Drama

Waiting for godot

1. Waiting for Godot as an Absurd play .

All the absurdist plays share the view that man inhabits a universe with Which he is out of
key. It’s meaning is indecipherable and his place is without purpose. Absurdist works rarely
follow a clear plot, Where the characters of the play are victims of forces unknown and out of
their control. Characters express frustration with deep philosophical Question, such as the
meaning of life and death and the existence of God. In Waiting for Godot, the entire play
consists of two acts and Two main characters waiting indefinitely for a so-called individual
(Godot) To arrive, in the play waiting for Godot ther is no plot or story, because it doesn’t tell
any story about the character, they do not go anywhere, they just remain in the same place and
utter meaningless sentences. More over the past of the characters is unknown and they
introduoced to the audience, with only there names and their miserable lives. As well as the
play has no peginning and end. . It starts with a situation and ends with the same of it. In the
end “Waiting” is the key in the play which shows a journey from nothingness to nothingness.

2. The Role of Godot.

Godot is an absent character in Waiting for Godot. He remains one of the Riddles of the play.
The dramatist does not tell us clearly who he is and What he represents. Beckett himself has
said that he himself does not know Who Godot is. He says: “If I know, I would have said in
the play”. So critics Have given several interpretations. One interpretation is that Godot is God.
The word Godot is taken as the weakened form of God. The tramps wait For Godot as people
wait desperately to see God. Both God and Godot do not Meet them. Thus Godot is God or a
mythical human being whose arrival is Expected to change the situation. Godot represents
peace and rest for the Tramps. The tramps expect home and shelter from Godot. They need
him To give them meaning to their life. So, they wait for him. Godot is taken as Death too.
The tramps are waiting for death and will meet death soon. Godot is thought to be silence too.
It is also thought that Godot is all those things for which we wait vainly. He is the hope that
does not achieve.
Vladimir and Estargon.

Estragon and Vladimir, or Gogo and Didi, are the two protagonists of this play. They are the
two tramps who live out their life waiting for man named Godot, believing that Godot will
come to them and he will better their lives. A boy comes at the end of each day and announces
that Godot is not coming, but will come soon. They continue to wait.

Vladimir has the better memory of the two, and seems more intelligent. Vladimir makes the
decisions and remembers significant aspects of their past. He is the one who constantly
reminds Estragon that they must wait for Godot. He tries to encourage Estragon to be
optimistic, and helps him to pass the time. He is philosophical, and more likely to consider
their purpose in being where they are.

Estragon is more child-like. He prefers a carrot to a radish, his feet hurt, and he blames his
boots; he constantly wants to leave, and it must be tell him again and again that he must wait
for Godot. He is willing to beg for money from a stranger (Pozzo), and he eats Pozzo's
discarded chicken bones with no shame. He is emotional, and allows himself to be led by
Vladimir. Beckett suggests that these two characters represent the two sides of a human being
- Vladimir is the mind (intellect), and Estragon is the body (the emotional/physical).

Role of Pozzo and Lucky in Waiting for Godot

The relationship between Pozzo and Lucky in act 1 Pozzo is the master who rules over Lucky.
Lucky is the slave of Pozzo. He is "tied" to Pozzo by a ridiculously long rope in the first act,
and carries Pozzo's bags. pozzo meets Vladimir and Estargon in his way to seal his slave lucky.
Pozzo treats Lucky like he is subhuman, keeping Lucky on a rope as if he is an animal. At one
point, Pozzo even refers to Lucky as a “pig.” Pozzo expects Lucky to follow his commands
without hesitation. If Pozzo wants his coat, Lucky has to bring him his coat.

If Pozzo wants Lucky to hold his whip, even if Lucky’s hands are full, he must figure out a
way to hold his whip. Sometimes, Pozzo dehumanizes Lucky in other ways. Pozzo not only
treats Lucky as a slave but he also views Lucky as a source of entertainment. Pozzo makes
Lucky dance and Think! for his own amusement and for the pleasure of Vladimir and Estragon.
In act 2, the relationship changes somewhat. Lucky still plays the role of Pozzo’s slave or
servant but Lucky appears as a dumb and has a short rope around his neck in the second act.,
more or less, yet Pozzo is not as powerful as he was in act 1. Now, Pozzo is blind. His blindness
leads to an accident that causes Lucky and Pozzo to fall down. That both have fallen suggests
that their relationship is equaling out a bit. The newfound balance in their relationship is further
evinced by the fact that both Pozzo and Lucky suffer abuse from Estragon and Vladimir.

Human suffering.

One of the themes of Waiting for Godot is that suffering is an inseparable part of the human
condition. Vladimir and Estragon suffers intensely and incessantly. Vladimir cannot even
laugh without suffering excruciating pain. Estragon's feet make life a long torture for him They
have nowhere to rest their head. Human condition is the characteristic of suffering from such
misfortunes as meaningless waiting, fake hope, unreliable relationship among them and their
fear of death. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for something unusual to happen, they are
waiting for something which would not happen. They are waiting for the arrival of Godot.
Vladimir and Estragon await for Godot to appear and save them form miseries. Actually they
don't want Godot as a person, but Godot for them is a hope for whom they are waiting, even a
fake hope. They just need something to wait for and this is the worst part of human condition.
Another pair in the play is Lucky and Pozzo. Lucky wants to have a good relationship with his
master Pozzo. For this he has sacrificed everything, even his creativeness more over his self
respect. They both are dependent on each other. Without Lucky, Pozzo is unable to step
forward. Lucky is bound to Pozzo's orders. In fact Lucky teaches Pozzo all the higher values
of life. Beckett has portrayed the picture of men who has invested their hope in a supernatural
mysterious or absent savior, rather than standing on their feet and determining their own fate
as they are supposed to.
Symbols

The tree

The tree, near which Estragon and Vladimir meet, is completely bare of leaves at the
beginning of the play. It represents the only organic element in the setting, and it is dead or
dormant. This tree portrays the world as barren and lifeless, emphasizing the lack of purpose
and meaning the characters must contend with. The apparent growth of leaves on the tree in
Act 2 does nothing to ease the sense of meaninglessness; it only adds to the characters'
uncertainty about the place and the passage of time. The staging is telling in this regard: despite
Vladimir's description of the tree as "covered with leaves," the stage directions specify only
"four or five" leaves, leaving it mostly barren. Some point out that the cross on which Christ
was crucified is sometimes called a tree. Vladimir and Estragon try to hang themselves in the
tree in the Act one.

The road

The road of life, the setting is the same, and the time is the same in both acts. The action takes
place in exactly the same landscape — a lonely, isolated road with one single tree. (In the
second act, there are some leaves on the tree, but from the view point of the audience, the
setting is exactly the same.) The road signifies movement, a set path, and progress, which
completely contradict their meaningless actions. Their action of 'waiting' is virtually their only
meaning and thing for them to do in their life, despite Estragon's measly efforts to leave and
move along with life, Vladimir insists on waiting. We are never told where this road is located,
We do not know anything about how Vladimir and Estragon got to the road, All we know is
that they are here at this road waiting for something to happen.
Drama

Arms and the Man

Key Facts :

full title · Arms and the Man

autho · r George Bernard Shaw

type of work · Play

genre · Comedy of manners; social satire

language · English

time and place written · London; 1893

date of first performance · 1894 (London)

publisher · N/A; first performed in London

narrator · Play does not have a narrator, but there are scene descriptions and stage in addition
to the dialogue.

point of view · The play has no “point of view” as in fiction. The audience sees all

characters equally and externally.

tone · Social critique

tense · Present

setting (time) · 1885-6

setting (place) · Bulgaria; the Petkoff estate

protagonist · Raina

major conflict · Catherine and Raina worry that Sergius and Petkoff will realize that they
harbored Bluntschli in their home in secret during the war.

rising action · Bluntschli arrives back at the Petkoff estate in Act Two, to return

Petkoff’s coat.
climax · Bluntschli reveals his love for Raina, Raina her love for Bluntschli; And Louka and
Sergius admit to their affair.

falling action · Bluntschli makes a formal offer of marriage to Raina, who accepts,and Sergius
offers marriage to Louka, who also accepts (after goading him into doing It).

themes · Disillusionment with war; the complexity of romantic love; the arbitrary

nature of social status

motifs · Ill-timed entry; romantic affairs; the soul of a servant

symbols · Petkoff’s coat; chocolate creams; the library

foreshadowing · In Act Two, Sergius and Petkoff discuss hearing a story about a man

whom Bulgarian noblewomen hid in their own home, with their husbands and

Families away at war. Louka states that she knows secrets about the Petkoffs, and also

will do whatever she can to elevate her social status.

pejorative military use of the term "chocolate soldier"

The chocolate-cream soldier of the play has inspired a pejorative military use of the

term. Soldiers use the term "chocolate soldier" to describe a soft soldier who is unable

to fight well, or chocolate soldiers, the implication being that they were not real

soldiers.

setting: A small Bulgarian town, near the Dragoman Pass, during the 1885 Serbo

bulgarian War.

protagonist and Antagonist. Raina Petkoff is the protagonist, and her true antagonist

is the reality of war and love.

Characters

Raina:

Raina is one of Shaw's most delightful heroines from his early plays. Raina’s inner self is more
nuanced than her outward appearances. Her true self is revealed not to be horrible or evil, but
simply complex and human. Raina aspires to a perfect romantic chastity for Sergius, but really
harbors affection toward Bluntschli after their initial encounter.

Raina claims that she never have lied in her life, but admits later to telling strategic lies when
they can make a situation easier to handle. Raina is revealed to be not a symbol of perfect
femininity, but, rather, a human being, deserving of companionship with another human.

In structuring Raina’s character this way, Shaw subverts some of the expectations of what
might have been either a comedy of marriage or a serious play about love and war. Arms and
the Man, and Raina in particular, are instances of the detail of lived experience complicating
broader narratives about what “goodness,” “valor,” or “truth” ought to be.

Bluntschli:

Bluntschli : is a Swedish professional soldier who fights with the Serbians during the war. He
has none of Raina or Sergius’s romantic notions about war. He thinks courage is overrated and
that war is more often ugly than noble. He carries sweets with him rather than extra weapons,
which leads Raina to call him the “chocolate cream soldier.”

He is an excellent soldier, much more sensible and experienced than Sergius or Major Petkoff,
and seems as sensible and cynical as Raina is romantic. However, he is touched by the fact
that she takes care of him when he climbs up her balcony, and eventually admits that he is also
somewhat of a romantic, and declares his affection for Raina at the end of the play.
Louka:

Louka is an opinionated, beautiful young servant working for the Petkoffs. She is expected to
settle down with and marry Nicola, the family’s head servant. However, she rejects the idea
that her being born into a poorer family means she must live as servant to the rich her whole
life. Louka admits that she knows a lot of secrets about the Petkoff family than they would
like. So she use what she knows in order to get what she wants. She declares her love for
Sergius, unembarrassed by their difference in social standing.

Louka wants to change the her life as servant to move up in the social hierarchy. Louka’s
aspiration toward social rank that enables her to manipulate Sergius, who seemed at first to be
manipulating her, and to arrange for a marriage that will make her a lady.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

PETKOFF’S COAT

The coat was used by the solider Bluntschli to escape from Petkoff house with the help of
Raina and her mother Catherine. The coat is a symbol of the various instances of deception in
the play. Bluntschli brings the coat back to the Petkoffs without realizing that Raina has left
an inscribed picture of herself in its pocket, thus indicating to anyone who might see it that she
loves Bluntschli despite being engaged to Sergius. The coat literally hides Raina’s love for
Bluntschli, and this love is only revealed once Raina’s photograph is removed from the coat.

CHOCOLATE CREAMS

Chocolate is a symbol of Bluntschli's pragmatism. He knows he will be hungry, but he might

not need additional cartridges. Therefore, he carries chocolate with him. Raina is appalled to
hear this because it is not in keeping with her ideas of a heroic soldier. However, his statement
makes her see the reality of the hardships soldiers actually face. For that reason, she offers him
some of her chocolate and even calls him “the chocolate cream soldier.”