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advocates the idea that individuals are instrumental in creating meaning in their lives. Waiting
for Godot shows that the individual must take action instead of just sitting around waiting for a
God that may or may not bring salvation.
Existentialism: All of humanity is wasting their lives due to in inaction and waiting for the
salvation of a deity, when that divine being may or may not even exist. The existentialist
argument is that humans must break the habit of expecting salvation, and take matters into their
own hands in order to bring meaning into their lives and live as free men.
Vladimir says “Habit is a great deadener” (85).
the play are Estragon’s “Nothing to be done”. This is repeated several more times. “There’s
nothing we can do” (62).
Estragon says “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful."(35)
Many times Estragon says “Lets go”, but Vladimir always reminds him that they can’t as they
are “waiting for Godot” (66). This inability to act renders Vladimir and Estragon unable to
determine their own fates. Instead of acting, they can only wait for someone or something to act
upon them.
In the entire play Estragon and Vladimir never refer to each other as Estragon and Vladimir, but
rather Gogo and Didi. Vladimir is also referred to as Albert, perhaps a reference to Albert
Einstein? Despite Vladimir and Estragon being two distinct characters on the stage, they
constantly finish off each other’s sentences. In this sense Estragon and Vladimir are
indistinguishable, and represent all of humanity, as Vladimir later says “all mankind is us” (74).
In the second act, Pozzo becomes all of humanity as Estragon tells us.
- Interestingly the viewer is supposed to watch the play from a distance. But if taken to the next
level, all of life seems inactive when seen from a distance. Becket depicts humanity as bums seen
from the distance of the stage and shows just how small the achievements of mankind are when
seen from a distance.
Human relationships are existential: Pozzo and Lucky are literally tethered by a cord in a master-
slave relationship. Pozzo who seeks friendship from Estragon and Vladimir ends up forming a
meaningless friendship with them, much like his meaningless relationship with Lucky, which
dehumanizes both of them.
The friendship between Vladimir and Estragon seemingly overcomes the existential
whenVladimir wakes up Estragon because he “felt lonely” (9). Estragon and Vladimir are
tethered by an invisible bond in a relationship that can best be characterized as friendship. While
at times they hate each other, they cannot live without one another or they would die of boredom.
To conclude we say that the whole picture shows a pretty hopelessness. Neither time nor
existence, neither reality nor memory or the past have any meaning or significance. Acts are
meaningless, time does not flow consecutively, memory seems deceptive, existence is an
impression or perhaps a dream and happiness is extremely and affliction is crystal clear through
the situation of two tramps. They are on the point of becoming hollow philosophies of
existence but demand no other equipment in an audience than the bond of common perception.