Waiting For Godot: The Passive Dissipation of Living

An essay detailing my take on Samuel Beckett's Classic; Waiting for Godot.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is a poignant depiction of the fruitless endeavor to strive, it is a commentary on the constant, mundane cycle that has become life for the average person. One constantly performs the same motions day after day, with their only incentive being the promise of distant gratification for their pains.

Vladimir and Estragon are two friends who each day, without fail, return to the same tree to await the arrival of a mysterious figure known as Godot. Godot represents the aspirations that all people search for; the goal that they have made the epicenter of life. Just as religion and the promise of reward in the afterlife was used to subdue Middle Ages serfs, the prospect of meeting with Godot and thus, elevating their quality of life and their understanding of that life, is enough to draw Vladimir and Estragon back each day. Despite that their lives only progressively become worse each day they return to wait for Godot, they do it anyway because as Vladimir says they believe there is “no use struggling”, the have gotten “used to the muck as {they} go along”. The pair began with the luxury of having a carrot to eat but soon are reduced to only having radishes. As each minute continues Vladimir and Estragon slowly lose their memory, along the way of striving to understand the world, they begin to lose understanding of themselves. And yet, despite the decreasing quality of life, they continue on the tonly cycle they know. (13). They are “tied” (11) to Godot, tied to the hope that their “vague supplication” (10) may one day be answered. Despite the fact that they have made the search for Godot the center of their lives, Estragon and Vladimir do not even remotely comprehend what is it they want from him. They are completely unsure of what they have asked of Godot, or even who he is. Estragon remarks that he “wouldn’t even know him if {he}saw him”(15). This uncertainty mimics a very familiar quest for spiritual truth. Whilst reading the book, a feeling of unease concerning the lives of the two main characters, and the perpetual state of ennui that they reside in seizes the reader. However, as the story progresses it becomes ever more apparent that the seemingly tortuously ignorant lives of Vladimir and Estragon mirror our own in a way that is both tragic and humorous. We too are driven on each day through a continual cycle of drudgery, and we too continue on, powered solely by the vague, abstract glimmer of hope that one day because of all our pains we might be returned some reward to make all our struggle worthwhile: be it through financial security through or careers, or spiritually enlightenment because of our devotion.

The santicmous slavedriver, Pozzo, and his obedient but incapacitated drudge, Lucky encounter the two friends as they are on their way to the marketplace where Pozzo plans on selling Lucky after sixty years of service to him. The dynamic between the two is one of extreme power imbalance. Pozzo is Lucky’s entirely submissive, and helpless slave, whilst Pozzo is Lucky’s ruler, he constantly drives him on through grueling labor and debasing treatment, and is entirely blind to his servant’s pain. The two are representatives of another unending cycle not just of human life, but of human society. They are locked in a relationship defined by the concept of Master-Slave morality, described by the philosopher Fredience Nietzsche. Lucky falls into the category of slave mentality, he relies upon Pozzo’s approval for his own happiness to satisfy his vanity, which according to Nietzsche, is the calling card of the submissive, and this inferior. Even when Lucky is told by his Master that he will soon be sold, rather than viewing this termination of his ties to Pozzo as a liberation from years of horrendous treatment, he weeps. Lucky views Pozzo’s displeasure as absolute confirmation that he is inadequate, rather than deciding for himself his own worth as Pozzo and all others of the master mortality do.

Lucky is doomed to service under Pozzo, both by his doing, and by uncontrollable forces. Human nature, according to Nietzsche is governed by the "Will to Power", it is a natural inclination to impose one’s will over others and thus take away their power; an “exploitation of man, by man". It is this concept that bonds Lucky to Pozzo, Lucky with his slave mentality willingly relies upon the opinion of his tormenter to set his own value. Lucky is the embodiment of humility, a trademark sign of slave mentality, whereas Pozzo is fully independent and strong willed, as clear a master as one could be. The cycle of human nature traps these two opposites within an eternal struggle that is repeated with so many other people both within the book itself, and within our own lives. There will always be masters obsessively driven by the Will to Power and there will always be slaves exploited by them.

Vladimir and Estragon have no regard for present pleasure and enjoyment, all concern is directed at the future, a future which may not even exist, or that they may not ever reach. The two are lost within the haze of ignorance, a spell which they believe can only be alleviated by meeting with the fabled Godot. The dissipation of their memories eliminates the past, and the eternally bleak way in which they live robs them of enjoying the present, and finally their desperate search for obtaining a better future is never reached. All of Vladimir and Estragon’s strife, pain, and disappointment amounts to nothing.

© 2015 LilithDianaClio

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Christopher Zayn

I agree 100 percent with the Godot metaphor. I like concepts that take me outside my life and make me look at the big picture. I found myself nodding my head without realizing! Great.