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DRAMA II
Modern Drama
Lecture 20
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SYNOPSIS
1. Analytical Mapping: Social Significance
2. Philosophical Background: Themes
A. Social
B. Psychological
C. Religious
3. Dramatic references: Themes
The Theatre of the Absurd and Samuel Beckett
Beckett: Critical Analysis
Social Acceptance
Beckett
Plot
Obscure, non consequential
Setting
Symbolic, bare
Theme
Meaninglessness of human
experience
Stage Directions
Repetitive, frequent
Language
Everyday, meaningless
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Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot received its first impressions of
the type of drama against which Beckett reacted in
his rejection of what he has called “the grotesque
fallacy of realistic art – that miserable
statement of line and surface and the
penny-a-line vulgarity of a literature of
notations”
In Beckett’s work there is a deep existential
anguish that is the keynote of Beckett’s work.
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Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Regarding the public’s lazy demand for easy
comprehensibility he said:
Here is a direct expression – pages and pages of
it. And if you don’t understand it, Ladies and
Gentlemen, it is because you are too decadent to
receive it. You are not satisfied unless form is so
strictly divorced from content that you can
comprehend the one almost without bothering to
read the other. This rapid skimming and
absorption of th scant cream of sense is made
possible by what I may call a continuous process
of copious intellectual salivation.
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Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
The form that is an arbitrary and independent
phenomenon can fulfill no higher function that
that of stimulus for a tertiary or quartary
conditioned reflex of dribbling comprehension.
Beckett and Language
Waiting for Godot is the attempt to
communicate where no communication is
possible.
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Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
For an artist therefore, according to Beckett, the
only possible spiritual development is in
the sense of depth. The artistic tendency is
not expansive, but a contradiction. And art
the apotheosis of solitude. There is no
communication because there are no
vehicles of communication.
Beckett’s work was one of the first works to point
to the fallibility of language as a medium for
communication of metaphysical truth.
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Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Anyone who speaks is carried along by the logic of
language and its articulations.
Thus the writer who pits himself or herself against
the unsayable must use all his/her cunning so as
not to say what the words make him/her say
against his will, but to express instead what by their
nature they are designed to cover up: the uncertain,
the contradictory, the unthinkable.
The play is of a difficult reception because is so
enigmatic, so exasperating, so complex, and so
uncompromising in its refusal to conform to any of
the accepted ideas of dramatic construction.
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 One of the best examples of how language is
brought to the limits of signification, is Lucky’s
speech (p. 45), that is, how his speech reflects and
performs the limits of speech by presenting almost
a pure signifier at work, where the signified has
slide under the signifier.
This limit situation of language is also revealed by
the cross-talk which prevent Vladimir and Estragon
to become aware of their situation, and thus they
attempt to escape anguish and suffering.
Is the meaning of the play related to language or is
beyond language? What is the meaning of this play:
Beckett once said: “If I knew, I would have said so
in the play”.
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The cross-talk also provide a good example of the
impossibility of language to communicate, in fact,
they reveal the very failure of language. (p. 14, 2223 and 68-69).
Any endeavour to arrive at a clear and certain
condition is difficult, and always open to
uncertaintiy.
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Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Structure and Circularity
The form, structure, and mood of an artistic
statement cannot be separated from its meaning,
its conceptual content; simply because the work of
art as a whole is its meaning, what is said in it is
indissolubly linked with the manner in
which it is said, and cannot be said in any
other way.
 This is particularly clear in the circular
structure of the play. There are many examples of
this circularity.
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Here some examples:
For instance the cross-talk, not only has the
function to pass time and neutralizing meaning,
but also structurally functions in both acts
(p. 14, 22-23 and 68-69).
At the beginning of both acts there is a tree,
and the space is the same, indescribably barren
and desolate.
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The static situation is developed in this circular
manner:
Both acts begin in the same manner: Estragon
playing with his boot (2, 62)
 Both acts finish in the same manner:
“Estragon: Well? shall we go? Vladimir: Yes, let’s
us go. They do not move” (59). “Vladimir: Well?
shall we go? Estragon: Yes, let’s go. They do not
move” (109)
Both acts end with the same lines of dialogue
but spoken by the characters in reversed order.
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In both acts they attempt suicide but fail. In
fact, the suicide is more a game than a serious
attempt, and allows them to pass time
Also, in both acts Pozzo and Lucky appear,
although in different circumstances: during
the first act, Pozzo is the Master and Lucky
the salve; in the second, Pozzo I blind and
therefore dependent, and Lucky is more his
Lazarillo who guides him through the road.
This static situation and circularity is also
assured by the repetitive quality of the
dialogue, a dialogue that does not communicate,
but simply fills up time.
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If only we could discover some hidden clue, it is
felt, these difficult plays could be forced to yield
their secret and reveal the plot of the
conventional play that is hidden within
them.
 Such attempts are doomed to failure. Beckett’s
plays lack plot even more completely than
other works of the Theatre of the Absurd.
 Instead of a linear development, they
present their author’s intuition of the
human condition by a method that is
essentially polyphonic.
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Waiting for Godot confronts its audience with an
organized structure of statements and
images that interpenetrate each other and
that must be apprehended in their totality,
rather like the different themes in a symphony,
which gain meaning by their simultaneous
interaction.
These structures are circular, as is the
waiting of the two tramps.
Rather than attempt to answer questions
we should attempt to see what questions are
being asked.
The Theatre of the Absurd and Samuel Beckett
Beckett: Critical Analysis
Social Acceptance
Beckett
Plot
Obscure, non consequential
Setting
Symbolic, bare
Theme
Meaninglessness of human
experience
Stage Directions
Repetitive, frequent
Language
Everyday, meaningless
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Philosophical Background
(No Exit by Sartre)
absurd content but
rational form or
presentation
form and content
merge to
form a
truer art
Theatre of the
Absurd
Existentialism
The Paradox of
Consciousness
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Cause
Effect: Themes
Shock and
disillusion
Alienation
and anxiety
Pessimism
Loss of
faith
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Cause
(cont…)
Effect : Themes
The absurd—
the illusion
of reason
The Void—
the illusion
of faith
Loneliness
and love
Humor and
the dignity of
humanity
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Waiting for Godot: Themes
Social
Themes
Religious
Psychological
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Social Themes
• life is
meaningless
The void
Hope
• the
hopelessness
(and cruelty)
• of hope
• dependence
of one human
on another
Reliance
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Social Themes
• Passing the time
Waste land
• the world as wasteland
Time
• nothing is worth
communicating or
can be
communicated, but
we can’t stop talking
Lack of
communication
oppressed and
oppressor
• Pozzo and
Lucky=the;
• Lucky carries his
own whip
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Social Themes
• in the face of life’s
meaninglessness.
Human
impotence
A static world.
• where nothing
happens
•  there is no past,
present and future,
just a repetitive
present.
Absence of a
traditional time
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Social Themes
•  absurd
exchanges,
broken and
fragmented
dialogues
Disintegration
of language
The lack of
communication
•  use of paraverbal language:
mime, silences,
pauses and gags
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Psychological Themes
loss of memory=loss of
meaning
lack of self-awareness
our cosmic
insignificance
the pain and curse of
consciousness
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Religious Themes
No
personal
god
No Savior
No
Redemption
Religious
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Dramatic references: Themes
Waiting and Nothingness
Waiting for Godot does not tell a story; it
explores a static situation.
This is the central question: waiting for
what?
The play it is not about Godot, but about
waiting, and this central theme determines
all the others.
This central theme, waiting, will be a
recurrent reality within the play, one that it
seems to remind Vladimir and Estragon
why they are where are: in no man’s land.
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Dramatic references: Themes
Here some examples:
Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon:
Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot” (8).
“Vladimir: Let’s wait and see what he says.
Estragon: Who? Vladimir: Godot” (13).
“Estragon: Simply wait. Vladimir: We’re used to it”
(39).
“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon:
Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot”
(76).
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Dramatic references: Themes
“Estragon: What do we do now? Vladimir: While
waiting. Estragon: While waiting” (86).
“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon:
Why not? Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot” (88).
Vladimir: Yes, in this immense confusion one
thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to
come” (91)
“Estragon: Let’s go. Vladimir: We can’t. Estragon:
Why not? Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot”
(96).
“Pozzo: What is he waiting for? Vladimir: What
are you waiting for? Estragon: I’ am waiting for
Godot” (100).
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Dramatic references: Themes
What becomes evident is that both of them are
‘tied’ to Godot, they cannot but wait for him
endlessly.
Godot, then becomes the only hope for
survival.
He is the one that controls their lives and
the only possibility of redemption.
 They can only be saved by Godot and
therefore waiting until his arrival is a fate.
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Dramatic references: Themes
This becomes clear in several places in the text:
“Estragon: We are not tied? We’re not” (15)
“Estragon: I am asking you if you are tied.
Vladimir: Tied? Estragon: Tied? Vladimir: How do
you mean tied? Estragon: Down. Vladimir: But by
whom? By whom? Estragon: To your man.
Vladimir: To Godot? Tied to Godot! What an idea!
No question of it” (17).
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Dramatic references: Themes
Being tied implies that their lives are totally
and irremediably dependent on Godot, and
salvation is his decision alone:
“Vladimir: We’ll hang ourselves to-morrow.
Unless Godot comes. Estragon: And if he comes?
Vladimir: We’ll be saved” (109).
Time and Void
Waiting, as the central theme of the play leads
the two characters to avoid time and make
the waiting bearable by filling in time with
futile actions.
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Dramatic references: Themes
They are aware that there is ‘nothing to be
done’ while waiting, and this becomes and
obsessive statement throughout the play.
First, is the awareness that there is nothing
that can help them in their waiting, and the
void and anxiety have to be confronted, and this is
restated time and again, throughout the text.
This [nothing to be done] will be come the
second, most important theme of the play.
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Dramatic references: Themes
Here some examples:
“Estragon: Nothing to be done” (2).
“Vladimir: Nothing to be done” (4).
“Vladimir: Nothing to be done” (6).
“Estragon: Nothing to be done” (17).
“Estragon: In the meantime nothing happens”
(40).
“Estragon: Nothing happens, nobody comes,
nobody goes, it’s awful! (43).
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Dramatic references: Themes
“Vladimir: We’ve nothing more to do here.
Estragon: Nor anywhere else (57).
“Estragon: What do we do now, now that we are
happy?” (66).
“Vladimir” There is nothing we can do” (76).
“Estragon: What’ll we do, what’ll we do! (80).
“Vladimir: There’s nothing to do” (84).
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Dramatic references: Themes
But it is critical for them to fill in time, which will
also becomes the third, most important
theme of the play.
 It will travel throughout the entire text, becoming
an obsession for the two of them.
Here some examples:
“Vladimir: Ah yes, the two thieves. Do you
remember the story. Estragon: No. Vladimir: It’ll
pass the time” (6).
“Vladimir: What do we do no? Estragon: Wait.
Vladimir: Yes, but while waiting. Estragon: What
about hanging ourselves?” (12)
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Dramatic references: Themes
“Vladimir: That passed the time. Estragon: It
would have passed in any case. Vladimir: Yes, but
no so rapidly” (51).
“Vladimir: We could start all over again perhaps.
[…] Estragon: That’s the idea, let’s contradict each
other” (70*).
“That wasn’t such a little canter” (72).
“Vladimir: No, I mean the boots. Estragon: Would
that be a good thing? Vladimir: It’d pass the time. I
assure you, it’d be an occupation” (77).
Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, to
give us the impression we exist?” (77).
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Dramatic references: Themes
“Estragon: Then it’ll be day again. What’ll we do,
what’ll we do!” (80).
“Vladimir: We could play at Pozzo and Lucky” (82)
“Vladimir: How time flies when one has fun!” (86)
“Vladimir: What about a little deep breathing?”
(86)
“A diversion comes along and what do we do? We
let it go to waste. Come, let’s get to work!” (92).
Estragon: To try him with other names, one after
the other. It’d pass the time” (95).
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Dramatic references: Themes
Passing the time, filling in time avoids thinking
about their present, absurd, condition:
“Vladimir: We’re in no danger of ever thinking any
more” (71).
Vladimir: What is terrible is to have thought” (71).
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Dramatic references: Themes
Pozzo and Lucky / Godot-God
Many interpretations have been provided about
Pozzo and Lucky, and most are wanting.
However, there some basic questions that must be
answer: Why Pozzo and Lucky are in the
Play? Why in the first act, their presence
lasts for almost half of the act?
It is not enough to say that say, as Martin Esslin
does, that Pozzo and Lucky represents materiality
and spirituality respectively.
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Dramatic references: Themes
I believe that Pozzo is Godot/God, and he
functions as a material deployment of the
two tramps dependence.
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Dramatic
references:
Themes
On page 17 they state that they are ‘tied’ to Godot.
In the first act, Pozzo has in fact tied Lucky to
him, with a rope that allows him to control Lucky.
In the second act, Pozzo is tied to Lucky, does
this suggest that Pozzo is a creation of
Lucky?
Does Lucky, then, represent Vladimir and
Estragon, and therefore Humanity?
Pozzo comes and goes, he never reveals who
he really is, and with his departure leaves
Vladimir and Estragon waiting for ever.
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Dramatic references: Themes
 Some Conclusions
Moreover, it is in the act of waiting that we
experience the flow of time in its purest,
most evident form. If we are active, we tend to
forget the passage of time, we pass the time, but if
we are merely passively waiting, we are confronted
with the action of time itself.
 As Beckett points out: There is no escape from the
hours and days. Neither from tomorrow nor from
yesterday because yesterday has deformed us, or
been deformed by us. […] The flow of time
confronts us with the basic problem of being.
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Dramatic references: Themes
Waiting is to experience the action of time,
which is constant change: Pozzo is blind, Lucky is
dumb. And yet, as nothing real ever happens, that
change is in itself an illusion.
 The ceaseless activity of time is self-
defeating, purposeless and therefore null
and void.
The more things change, the more they are
the same. ‘The tears of the world are a constant
quantity. For each one who begins to weep,
somewhere else another stops’ says Pozzo (32).
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Dramatic references: Themes
One day is like another, and when we die, we
might never have existed: Pozzo: Have you not
done tormenting me with your accursed time?… One
day, is that not enough for you, one day like any other
day, he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day
we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we’ll die,
the same day, the same second… They give birth
astride of a grave, the light gleams and instant, then
it’s night once more (103).
Vladimir and Estragon live in hope: they wait for
Godot, whose coming will bring the flow of time
to a stop.
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Dramatic references: Themes
Again, it seems to be concerned with the salvation:
(Lucky 45). God, who does not communicate
with us (aphasia), cannot feel for us, and
condemns us for reasons unknown.
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Dramatic references: Themes
That Waiting for Godot is concerned with the
hope of salvation through the workings of
grace seems clearly established both from
Beckett’s own evidence and from the text itself.
 But the act of waiting for Godot is shown as
essentially absurd.
And suicide remains their favourite solution. The
failure to commit suicide leads them to
rationalize waiting: ‘I’m curious to hear what he
has to offer. Then we’ll take it or leave it’ (13).
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Dramatic references: Themes
 Godot’s function seems to be to keep his
dependents unconscious.
In this view the hope, that habit of hoping, that
Godot might come after all is the last illusion
that keeps Vladimir and Estragon from
facing the human condition and themselves in
the harsh light of fully conscious awareness.
For a brief moment Vladimir is aware of the full
horror of the human condition: The air is full
of our cries….But habit is a great deadener. At me
too someone is looking, of me too someone is
saying, he is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him
sleep on… I can’t go on. What have I said? (105).
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Dramatic references: Themes
The routine of waiting for Godot stands for habit,
which prevents us from reaching the painful but
fruitful awareness of the full reality of
being.
Vladimir’s and Estragon’s pastimes are, as
they repeatedly indicate, designed to stop
them from thinking. ‘We’re in no danger of
thinking any more… Thinking is not the worst…
What is terrible is to have thought’ (71).
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Dramatic references: Themes
The hope of salvation may be merely an evasion of
the suffering and anguish that spring from facing
the reality of the human condition.
And this is the play all about. It does not
provide answers, but hints that we should
accept nothingness.
In this there is a clear relationship to the
Existentialist philosophy of the time (JeanPaul Sartre).
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Dramatic references: Themes
 If, for Beckett as for Sartre, human beings have
the duty of facing the human condition as a
recognition that at the root of our being
there is nothingness, liberty, and the need of
constantly creating ourselves in a succession of
choices, then Godot might well become an
image of what Sartre calls ‘bad faith’ – ‘The
first act of bad faith consists in evading what
one cannot evade, in evading what one is’
(L’Être et la Néant, 111)
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Review Lecture 20
1. Analytical Mapping: Social Significance
2. Philosophical Background: Themes
A. Social
B. Psychological
C. Religious
3. Dramatic references: Themes
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Agenda Lecture 21
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
PYGMALION by George Bernard Shaw
The Myth Behind the Play
Contextual Background
George Bernard Shaw’s Philosophy
Plot Overview
Characters, Role, Relationship, Conflicts &
Significance
7. Themes and the major Conflicts