samuel Beckett, Waitingfor Godot, (Lahore, CoUege Book Depot), p.2L

^^Ibid;p.l8.

*"*Ibid; p.21.

^®Ibid; p.68.

*A.C War4
^^A.C. W Twentieth Century English literature (CSfieat Britain; Butler aini TaniKr Ltd, 1964),
p. 14L
CHAPTER 3
Breakdown of Language in Waitingfor Godot ^

Huxley once declared the modem society as “the society of unrelatedness” as it has lost

all common causes and concerns which previously were running like a common theme

among the people. But due to devastating Wars and other subsequent destructions, people

lost faith in, for example, religion which was a great binding force for the masses. When

common faith was lost, a culture of isolation and individualism developed which

ultimately resulted in the breakdown of all human communication. As a result, language,

with its cultural and,religious baggage, was reduced to redundant tool, which did not

convey or communicate anything, as people themselves grew unwilling to do so

Words in Beckett's plays are used with an economy and precision, which enable

complexity of feeling and state to be expressed because everything superfluous has been

removed. Waiting fo r Godot implies the despondency of waiting for something, which

never happens, and also the hope, which nourishes each succeeding day. Between hope

and despondency lies the state of unknowing, out of which the tension of the action rises.

What Beckett puts impression on the reader is not essentially different to that of

Shakespeare does in Hamlet.

The problems raised in our minds by Beckett's plays are problems of language, of

what the language of theatre can do and say and of what it cannot say or do. How to write

such a ‘literature of the unword’ was Beckett’s major concern. In 1932 Mauthner
 \\ '

provided an answer by reducing knowledge Uo speaking. He suggested that the*^Witer

could merely allow characters to speak and their words would become signs, not of ^

knowledge, but rather of the failure of knowledge. His words as a whole are meaningless.

They do not convey any sense or ideas as sentences or an organic whole but their

repetition, scarcity, emptiness, confusion and disorderliness are meaningful. Beckett

referred to the technique of his using words as “The chum of stale words”* in his poem

Casccmdo (1979).

Although his characters talk of the most niundane things; food, clothing, weather,

and sex but they are always aware that their words are used only to kill time, to ward off

silence. Even the two tranips in Waiting fo r Godot^ for all their resemblance to the

average man, are fiilly aware of their inability^ to gain insight into the world through the

words they use. “That wasn’t such a bad little canter^’ ^ Estragon says after a particularly

long exchange. Despite their awareness that they are not being understood, most of

Beckett’s characters still desire a listener, someone with whom they can speak. They all

share a fear of isolation and a desire to be heard.

Peter Hall, a director of Waiting for Godot for the first production in
London in 1955, holds the view about the play that the two plays which
really break throu^ in the 50’s theatre were, first Waiting for Godot,
then Look Back in Anger. Waiting for Godot is the only play, which
made a dramatic use of boredom. Samuel Beckett also holds the same
view that you do not bore the audience enou^. You should bore them
while making wait and pauses longer. Undoubt^y, he has broadened
theatrical language the sense of time, the sense of waiting, the sense of
hopelessn^, the sense of boredom had never actually been used on the
stage before, to create tension. ^

Beckett was a practitioner of what could be termed as ‘anti-literature’, a literary

style that developed paradoxically, by distorting its formal structure. Language no longer
conveyed meaning. It took the form of a game. And, as a result, the possibilities*of

speech and writing lost its meaning. He is disillusioned and holds that art, in this age,

cannot be art unless it is wrested from impossibility and absurdity. He nearly reduces

literature to mathematics where each and every notion is interrelated to the other and

omissions can mar the whole. Language has become void; therefore, words can only

demonstrate their emptiness.

Overall, if we see the play structurally and theatrically, our notion of Beckett’s

being master of words gets stronger. However, the language of Waiting fo r Godot

probably makes more allusions to the theatre than any other of Beckett’s play. The

characters often interact through speech as movement, gesture and visual eflfects which

counter point their dialogue. Beckett’s verbal art emerges from an extreme view of

language: a severance of words from either object, a denial that language can represent or

express the outside world (i.e. the world in addition to theatre). It also shows his urge for

words, which indicate silence. The total irripact of the play is richer, more concrete and

multi-vocal than might be expected from Beckett’s virtual negation and denial of

language. Reading of the play shows that Beckett’s dramatic and verfjal art embodies

precise images of action and a far-reaching vision of human existence.

Drama, like painting, has its existence as a public thing, and Beckett’s work in the

development and production of his plays reflect his early concern for the hapless amateur.

Beckett, the dramaturge aims for an art stripped of routine work. His general attitude is

that he is to achieve something. This task - demanded the avoidance of production.

 . \
performance and a professional career. On one occasion he remarked that “The best

possible play is one in which there are no actors, only the text”."^ and a number of

statements make clear his distaste for discussions of his characters’ motivation.

Beckett’s language is so bare and functional that he seems to devalue it; yet this is

only a surface impression, for only a real master of language could be content to use

words so simple and austere. In fact, some critics of twentieth century poetic drama go to

the extent of saying that the best poetic drama o f the century is to be found in Beckett’s

prose plays.

Unlike some other modem dramatists, Beckett has never cared to explain or to

talk about his work. In fact he has said that his favourite art form is one, which would

give expression to the fact that "there is nothing to express, nothing with which to

express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express,

together with the obligation to express.”^ Beckett’s art is revolutionary.

Although some critics have expressed only a sense of bafflement about Waiting

fo r Godot, many have praised it as a revolutionary contribution to modem drama. Martin

Esslin, for example, appreciates the basically religious quality of the play. He holds the
*
convincing view that the action of the play is not about Godot but about waiting. In fact

an earlier version of the play carried the^^tle Waiting. James Fraser prefers to regard

Waitingfo r Godot as a modem morality play, comparable to Everyman and The Pilgrim's

Progress. One critic suggested that the title of Beckett’s play is derived from Odet’s
 \
Waiting fo r Lefty. A still more convincing suggestion is that the title owes its origin’to

Simon Weil’s play Waiting fo r God, especially because Beckett knew Weil’s work well
\
and his own play appeared a year after Weil’s. Another claimant for the derivation of the

title is Tom Kromer’s Waiting fo r Nothing. Some of the dialogues in this work closely

resemble those in Beckett’s play.

Beckett's play heralded a revolution to come and the impact was immense.

However, barely a decade later its principles had become an accepted part of theatre

language. Only Beckett has taken the term anti-theatre literally; and in doing so he has

pushed this line to its ultimate extension. With Beckett's late work, the limits of avant-

garde drama have been touched.

Beckett's characters are tied together by a fear of being left entirely alone, and

they therefore cling to one last hope of establishing some kind of commiinication. His

plays give the impression that man is totally lost in a disintegrating society, or as in

Endgame that man is left alone after society has disintegrated. In Waiting fo r Godot, the

two derelicts are seen conversing in a repetitive and fragmented dialogue. This dialogue

possesses an illusory, haunting effect. While they are waiting for Godot, they do not have

any knowledge about, who will bring them some communication about salvation, death,
■‘X .
and an impetus for living and a reason for dying. No one knows, and the safest thing to

say is that the two are probably waiting for someone or something, which will give them

an impetus to continue living or, at least, something, which will give meaning and

direction to their lives.

 Beckett is a writer, who is preoccupied with sounds and verbal behaviour*^In

Waiting fo r Godot, it is possible to establish a typology of different ways in which rules

of language and s p ^ h are manipulated. In order to understand the ways Beckett

manipulates rules of discourse, it is necessary to view language in the conte?ct of its use.

The disintegration of language is central in Beckett’s drama and there is a steady

progression until in a play sucli di&Not I the audience is fortunate to be able to make out

anything of what is said on stage. Light and bells take on the force of a character. In

Waiting fo r Godot, however, we are only at the beginning of this process, taking up

dramatic language on the brink of disintegration, where most traditional playwrights

would end their experiments. Dialogue ranges from earthly and realistic to the mysterious

and disturbing.

Niklaus Gessner has listed some different modes of disintegration of language to

be found in the play. They include misunderstanding, double entendre, monologues,

cliches, repetition, inability to find the right word and telegraphic style. As Martin Esslin

points out, “In a purposeless world that has lost their ultimate objective, dialogues, like

actions, becomes a mere game to pass tlie time.” ^

First, I would like to discuss misunderstanding, which happens in almost the

whole play. It arises when there is an incongruous disparity between the two elements of

the implied comparison. The language disorder acts on the two axis of language in

different ways. In the following example a certain semantic expectation is built up at the
beginning of the sentence but by the end of the sentence what was expected logically is

not said; instead, the sentence changes direction.

Estragon asks Pozzo to sit down: “Come come, take a seat I beseech you, you’ll

get pneumonia.” ^ One expects that Pozzo should take a seat not to get tired to rest but

instead Estragon says it is to void pneumonia.

Estragon and Vladimir, in the whole play, face a situation of misunderstanding,

which led them to absurdity. *

Estragon: Could I be of any help?

Vladimir: If you asked me to help.
Estragon: What?
Vladimir: If you askol me to sit down.
Estragon: Would that be a help?
Vladimir I fancy so.

Double entendre is excessively used in the play. It is a French term which

signifies an ambiguity. A word or expression so used that it can have two meanings; one

of which is usually frivolous or bawdy. It is also used excessively throughout the play.

Estragon compares Lucky with a grampus (a sea creature which blows out air and water)

while he is shown as a human being. Again Lucky is bleeding, Pozzo consider it is a

good sign after sometime. The feature enhances the effect of confiision in the play, which

are essential elements of absurdity.

Estragon: He’s puffing like a grampus.

 Vladimir ... He’s bleeding!
Pozzo: It’s a good sign. 10

Monologues also contribute in the absurdity of the play. It is a term used in a

number of senses, with the basic meaning of a single person speaking alone- with or

without an audience. In this play, most notable monologues are Lucky’s speech and

Vladimir’s song. It is noteworthy that monologues mostly present the bleak picture of the

play as in Waitingfo r Godot.

Lucky delivers a long speech in the manner of a robot. It has no punctuation of

any kind. Many words, phrases and sentences are repeated. Several of the words are

stammered out. He repeated many words and phrases like ‘I resume’, ‘for unknown, but

time will tell’, ‘but not so fast’, ‘in short’, ‘in brief, ‘in a word’, etc. Some words have

their syllables lengthened out, include, ‘quaquaquaqua’ (a repetition of the Latin word

‘qua’) and ‘Acacacacademy’ (lengthening out the word Academy). Yet the speech does

have sense. He speaks of the cruelty and helplessness of man in spite of the outward

progress. One of the most haunting images which he uses in the later part of his speech is

that of the skull at Cannemara and the stones. None of the three listeners can stand the

speech.*

Vladimir’s song is another good example of monologue. Second Act begins with

Vladimir’s song though it is a rather depressing song. It is a song about a dog who stole a

crust of bread from the kitchen. As a result, the cook beat the dog to death. Vladimir is
singing song to himself just to pass time. For one thing, Vladimir begins on too high a

note and has to bring it down and begin singing new. Secondly, he halts and apparently

recollects the rest of the song a number of times and then resumes. *

Cliche is usually known for a trite and over-used expression, which is lifeless. A

very large number of idioms have become cliches through excessive use. These

expressions are also used in the play. They have become lifeless because of

inappropriate, absurd and excessive use of stale words and sentences. For example,

Vladimir says, “You went to get rid of him?” five times. The excessive use makes it

monotonous: In Lucky’s speech, cliches like “quaquaquaqua” and “Acacacacademy of

Anthropopopometry” etc make it absurd. *

r
Let us now discuss the use of repetition in the play. Repetition is an essential

unifying element in nearly all poetry and much prose. It may consist of sounds, particular

syllables and words, phrases, stanzas, metrical patterns, ideas, allusions and shapes. The

repetition of sounds and expression is a comic device because it confers a machine- like

rigidity to the speech o f the characters but at the same time, it attracts attention to the

phonic properties of language.

There are numerous repetitions in the course of the play, which makes it

monotonous to r^ d and feel. These ^repetitions suggest the repetition of different

incidents of life. It tends towards the absurdity of life. The following examples will better
serve this notion.

Estragon: Then ^ e u .
Pozzo: Adieu
Vladimir Adieu
Pozzo; Adieu
Silence. No one moves.
Vladimir: Adieu
Pozzo: Adieu
Estragon: Adieu
Silence.
Pozzo: And thank you.
Vladimir Thank you.
Pozzo: Not at all.
Estragon: Yes yes.
Pozzo: No no.
Vladimir Yes yes.
Estragon: No no
Silence. “
and

Vladimir Wait...
Bye bye bye bye
Bye bye-
Estragin: (looking up angrily). Not so loid!
Vladimir: Bye bye bye bye
Bye bye bye bye
Bye bye bye bye
Byebye... ^

In these repetitions, cliches and trite remarks are also used as ‘adieu’, ‘thank you’,

‘no’, ‘bye’ etc. These cliches also serve the same idea, that is, boredom and weariness of

the repetitions of an absurd existence.

These repetitions are of sultry kinds, sentences are repeated by one character or

the both, and sometimes words, sometimes sounds.*

Estragon: What am I to say?

Vladimir say, I am happy.
Estragon: 1 am happy.
Vladimir So am h
Estragon: So am I.
Vladimir We are happy.
Estragon: We arehaj^...^'*
 . . . . .V
In the play, the manipulation of the rules o f discourse has two results. First, the

characters do iwt use language accordir^ to commonly held rules, rather in incongruous

ways. Second, lai^:uage does not establish communication between the characters; thus^^

these devices present them as absurd. At the linguistic level, Beckett shows an awareness

of discourse structure. Thus, the reader is able to understand how he is modifying this

structure.

The characters of the play become irrelevant and absurd at many places,
V

Sometimes they do not find proper words to utter and sometimes they use pleonasm also.

This absurdity and irrelevancy gives some meaning to the theme o f meaninglessness.

Some o f the instances are analyzed to make its purpose clear. For exanq)le in the

following instance, the repetition o f “What did we do yesterdayT’ and Vladimir’s pause

after “Why7’ contributes to the same meaninglessness as mentioned above.*

Estragon: What did we do yesterday?

Vladimir What did we do yesterday?
Estragon: Yes.
Vladimir: Why.., (Angrily). Nothing Is certain when you’re about.

The following example is one o f the best examples, which shows the characters

inability to rationalise their being. Both o f them hurl queries to each other and find no

answer, rather each of them finds the next question. They are talking nonsense, which is

also one of the motife of the play.

Estragon: (anxious). And we?

Vladimff: I beg your pardon?
Estragon: I said. And we?
Vladtrain I don’t und^tand.
Estragon: Where do we come in?
Vladimir Come in?
 Estragon: Take your time.
Vladimir Come in? On your hands and knees.
Estragon; As bad as that?

Another example is here shows their inability to find appropriate word at a time.

Each and every character of the play feels this inability at several occasions. It shows

their inability to give some meaning to their existence.

Pozzo; What is it, my good man?

Estragon: Er... you’vefinished withthe... er... you don’
need the... er... bones, sir?

There are mariy instances of telegraphic style: making signals as by glance or

gesture; conveyed by a sign or signal. Words are used meagrely and economically. We

see telegraphic sign, symbols words in the utterances of all the characters especially in

Pozzo. He gives orders to Lucky in monosyllabic short words to perform different

deeds.*

Pozzo; Stand backl... Think, pig!... Stop!... forward!...

Stop!... Think!
Lucky: On the other hand with regard to-
Pozzo: Stop!... Back!... Stop!... Turn!...Think!
and

Pozzo: ... Forward! ... Back! ... Turn!...

Done it! He can walk.

Registers are different types or styles of language in different situations language

for sports, familiar language formal language, poetical language and so forth. Pozzo, for

instance, speaks in very lyrical terms of the night, of torrents of white and red lights, of

the sky which loses its efRjlgence, of a veil of gentleness and peace and then adds “That

is how it is on this bitch of an earth.”

 A recurrent device employed by Beckett is the use of series of words that are

related to each other in one way or the other. When this series appear in the text, it seems

that a spring is uncoiling. Pozzo has lost his pipe and we hear;

What have I done with my pipe?

What can I have done with tlat briar?
He’s lost his dudeen.
I have lost my kapp and Peterson!

Last word of all the lines refers to the same object and they form a kind of

paradigm. Here a paradigm, namely the different ways to name a pipe, is exploited in

order to create a verbal pattern.

Pauses serve as an enlightening effect of the characters to bring the inability of

understanding anything to light. The characters are oblivious of many things. Sometimes

they forget each other’s names; sometimes they forget the purpose for which they are

there. Beckett beautifully shows it through the breakdown of sequence that their phrases

switch off topics and subjects and mostly at questions and exclamations. In the second

act, Vladimir argues with Estragon about ‘Macon country’. Vladimir says that he has not

visited the ‘Macon country’ and to give his clarification he has to breakdown his

sequence many times.

Vladimir But we were together, I could swear to it!

picking gr^)es for a man called... (he snaps his
fmger) ... can’t think of the name of the man, at
a place called... {snaps hisfinger)... can’t think
of the man of the place, do you not remember? “

At another place, Vladimir and Estragon are talking about waiting in a sluggish

manner. Vladimir talks with much pauses than Estragon in the whole play which shows

his uncertainty in his own.

 Vladimir TTiis evening.., I was saying...1 was saying..,
Estragon: I’m not a historian. '
Vladimir; Wait... weembraced... we werehapi^...
Happy... what do we do now that we’re happy...
go on waiting... waiting... let me think...
it’s coming... goon waiting... now that we’re
happy... let me see... ahlThetree!^

Here is another example of conversation between Vladimir and Estragon, which

beautifully sums up their inability to find words, continue an idea and immediate

breakdown of the words;

Vladimir. ... There... there. .. Didi is there... don’t be

afraid...
Estragon: Ah!
Vladimir There... there... it’s all over.
Estragon” I was falling-
Vladimir It’s all over, it’s all over.
Estragon; I was on top of a- ^

Beckett manipulates language to his own purpose. The language is deviated fi-om

the conventional rules of grammar, structure, meaning, format etc. The first thing that

strikes our eyes is the graphological deviations and manipulations. The length of the lines

is accentuated at certain places and it leads a stylist to think it from a new dimension.

The following dialogue takes the form of a pyramid. Vladimir and Estragon are

talking about Godot who is a source of hope for them. Their hope fluctuates throughout

the play. In this specific stance, their hope from a point of pyramid is taking its ground

(basis). The speech'is elongated gradually just as a pyramid slopes down and increases in

its base area.

Vladimir Possibly.
Estragon; And soon.
Vladimir; The poiiit is-
EsUagon; Until he comes.
Vladimir; You’re merciless.
25
EsUagon; We came here yesterday.
 The following utterances are going in pairs, so are their ideas, which are going

hand in hand. Beckett must not have thought about this perception of his text. Somebody

could have disagreed with it but with an ample proof of it.

Estragon: What am I to say?

Vladimir; Say, I am happy.
Estragon: I am happy.
Vladimir; So am I.
Estragon: So am I.
Vladimir: We are happy.

The following utterances are in lines substantially different in their length i.e. one

line is too large than the other in length. Both the characters disagree with each other

though seemingly agree with each other.

Vladimir When you seek your hear.

Estragon; You do.
Vladimir That prevents you from finding.
Estragon: It does.
Vladimir That prevents you from thinking.
Estragon: You think all the same.
Vladimir No, no, impossible.
Estiagon: Th^’s the idea, let’s contradict each other
Vladimir: Impossible.
Estragon: You think so?

Here the characters are fluctuating between hope and hopelessness. It is identical

to the format of the lines. Sometimes they get sure about Godot and sometimes doubtfiil.

their mental state seems to be that of a conflict between belief and disbelief in their sole

hope, Godot.*

Estragon: It is Godot?
Vladimir At last! (He goes towards the heap.) Reinforcement
at last!
Pozzo: Help!
Estragon: Is it Godot?
Vladimir: We were beginning to weaken. Now we’re sure to
see the evening out.
 Pozzo: Help!
Estragon: Do you hear him? “

Beckett is obliged to render graphological features to the text of Waiting fo r

Godot The wavering of both the characters, Didi and Gogo, gets intense at some places

as it is beautifully displayed in the following lines. The confiision and disagreement

among characters is indicated through the interaction of Pozzo, Estragon and Vladimir.

Vladimir {inspecting the sJ^). Seven o’clock...

eight o’clock...
Estragon: That depends what time of year it is.
Pozzo: Is it evening?
Silence, Vladimir and Estragon scrutinize the
sunset
Estragon: It’s rising.
Vladimir; Inqx)ssible.
Estragon: P e r h ^ it’s the dawn.
Vladimir: Don’t be a fool. It’s the west over there.

One of the salient features of this play is questioning. In the first act, three

hundred and eleven and in the second act two hundred and seventy-four questions are

asked. It shows their curiosity to know about the situation as well as their hopelessness.

Estragon and Vladimir in the whole play exhibit this sort of mental state.

Estragon: And what about it?

Vladimir {letting go the leg). Where are your boots?
Estragon: I must have thrown them away.
Vladimir When?
Estragon: I don’t know.
Vladimir Why? “

It is hard not to be amazed that this is the first play of a writer who has achieved

critical acclaim for his novels MoUoy and Malone Dies, since he has mastered all the

techniques of the stage. Each word acts as the author wishes, touching us or making us

laugh. Even in his early plays, which still use conventional dramatic idioms, if only

ironically, surface elements are increasingly stripped away. Physical movement becomes
restricted. Dialogue gives way to monologue. In the second half of Waiting fo r Godot,

instead of dancing Lucky can only stumble and collapse.

31
“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, and it’s awfiil.” This line,

spoken by one of the characters in the play, provides its best summary. Waitingfo r Godot

is a masterpiece that will cause despair for men in general and for playwrights in

particular.

The reader knows well enough from the beginning that Godot will never come.

The dialogue is studded with words that have no meaning for normal ears; repeatedly the

play announces that it has come to a stop, and will have to start again; never does it

reconcile itself with reason.

The musical use of laiiguage for poetic resonance is presented in the verbal

pattern of Waitingfo r Godot.

Estragon: All the dead voices.

Vladimir; They make a noise like wings.
Estragon; Like leaves.
Vladiinir; Like sand.
Eslrdgon: Like leaves.
Silence.
Vl^limir: They all speak together
Estragon; Each one to iteelf.
Silence...
Vladimir: They make a noise like feathers.
Estragon; Like leaves.
Vladimir; Like ashes.
Estragon: Like leaves.
Long silence.

In Beckett’s early plays, such passages are interludes. His later and shorter pieces

are almost wholly orchestral, substituting musical qualities for drama - as in Ghost Trio.
Here the musical from is transposed into the viewer's perspectrves, as well as the

structure of the scenes.

In Waitingfo r Godot, Gogo and Didi also have an interaction or commumcational

society but the problem is that both the characters are unable to understand or release

their deep-seated drive towards legitimacy in Godot. When the play starts we see in the

beginning how this belief in a static society displaces any postmodern notion o f a modem

society:

Eslragon: Let’s go.

Vladimir: We can’t
Estrj^on: Why not?
Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot.
Estragon: Ah

This sequence occurs several times through the play and when this sequence

breaks down, they refer to the authenticity of Godot For example, we see Pozzo aiKl

Lucky at the very close o f &st act exchanging views Le.

Pozzo: ...Adieu
Long silence
Vladimir; That passed the time
Estragon: It would have passed in any case.
Vladimir: Yes, but not so rapidly.
Pause
Estragon : What do we do now?
Vladimir I don’t know.
Estragon: Let’s go.
Vladmir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We*re waiting fw Godot. ^

In Beckett’s play, the pattern of waiting is an ingenious combination of

expectations and uncertainties without any end. The expectations o f E sti^o n and

Vladimir seem to be both limitless and irrational and they do iMt change their conditioa

However, the protagonists, and the re fe rs are being kept going playfiil variations in the
pattern of waiting, with uncertainties of meaning and destination. For example, earlier we

hear Vladimir’s speculations on the traditional hope of being saved.

h.
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... {be searchesfor
the contrary o f saved)... damned.
Estragon: Savwi from w^t?
Vladimir: Hell.

In Lucky’s speech, Beckett attempts to show that as Lyotard characterizes the post

modem condition, “there is no possibility that language games can be totalized in any

metadiscourse”.^ Through Lucky’s speech, Beckett emphasizes new moves and even

new rules for language games, having transgressed and disrupted the old rules and

limits.*

According to the ruling paradigms, much of this postmodern knowledge (Lucky’s

knowledge) may seem incomprehensible, but this is precisely the point because the

postmodern drive is to push beyond the limits of the old paradigms. Vladimir and

Estragon are at least on the right track when Vladimir says, “This is getting really

insignificant.” to which Estragon replies “Not enough.”

These lines, though, are not the only place in the play where we see Vladimir and

Estragon on the verge of a Lucky- like postmodern breakdown. For example, near the end

of the play after the boy has told Vladimir and Estragon that again, Godot will not come

today and we have this exchange:

 Estiagon: Oh yes let’s go far aw ^ from here.
Vladimir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir We have to come back tomorrow.
Estragon What for?
Vladimir To w’ait for Godot...
Estragon And if we droR)ed \nm7 (Pause) If drc^^jed him?
Vladimir He’d punish us. (Silence. He looks at the tree.)
Everything’s dead but the tree. ^

Here we see Vladimir and Estragon on the verge of a deconstructive

breakthrough, but again their dependence on the discourse of Godot holds them back. In

this passage, we see the violent nature of the limitations that a belief in Godot places on

Vladimir and Estragon, if they ‘dropped him’; they feel he would punish them. Vladimir

and Estragon cannot leave the place they are in or think beyond the limits of a static,

because of the rigid, violent limits placed on both their actions and their thoughts. Their

minds are slaves to Godot in the same way as Lucky’s body is slave to Pozzo.

It would not say that this analysis falsifies the play: it is a pure and simple

suppression o f the play. It would be extremely sorry to say after reading what this play

wants to convey. Waiting fo r Godot is something unique work, which present the real

picture of the society in a distinctive way. The extraordinary success o f Samuel Beckett is

primarily due to the artistry with which he gives life and presence to waiting through

language.
ENDNOTES

^Samuel Beckett’s Cascando and other short Dramatic Pieces, Collected Poems in EnglMi and
French, (NewYoik, 1977),p.9.
^Samuel B eck ^ Waitingfor Godot, (Lahore, College Book Depot), p.65

^Extract from interview on the BBC third programme ( April 14,1961)

\awrence Miller, Samuel Beckett: The Expressive Dilemma, (SL Martin’s Press, New
York. 1992), p. 6
®Ibid.,p.l3

^Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, (New York, Doubleday, 1961), p. 86

^Samuel Beckett, Waitingfor Godot, (Lahore, College Book Depot), p. 36

*lbid; p.36

^Ibid; p.30

*% d; p.32

“ ibid; p.31

*^Ibid; p. 47

’^Ibid; p.70

^'^Ibid; p.60

**Ibid; p. 14

‘^ id ; p. 19

^’ibid; p.26

^®Ibid; p.42

^’'ibid; p.46

^%id;p.38

^^Ibid; p.34, 35

^^Ibid; p.62

^Ibid; p.65

^lbid;p.70

^^Ibid; p. 14

^^id; p.60

^^Ibid; p. 64
^ i d ; p.77

^^Ibid; p.85

^V d;p .67

^^Ibid;p.41

^^Ibid; p-62,63

^^Ibid; p. 14

^'‘ibid; p.48

^^id; p.l2

^^Aim
Aim Pauolucci’s
Pauo Pirandello and the Waiting Stage o f the Absurd^ hdodem Drama, (London,
1980), p. 43
^^SamiKl
Samuel Beckett,
B< Waitingfor Godot, (Lahore, College Book Depot), p.68

^*Ibid; p.93
 CONCLUSION
The mystery of human predicament and dilemma has baffled the minds of many writers

of all ages and places. Often the writers are unable to solve this mystery and finish up

without reaching the conclusion. A successful writer is the one who finds out the ultimate

reality and truth through constant trial and suffering. Sublime art can not be produced

without bearing ‘the whips and scorns of time’. This requires a lot of sensitivity and deep

perception on the part of an artist. Beckett stands out as one of the most sensitive and

successful artist of English Literature.

In the previous chapters of this dissertation we have seen how the twentieth

century world, especially European societies had to undergo catastrophic upheavals,

courtesy selfishness of politicians, resulting into wars and destructions. These societies’

faced tragic social, economic and especially moral changes in their age-old structure. The

European people were unable to cope with these changes as they were|a sort of abortion

of human history. Therefore, they confined themselves into their individual cocoons and

thus lost this very basic human trait of communication with other fellow humans. Much

of the 20^ century art and literature reflects this tragic change in the perceptions of

common people.

The modem writer is intensely conscious of his age and brings into focus the

dilemma of modern man. All genres of literature, especially post-war drama, clearly

portray the chaos and anxiety of the new complex age. It would be safe to assume that

Beckett’s works are essentially parables or allegories of the human condition. Like all
human beings, Beckett has also buih up a personal system to make sense of the mysteries

of existence. At the same time, Beckett is also a writer, a creative artist, something more

than merely ‘human’ in the standard manner that we live and die. As such, he thinks,

feels and reacts more sensitively and intensely; is able to evolve patterns of thought and

emotive responses that are livelier than our usual reactions.

Beckett’s plays are not easily intelligible in the first reading. It requires pensive

mood and agile mind. The garrulous unkempt vagabonds in Waiting fo r Godot passing

their time in meaningless activities such as hat swapping, shoe-off shoe-on game,

abusing each other- these are all anomalous situations. The play reflects the absurdity

of life but in a different way. However, ambiguous situations and dialogues make

Beckett comparatively more striking than other playwrights. Through the use of various

dramatic devices and linguistic techniques, he has succeeded in communicating the

incommunicable to those who themselves are unable to communicate meaningflilly.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnard, Robert. A Short History of English Literature. Great Britain: Page Bros. (Norwich) Ltd., 1984.
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot, College Book Depot, Lahore, 2002.
______________ . Collected Shorter Plays, Grove Press, New York, 1984.
Bernard, G.C., Samuel Beckett: A New Approach, Dent, London, 1970.
Bery Fletcher and others., A Student’s Guide to the Plays o f Samuel Beckett, University Paik, Pena State
Press University Press, 1973.
Brown R u ^ l, Johrt Modem British Dramatists, Twentieth Century View Series. New Delhi: Prentice Hall
Private Ltd., 1980.
Cohn Ruby, ed.. Casebook on Waitingfor Godot, Macmillan Pubhsher, 1987.
Daiches David. A Critical History o f English Literature. Great Britain; Mandarin Papeiback, I960.
Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 1982
Esslin Martin, ed., Samuel Beckett: A collection o f Critical Essays, Prentice HaU, Englewood Cliffe, New
Jersey, 1965.
______________ . “Godot and His Children: The Theatre of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter”. Modem
British Dramatists. Ed. John Russel Brown. New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India Private Ltd., 1978.
______________ . The Theatre o f the Absurd, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1968.
Fletcher, Beiyl S., et al. A Student's Guide to the Plays o f Samuel Beckett London: Faber and Faber Ltd.,
1978.
Galloway, David D. “Absurd”. The Encyclopaedia Americana.U.S. A: Grolier Incorporated, 1984.
Glicksberg, C., The Self in Modem Literature, University Park, Penn. State Press University Press, 1963.
Kemer, Hugh., A Reader's Guide to Samuel Beckett, Thames and Hudson, London, 1973.
Knowlson James., Damned to Fame: The Life o f Samuel Beckett. London Bloomsbuiy Publishing, 1996.
Natanson, Maurice.,^ Critique o f Jean-PaulSartre's Ontology. Netherlands: Martinu Nijhoff, 1973.
Olson, R(^rt G. An Introduction to Existentialism. New York: Dwer Publication, Inc., 1961.
Qadir, C.A., ed. The World o f Philosophy. Lahore: The Sharif Presentation Volume Committee, 1965.
Russell, Bertrand., A History o f Western Philosophy New Yoik: Simon and Schuster. 1972.
Sartre, Jean-Paul., Being and Nothingness New Yoik. Philc^phical Library, 1978.
Schumacher, Claude. “The Theatre of the Absurd”. The Encyclopaedia o f Literature and Criticism. Ed.
Martin Coyle et al. England: Richard Clays Ltd., 1990.
Szondi, Peter. Theory o f the Modem Drama. U.K: Polity Press, Cambridge, 1987.
Ward, A.C. Twentieth Century English Literature. Great Britain: Butler and Tanner Ltd., 1964.
 Appendix

EXAMPLES OF BREAKDOWN OF LANGUAGE IN

WAITING FOR GODOT

(I) REPETITION:

Pozzo: {terrifying voice). I am Pozzo! {Silence,) Pozzo!

{Silence.) Does that name mean nothing to you?
{Silence.) I say does that name" mean nothing to
you?
(Actl,p.22)

and Estragon; Why doesn’t he put down his bags?

Estragon; Why doesn't he put down his bags?
(Act \ p.29)

and Vladimir; You want to get rid of him? (Five times)

(Act I, p.31,32)

and Estragon: Wait!

Vladimir: Wait!
Estragon: Wait!
(Actl,p.41)

and Pozzo: Don’t let him go!... Don’t move...

Hold him... Don’t let him go...
Hold him tight... Now! You can let him go.
(Act I, p.41)
and Estragon: I suppose I did. But I don’t know them.
Vladimir; Yes you don’t know them.
Estragon; No 1 don’t know them.
Vladimir; We know them...
(Act I, p.48)

and Vladimir; Now?... {Joyous.) There you are again...

{Indifferent) There we are again .. {Gloomy.)
There I am again.
(Act n, p.59)

and Estragon; Godot.

Vladimir; But it’s not Godot.
Estragon; It’s hot Godot?
Vladimir; It’s not Godot.
(Act n, p. 78)

and Estragon; What do we do know?

Vladimir; While waiting.
Estragon; While waiting.
Silence.
Vladimir; We could do our exercises.
Estragon; Our movements.
Vladimir; Our elevation.
Estragon; Our relaxation.
Vladimir; Our elongation.
Estragon; Our relaxation.
Vladimir; To warm us up.
Estragon; To calm us down.
(Act II, p. 76)
(U) TELEGRAPHIC STYLE:

Pozzo: On! on!

Estragon: On!
Vladimir: On!
Lucky moves off.
(Act I, P. 47)

and Pozzo: I need a running start... Stand back!... On! On!

Estragon: On!
Vladimir: On!
Pozzo: Faster! ... On! On! .. Stool! ... Adieu!
(Act I, p.47)

and Vladimir; Moron!

Estragon: VeiwnI
Vladimir: Abortion!
Estragon: Morpion!
Vladimir: Sewer-ratl
Estragon: Curate!
(Act II, P.75)

(HI) INABILITY TO FIND RIGHT WORDS;

Estragon: {undertone). Is that him?

Vladimir: Who?
Estragon: {trying to remember the name). E r...
Vladimir: Godot?
(Act I, p.22)
and Pozzo: (to Vladimir). Are you alluding to anything in particular?
Vladimir: (stvtteringly resolute). To treat a man.,, (gesture
 towards Lucky)... like that... I think that...
no... a human being... no... it’s a
scandal!
(Act I, p.27)

and Vladimir; But we could have done without it.

Estragon: Que voulez-vous?
Vladimir: I beg your pardon?
Estragon: Que voulez-vous?
Vladimir: Ah! Que voulez-vous. Exactly.
Silence.
(Act II, p.65)

and Estragon: What am I to do?

Vladimir: Curse me!
Estragon: {after reflection). Naughty!
Vladimir: Stronger!
Estragon: Gonococcus! Spirochaete!
(Act II, p. 73)

(IV) CLICHES:

Vladimir: Hope deferred maketh the something sick, who

said that?
(Act I, p. 10)

and Estragon: On the other hand it might be better to strike the

iron before it freezes.
(A ctl,p.l8)
(V) BREAKDOWN OF SEQUENCE:

Estragon: This is how it is. {he reflects) The bough... the

bough... (Angrily). Use your head, can’t you?
Vladimir; You’re my only hope.
Estragon; (with effort). Gogo light- bough not break-
Gogo dead. Didi heavy- bough break- Didi
Alone..Whereas-
(A ctl,pl7,18)

and Pozzo; ... Thank you gentleman,

and let me. fumbles in his
pocket)... let mie wish you...(fumble)...wish
you... (fumble)... what I have done with my
watch? (Fumbles.)...
(Act I,p.46)

and Pozzo: He can no longer endure my presence. I am

Perhaps not particularly human, ...Good ...What happen in
that case-...-I’m out-...-in that case-...-in that case-...-
what happens in that case to your appointment with this...
Godot...Godot... Godin... anyhow you see who I mean,
who has your future in his hands... at least your immediate
future.
(Actl,p.29)

(VI) GRAPHOLOGICAL DEVLATION;

Estragon; Let’s pass on now to something else, do you

mind?
 Vladimir: I was just going to s u re s t it.
Estragon; But to what?
Vladimir: Ah!
Silence.
Estre^on: Suppose we got up to begun with.
Vladimir: No harm in trying.
They get up.
Estragon; Child’s play.
Vladimir: Simple question of will-power.
Estragon: And now?
Pozzo: Help!
(Act n, p. 84)

and Vladimir: Perhaps we should help him first.

Estragon: To do what?
Vladimir: To get up.
Estragon: He can’t get up?
Vladimir: He wants to get up.
Estragon: Then let him get up.
Vladimir: He can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: I don’t know.
(Act U p . 78)

(v n ) LUCKY’S SPEECH:

Lucky: Given the existence as uttered forth in the public

worics of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal
God quaquaquaqua with white beard
quaquaquaqua outside time without extension
who from the heights of divine apathia divine
athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some
exceptions for reasons unknown but time wiil tell
and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who
for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged
in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if
that continuous and who can doubt it will fire the
firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so
blue still and calm so calm with a calm which
even though intermittent is better than nothing
but not so fast and considering what is more that
as a result of the labour left unfinished crowned
by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of
Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is
established beyond all doubt all other doubt than
that which clings to the labours o f men
that as a result of the labours unfinished of Testew
and Cunard it is established as herein after but not
so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the
public works of Puncher and Wattmaim it is
established beyond all doubt that in view of the
labours of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for
reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left
unfinished it is established what many deny that
man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man
in Essay that man in short that man in brief in
spite of the strides of alimentation and
defection is seen to waste and pine waste and
pine and concurrently simuhaneously what is
more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides
of physical culture the practice of sports such as
tennis football running cycling swimming flying
floating riding gliding conating camogie skating
tennis o f ail kinds dying flying sports of all sorts
autumn simmer winter winter tranis o f all kinds
hockey o f all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a
world I resume and concurrently simultaneously
for reasons unknown to shrink and dwindle in
spite of the tennis I resume flying gliding glof over
nine and eighteen holes tennis o f all sorts in a
word for reasons unknown in Feckham Packham
Fulham Clapham namely concurrently
simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown
but time tell to shrink and dwindle I resume
Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per
caput since the death of Bishop Berkeley being
to the tune of one inch four oxmce per caput
^)proximately by and lai^e more or less to the
nearest decimal good measure round figxires stark
naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a
word for reasons unknown no matter what matter
the fects are there and considering what is more
much more grave that in the light o f the labours
lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is
more much more grave tlmt in the light the light
Hk light o f the labours lost of Steinweg and
Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by
the seas by the riversVunning water running fire
tl^ air is the same and then the earth namely the
air and then the earth in the great cold the great
dark the air and the earth abode o f stones in the
great cold alas alas in the year o f their Lord six
hundred and something the air the earth the sea
 the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the
great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume
for reawns unknown in spite of the tennis the
facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas
on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who
can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the
skull to shrink and waste and concurrently
simultaneously what is more for easons unknown
in spite of the tennis on on the bread the flames
the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on
on the skul the skull the skull the skull in
Connemara in spite of the tennis the labours
abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of
stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned
unfinished the skull the skull in Connermara in
spite of tennis the skull alas the sontes Cunard
{melle, final vociferation) tennis... the stones...
so calm. .. Cunard... unfinished...
(Act I, pp.42, 43,44, 45)

(VIH) VLADIMIR’S SONG

A dog cam in-

Having begun too high he stops, clears his
Throat, resumes.

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, broods, resumes:

Then all the dogs came running

And dug the dog a tomb
And wrote upon the tombstone
For the eyes of dogs to come:

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, broods, resumes:

Then all the dogs came running

And dug the dog a tomb-
He stops, broods. Softly.

And dug the dog a tomb...

(ActHpp, 57, 58)