SAMUEL

BECKETT
JACOPO E CHIARA
The only sin is the sin of being born.
- Samuel Beckett

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BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1906, the second son of comfortable middle-class parents
who were a part of the Protestant minority in a predominantly Catholic society.

He got a BA in Modern Languages at Trinity College, Dublin. His first job was as a teacher of English in the
Ecole Normale Superiéure in Paris. He returned to Dublin in order to take his master in French literature. He
has made Paris his home since that time, except for visits abroad and a retreat to the Unoccupied Zone in
Vichy, France, during 1942–44.

During the 1930s and 1940s, his writing consisted of critical studies (Proust and others), poems, and two
novels (Murphy and Watt), all written in English. In the late 1940s, he changed from writing in English to
writing in French. In 1958, during the International Theater Festival in Dublin, a play of his compatriot
O'Casey was banned, and Beckett, in protest, withdrew his plays, which have not been seen in Ireland since
then.f the reason for this was his basic rejection of Ireland as his homeland.

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THEATRE
OF
ABSURD
• INFLUENCE OF SECOND
WORLD WAR.

• MEANINGLESS OF LIFE

• UNRESOLVED MISTERIES
AND INCONSISTENCY OF
CHARACTERS

• EMPTYNESS OF ACTION

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MODERNISM
Beckett was part of the literary movement called Modernism. Originates from Dadaism, nonsense poetry and
avant-garde art. Modernism is a series of reforming cultural movements in art, architecture, literature and
applied arts which emerged in the three decades before 1914.

It developed into “THEATRE OF ABSURD” named by critic Martin Esslin, after title of his 1962 book of
same subject.

The five defining playwrights of this movement are: Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold
Pinter, and Samuel Beckett.

Beckett’s work represents the most sustained attack on the realist tradition.

He opened up the possibility of drama and fiction that gets rid of the conventional plot and the ideas of time
and place in order to focus on the essential components of the human experience.

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FRENCH EXISTENTIALISM

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PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS
THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS
Suicide as the main philosophical problem.
Impossibility of reducing this world to a
rational and reasonable principle. "If the world
were clear, art would not exist.“
Life as an endless search for meaning.
Absolute freedom from laws, moral values,
traditions, and obligation.
BEING AND NOTHINGNESS
Contrast between «Being for itself» and
«Being in itself».
«Being for itself» is always absence,
nothingness.
Man is never an essence, no matter how much
he strives at self-essentialism.
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WAITING
FOR
GODOT
“A tragicomedy in two acts”

SAMUEL BECKETT

5th of January 1953

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PLOT
Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, meet near a tree. They converse on various topics and reveal that they are waiting there for a
man named Godot. While they wait, two other men enter. Pozzo is on his way to the market to sell his slave, Lucky. He pauses for
a while to converse with Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking, and Pozzo and Lucky leave.

After Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and tells Vladimir that he is a messenger from Godot. He tells Vladimir that Godot will
not be coming tonight, but that he will surely come tomorrow. Vladimir asks him some questions about Godot and the boy
departs. After his departure, Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave, but they do not move as the curtain falls.

The next night, Vladimir and Estragon again meet near the tree to wait for Godot. Lucky and Pozzo enter again, but this time
Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. Pozzo does not remember meeting the two men the night before. They leave and Vladimir and
Estragon continue to wait.

Shortly after, the boy enters and once again tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming. He insists that he did not speak to
Vladimir yesterday. After he leaves, Estragon and Vladimir decide to leave, but again they do not move as the curtain falls, ending
the play.

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PROTAGONISTS
VLADIMIR
Estragon calls him Didi, and the boy addresses him
as Mr. Albert. He seems to be the more responsible
and mature of the two main characters. However,
he is often unsure whether his memory isn’t
playing tricks on him. Vladimir is friendly to
Estragon because Estragon provides him with the
chance to remember past events. Vladimir is the
one who makes Estragon wait with him for Mr
Godot’s imminent arrival throughout the play.
ESTRAGON
He is a bum and sleeps in a ditch where he is
beaten each night. He has no memory beyond
what is immediately said to him, Estragon is
impatient and constantly wants to leave
Vladimir but is restrained from leaving by the
fact that he needs him. He’s got an introvert
and fragile attitude. It is Estragon’s idea for the
bums to pass their time by hanging themselves.
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OTHER CHARACTERS
POZZO
He passes by the spot
where Vladimir and
Estragon are waiting and
provides a diversion. In the
second act, he is blind and
does not remember meeting
Vladimir and Estragon the
night before.
LUCKY LITTLE BOY
Pozzo's slave, who He appears at the end of
carries Pozzo's bags and each act to inform
stool. In Act I, he Vladimir that Godot will
entertains by dancing and not be coming that night.
thinking. However, in Act In the second act, he
II, he is dumb. insists that he was not
there the previous night.
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