Choudhary 1

Saksham

Professor Shafiqul Alam

English Honors

19th November, 2021

Futility of life in Waiting for Godot through Albert Camus’s essay “The Myth of
Sisyphus”

Albert Camus, a French novelist and essayist, who worked out the theory of absurdity and who
also applied this thesis in his literary writings, deals with the absurd fate of man and literally
demonstrates it with the legendary ancient myth of Sisyphus in his stimulating analysis The Myth
of Sisyphus. Camus goes into the problem what the absurdity is and how it arises. He also gives
the characteristics of human basic ontological categories as the feelings of "denseness" and "the
strangeness of the world" (Sisyphus, 398), which are the feelings of the Absurdity of man in a
world where the decline of religious belief has deprived man of his certainties. In the last chapter,
Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no
human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus
himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. Finally
captured, the gods decided on his punishment: for all eternity, he would have to push a rock up a
mountain; on the top, the rock rolls down again and Sisyphus has to start over.

Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death and is
condemned to a meaningless task. Camus has argued that the absurd hero sees life as a constant
struggle, without hope. Any attempt to deny or avoid the struggle and the hopelessness that
define our lives is an attempt to escape from this absurd contradiction. Camus's single
requirement for the absurd man is that he lives with full awareness of the absurdity of his
position. While Sisyphus is pushing his rock up the mountain, there is nothing for him but toil
and struggle. Yet in those moments where Sisyphus descends the mountain free from his burden,
he is aware. He knows that he will struggle forever and he knows that this struggle will get him
nowhere. This awareness is precisely the same awareness that an absurd man has in this life. So
long as Sisyphus is aware, his fate is no different and no worse than our lot in life.
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Human always try to find the meaning of life whether their life is worth living or it’s meaningful
by described in Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus describes Sisyphus as the man who get
the punishment to roll a rock (a big rock) to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would
absolutely fall back down of its own weight and it’s done again and again. Such in Waiting for
Godot, the two main characters Vladimir and Estragon who have absurd duty to wait the absurd
object named Godot that can gives them everything. The two tramps do not have anything to do
when they are waiting, their waiting seems to be foolish and irrational, and they are just keeping
a promise to wait. The play begin with the simply Estragon’s statement “Nothing to be done” is
uttered by Estragon who is having trouble with his boot. It sets a tone of despair that indeed there
is nothing that can be done.

Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands,
panting.

He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again.

As before. Enter Vladimir.

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

VLADIMIR: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me,
saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle.(He
broods, musing on the struggle.)

Absurdity consists in permanent conflict; it is a contradiction and a struggle. It can be faced only
through struggling with it and disagreeing with it. That is why, as Camus says, to commit suicide
means to agree with absurdity, it means to give in, because the sense of life is looked for in
another world. (None of Beckett's characters commit a suicide or die in any way.) It seems that it
is impossible to escape from the absurd fate, to stay here means to face it, to commit suicide
means to consent to it, and therefore it must be accepted. Camus says that this question of suicide
is the most basic philosophical question. He opens his essay with this fundamental point: “There
is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is
not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest –
whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories –
 Choudhary 3

comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer [the questions of suicide].” (Sisyphus,
395) the characters' absurd behavior (looking inside their hats and boots) is never explained.
Vladimir ignores Estragon's pain, and repeats Estragon's assertion that there is nothing to be
done: they are not only bored, but crippled by their inability to do anything at all.

Both of Waiting for Godot’s main characters and the character of Sisyphus are shown the
absurdity of life: The first, Estragon and Vladimir shown their inability to take of the shoes and
the take off the hat, peer inside it, feel about inside it, shake it, and put it on again. Then do it
again by repetition. They are waiting for an absurd thing whether it has a benefit or just
meaninglessness and nothingness like their life. The second, Sisyphus also struggling to roll up
the rock whether he conscious that it will roll down again but he don’t stop it while hoping that
he can find the happiness on his life. Because of life is not worth living, or it means the life is
meaningless, life is nothing, the life of main characters in Waiting for Godot become helpless
(frustrating), tartness (suffering), and get disunity between them. Frustration here depends on the
boredom of being waiting for something that never come. The boy coming twice in another day
bringing the message from Godot. Unfortunately, Godot will never come today and also
tomorrow. They also get many sufferings and even be a parted in their relationship, get
disagreement while doing waiting. Nothingness of this play influences the life of the main
characters Vladimir and Estragon. Their hope rejected Estragon wants to go far away, but
Vladimir says they can't go far, as they have to come back here tomorrow and wait for Godot.
Estragon suggests they hang themselves on the tree using his belt, but when they test the belt's
strength by pulling on either end, it breaks. Vladimir and Estragon prepare to leave for the night.
They say they are going to leave, but neither moves until the end of the play.
 Choudhary 4

Relationships in Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” between Estragon and Vladimir
on the one hand and Pozzo and Lucky on the other.

Samuel Beckett’s works have been identified as a representation of people’s attitude and the
meaningless absurdity of the human condition. The miserable condition of life in the present, the
constant effort to make it fruitful and the failure to succeed in this is portrayed in Waiting for
Godot. The play has been labelled as one of the major examples in post-modernist art which
explains the ‘collapsing of reality’, the beginning points for the ‘theatre of the absurd’. The play
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett portrays two aimless characters in a world of alienation and
no meaning. The absurdity of the situation of the characters arises from their hope for a meaningful
life. This possibility of hope that never arrives leads to humor as well as tragedy. Beckett presents
religious salvation as a false hope. Vladimir and Estragon are wanderers on a bare country road
that symbolizes life. They wait for Godot symbolizing God or anything that is awaited with
anticipation, under a dead tree as barren as the lives they lead. Instead of Godot, every day a
messenger boy arrives to inform them that Godot will come the next day. The boy is a messenger
of the hope that sustains Vladimir and Estragon. Vladimir and Estragon are outcasts from society in
their fruitless wait. In their boredom, they pass the time with endless philosophical discussions and
repetitive conversations that have no purpose.
Vladimir, the philosopher, finds Biblical allusions to the crucifixion and the parables that allow
him to start a conversation for lack of anything else to say. Estragon continues whatever Vladimir
begins by repeating what has already been said. The absurdity of the circular dialogue is humorous
and yet tragic. Vladimir and Estragon have wasted their entire lives on this ridiculous banter in
their interminable wait for Godot. Pozzo and Lucky, two other travelers on the road of life, always
appear at the same time every day. While Vladimir and Estragon do not belong in any stratum of
society, Pozzo and Lucky clearly represent the domination of the lower classes by the upper class.
Pozzo, the power-hungry authoritarian, flaunts his superiority over Lucky, the oppressed slave who
does not even know he is oppressed. In fact, Lucky considers himself “lucky” to be bound to
someone who can make decisions for him. In Act II, Pozzo has become blind and Lucky has
become dumb. Pozzo’s blindness symbolizes his blindness to his cruelty and his own conformity to
society’s rules. Previously, Lucky could still think and speak, although only when ordered by
Pozzo. Now he has lost even the ability to speak out. Like Pozzo and Lucky, Vladimir and
Estragon are trapped in their current situation. Vladimir and Estragon have ceased to move on their
journey through life. Instead of continuing on, they wait for Godot in one place. Pozzo and Lucky
are not stationary, but they only travel in circles. After a day’s journey, they return to where they
 Choudhary 5

began, never reaching any destination.

Every morning, when Vladimir and Estragon return to the dead tree where they wait, they seem to
begin anew. Estragon never remembers the events of the previous day at all, and Vladimir has only
a vague idea that similar events occurred before. Pozzo and Lucky, when they pass in their daily
routine, do not recall ever encountering Vladimir and Estragon before, and the messenger boy
always insists that it is the first time he has been sent. Vladimir and Estragon never realize the need
to change because they never remember the daily mistakes they make. Every day Estragon decides
that he and Vladimir should part, yet both are afraid to be alone. Vladimir and Estragon resolve to
hang themselves, but they always delay. By the next day, nothing has altered. As Estragon declares
in Act I, there is “Nothing to be done,” when these two tramps have actually not tried to do
anything. Perhaps Godot fails to appear because Vladimir and Estragon have not given him any
reason to come. In spite of all their waiting, Vladimir and Estragon are not even sure if Godot
exists. Although the boy describes Godot as having a white beard and flocks of sheep and goats, he
may never have seen Godot; the typical portrayal of God depicts a wise, dignified man with a
white beard who sends his son, Jesus, to be a shepherd of men.
Beckett’s intention in creating these characters may have been to make them the victims of time,
pointing out that we cannot stop time, suggesting that we live in the present moment with what we
have, instead of waiting for better lives or for what we do not have. Anthony Chadwick refers to
this in his article “Waiting for Godot”. Vladimir and Estragon force themselves into the belief that
Godot will one day come and save them, as Estragon forces his foot into a boot that does not fit.
Tragically, they do not realize that Godot’s elusiveness is a result of their own inactivity. As
Vladimir says, “There’s man for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet.” Vladimir and
Estragon cannot spend the rest of their lives waiting for Godot, since they must each find Godot for
himself. Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot is an allegory of modern man’s wait for
personal salvation. To achieve their goals, people must take action instead of wait passively for
fulfillment to arrive on its own. No matter what Godot represents, no one should wait for him;
Godot is waiting inside everyone.
 Choudhary 6

Works Cited

Primary Source
Beckett, Samuel. 1956. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press.
Camus, Albert. 1996. The Myth of Sisyphus. Trans. Justin O’Brien. Existentialist Philosophy: An
Introduction. 2nd ed. Ed. L. Nathan Oaklander. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, p. 358.

Secondary Source

Playing the Spectator While Waiting for Godot, The Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol.
68, No. 1-2 (Winter 2007), pp. 465-487
Al-Aabedi, H. K. (2015) Equivocation in the Theatre of the Absurd– Discourse Analysis, Berlin:
Logos Verlag
Aronson, R. (2004) Camus and Sartre – The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended it,
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
Esslin, Martin. 1961. The Theatre of the Absurd. London: Methuen Publishing Limited.

Hepburn, R. W. 1966. Questions about the Meaning of Life. Religious Studies 1: 125-40.