Waiting for Godot
 
SUMMARY AND STRUCTURE OF THE PLAY

"Waiting for Godot" is a tragi-comedy in two acts since tragic and comic elements are mixed together: while the main theme, the meaningless of life, is in fact typical of tragedy, the language, the characters' attitudes and their respective gestures are obviously comic. Two tramps, Estragon and Vladimir spend their days on a country road waiting for Godot, from whom they expect some unspecified kind of help. They are starving and thirsty; they often think of committing suicide or of going away, but they cannot because they have an appointment with Mr. Godot. Suddenly they meet two travellers, Pozzo and Lucky; the former is a rich and wicked man, who drives the latter by means of a rope tied round his neck and treats him like a slave. At the end of act I a boy arrives with the message that Mr. Godot cannot come, but that he will certainly come the following day.
Act II shows the same characters, (even though pozzo is now blind and Lucky is dumb) the same intention of committing suicide, but also the same hope in Mr. Godot's arrival, until the same boy comes with the same message: Godot will not come that day, but the following one. The play ends with Vladimir and Estragon stating their intention of moving and going away,  though both do not move and stay motionless.

SETTING
The setting of " Waiting for Godot" is very simple: there is a tree, a mound and a country road. These elements are described through dialogues and stage directions. The setting is simbolic and it is meant to reflect the emptiness, the meaninglessness, the solitude of man's life. It is interesting to notice that in the first act the tree has no leaves whereas in the second one it has some. Vladimir says that the play is set in two consecutive evenings, but in the second one, the tree has changed and Pozzo, Estragon and Lucky do not remember anything about the previous day. As a consequnce everything has changed: Pozzo is now blind and Lucky dumb. Time has passed while the characters were waiting but they are not conscious of this passing of time because every day is like the others.
 
 
                                                                                CHARACTERS
VLADIMIR AND ESTRAGON

The two main characters are Vladimir and Estragon. They are two tramps living in a desperate condition, who are waiting for a man they have never seen, Mr Godot.
The stage directions give only few details about their phisical appearance: the audience understand only that Estragon wears boots and Vladimir has a coat and a hat. The phisical description is not important because they are neither individuals nor types. They are symbols of every- man, whose life is only a boring routine of repetitive events. It is important to underline that they are really complementary, as they have contrasting personalities; they stand for two different parts of the human personality: the subconscious, emotional side and the rational side.
As a matter of fact, Vladimir is rational; he hates dreams; he is hopeful in Godot’s arrival and is inquisitive. He remembers past events. On the contrary, Estragon seems to be suffering: he has swollen sore feet and is constantly beaten by mysterious beings. He is irrational, he often falls asleep and dreams. He is sceptical in Godot’s arrival, he is anxious (" I can’t go on ") and wants to commit suicide. He keeps forgetting things and his refusal to remember past events seems an attempt to defend himself and to escape from his absurd condition.

POZZO AND LUCKY

By studing Pozzo and Lucky we can make a notable distinction about the relationship between the two. Pozzo is a rich, cruel, arrogant man ,   who exploits Lucky as a slave. Pozzo drives Lucky tied with a rope and gives him orders by shouting and craking his whip. He represents the rich bourgeois which has the power to exploit the lower classes and tries to impose itself with arrogange in everyday life. As a matter of fact, Pozzo in addressing the other characters and in showing his richness ,  he needs a public who can listen and appreciate him to persuade himself of his superiority and greatness.

"It would be happy to meet him. The more people I meet the happier I become"
Pozzo is like a monster who does not understand the suffering of the others and who finds his own identity and security in possesion, while is servant, Lucky, seems to obey him because he cannot rebel against him.
"But instead of driving him away as I might have done, I mean instead of simply kicking him out on his arse, in the goodnes of my heart I'm bringing him to the fair, where I hope to get a good price for him. The truth is you can't drive such creatures away. The best thing would be to kill them."
 Lucky finds himself in an absurd world where freedom is not an inviolable right and where the powerful  can buy the weak's  life. In relation to his personality and to his condition, the name "Lucky" is antiphrastic. Lucky is always overwhelmed by a lot of work. He is an elderly man who cries under the weight of the luggage he has to carry. He represents the intellectual but now his speech is only a torrent of absurd words. We can underline that in Beckett's world culture and, as a consequence, intellectuals are submitted to the materialism and the avidity of the capitalists, here represented by Pozzo.
"... but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labours left unfinisched crowned by the Acacacacademy of Atropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew an Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt then that wich
Pozzo is like a monster who does not understand the suffering of the others and who finds his own identity and security in possesion, while is servant, Lucky, seems to obey him because he cannot rebel against him.
"But instead of driving him away as I might have done, I mean instead of simply kicking him out on his arse, in the goodnes of my heart I'm bringing him to the fair, where I hope to get a good price for him. The truth is you can't drive such creatures away. The best thing would be to kill them."
 Lucky finds himself in an absurd world where freedom is not an inviolable right and where the powerful  can buy the weak's life. In relation to his personality and to his condition, the name "Lucky" is antiphrastic. Lucky is always overwhelmed by a lot of work. He is an elderly man who cries under the weight of the luggage he has to carry. He represents the intellectual but now his speech is only a torrent of absurd words. We can underline that in Beckett's world culture and, as a consequence, intellectuals are submitted to the materialism and the avidity of the capitalists, here represented by Pozzo.
"...but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labours left unfinished crowned by theAcacacacademy of Antropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt then that which clings to the labours of man that as a result..."
Like Valdimir and Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky are complementary and depencldent on each other. Both of them are unsatisfied with their real condition, but they can't part; this drives them to a sort of sadomasochistic relationship. Moreover, in the second act of the play they undergo some radical transformation: Pozzo becomes blind while Lucky becomes dumb. This could mean the impossibilty to communicate between the different social classes. Another possible interpretation of the relationship between Lucky and Pozzo is that Lucky is the intellectual part of the human being, that is to say man's thought, which has fallen down to a condition of irreparable incoherence, while Pozzo, who is full of himself and of his superiority, represents the body, the physical part of the human being.
 

 

    LANGUAGE
 
 

Beckett's language is simple and straight-forward; the words used belong mainly to everyday language and refer to concrete fields of experience (food, clothes, objects such as ropes and whigs), rather than to abstract concepts.
It is also possible to find examples of lyrical language: "Touch of autumn in the air this evening." (Act 1 ), or of biblical language: "...to every man his little cross Christ have mercy on us! We'll  be saved!".
Sentences are short, Beckett rarely uses dependent clauses. The basic sentence patterns are: questions, which are used to express the characters' search for meaning in life; statements, which reflect the characters' wish to put some order into the universe; imperatives, which play a very important role as they correspond to the characters' attempts to assert themselves as individuals: "Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!" ( Act 2 ).
Language is consistent with and reinforces the message of the play in the sense that, through its meaninglessness and non-sense, it reflects the emptiness of man's life. This is why dialogues do not move the plot forward. They are completely pointless and characters give vent to their existential problems through these dialogues which make them lose themselves into silly arguments and chats.
Bobbling and cross-talks are used to kill the time, to fill in empty spaces in the conversation as there is no possibility of communication between the characters, who keep talking all the time without understanding each other. They often repeat the same nonsensical and incoherent exchanges: "We came here yesterday", "Why ?  (angrily). Nothing is certain when you are about." (Act I)
Language also contradicts the action: this reinforces the idea that it is meaningless: "Well, shall we go?",
"Yes, let's go." They do not move. CURTAIN. (Act I,II).

 

THE STAGE DIRECTIONS
As the exchanges between the characters are often very short and simple, the stage directions plays a very important role in the development of the play. First of all they tell us how the play is divided, what characters are on the stage and in what order they appear:
           [...] Enter Pozzo and Lucky. Pozzo drives Lucky by means of a rope passed round his neck,
             so that Lucky is the first to appear, followed by the rope which is long enough to allow him to
             reach the middle of the stage before Pozzo appears. [...]
The stage directions help also to visualise the setting and to give information on the time of the day, thanks to the fact that they are meticulous and detailed to the point of pedantry, even if very essential, reduced to the minimum:
           Act I. A country road. A tree. Evening.
          Act II. Next day. Same time. Same place.
Moreover they give essential information on the actions and gestures the characters are doing, while they, or some of them, are speaking and acting or while they are silent.
There is an example of this at the beginning of the play:
       Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is triyng to take off his boots. He pulls at it with both hands, pointing. He gives up, exausted, tests, tries again. Sometimes I feel it coming all the same. Then I go all queer.puts it on again.) Nothing to be done.( Estragon with a supreme effort succeeds in pulling off his boot. He looks inside it, feels about inside it, turns it upside down  shakes it, looks on the   " Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both  hands, ponting. He gives up, exausted, tests, tries again. " Sometimes I feel it coming all the same. Then I go all queer.( He takes off his hat, peers  inside it, shakes it, puts it on again.) Nothing to be done: ( Estragon with a supreme effort succeeds in pulling off his boot. He looks inside it, feels about inside it, turns it upside down, shakes it, looks on theground to see if anything has fallen out, finds nothing, feels  inside it again, staring sightlessly before him.) Well?"
Besides, the stage direction are useful to explain the characters' feelings, their psychological state and their tone of voice
( "irritably", "decisevely", "feebly","angrily" ).
Finally the stage directions convey the rhythm of the conversation, whether it is quick or slow, if there are pauses or not; for example in the first act Vladimir:
           " ...this is getting alarming.(Silence.Vladimir sleep in thought, Estragon pulling on his toes).
           One of the thieves was saved. (Pauses). It's a resonable percentage (Pause). Gogo"
 
 
THEMES
  The two characters are waiting for someone or something that can fill the emptiness of their lives: "Nothing to be done".In this sense Godot might stand for God, for a deliverance, for some help from outside, for some reason for living, for one answer to man's existential problems. However, waiting is pointless and useless as nothing ever happens and will never happen. The division into two similar acts makes the reader feel the loneliness and boredom of life. Through the stage directions, like for example "Next day, same place", the reader feels the uncertainty "of the sense of time"; time is an endless cycle of meaningless events repeating themselves for ever.   Man cannot decide his future because his life is driven by casualness: in fact some are chosen for good fortune and some for disaster, as Pozzo says: "I might just as well have been in his shoes and he in mine if chance had not willed otherwise."