Waiting for Godot.

 Hello!

I am Nidhi Jethava and I am a student of English Literature. I am studying at MK Bhavnagar University English department.  In this blog I am going to ponder some questions from the play waiting for Godot.

Introduction:-

‘ Waiting for Godot’ is a very interesting play by Samuel Beckett. It;s a absurd play. Waiting for Godot. is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting Godot, who never arrives. Waiting for Godot is Beckett's translation of his own original French-language play, En attendant Godot, and is subtitled (in English only) "a tragicomedy in two acts". The original French text was composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949.The premiere, directed by Roger Blin, was on 5 January 1953 at the Théâtre de Babylone , Paris. The English-language version premiered in London in 1955. In a poll conducted by the British Royal National Theatre in 1998/99, it was voted the "most significant English language play of the 20th century".

Q.1 The tree is the only important ‘thing’ in the setting. What is the importance of trees in both acts? Why does Beckett grow a few leaves in Act II on the barren tree - The tree has four or five leaves - ?

Answer:- 

Samuel Beckett is a modernist. He used a barren tree to describe the meaninglessness and nothingness of human life. In the first act we came to know that the tree has no leaves. it's a barren tree. Trees symbolize how human life is meaningless and barren like tree. 

In the second act Beckett grows leaves. Traditionally growing leaves symbolize something good omen. But here Beckett plays with traditional mind and symbol. Growing leaves signifies nothing. Beckett wants to say that nature and human beings are different. Nature has its own law. Nature never affected human deeds. 

Q.2 In both Acts, evening falls into night and moon rises. How would you like to interpret this ‘coming of night and moon’ when actually they are waiting for Godot?

Answer :- 

In  both acts evening falls and night comes and moon arises. Traditionally moons symbolize peace and serenity. Poets going mad watching the full moon night. Moon is a symbol of love and peace. Beckett distorted that traditional thinking. Here the moon stands waiting. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot. Time and nature doing their work. Beckett wants to discuss that nature is always going according to the law. 

Q.3  The play begins with the dialogue “Nothing to be done”. How does the theme of ‘nothingness’ recurs in the play?

Answer:-

The play opens' ‘ Nothing to be done” . Just because both the character do lots of activity to " kill time " but there is nothing happen in the life it represent that a failure person that never achieve something or that person's life is nothing or absurdity we find just because there is no hope for good thing happened that's why and after doing all the things still there nothing to be done y just because they are waiting for someone or like they want to achieve something in the life and they are in the way but still that don't find it that's why the life is " nothing to be done."

Q. 4 Do you agree: “The play (Waiting for Godot), we agreed, was a positive play, not negative, not pessimistic. As I saw it, with my blood and skin and eyes, the philosophy is: 'No matter what— atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can't kill life." (E.G. Marshal who played Vladimir in the original Broadway production 1950s)?

Answer:-

Yes just because its representation of absurdity and philosophy an existentialism, that's why display is not negative or Pessimistic just because it's a reflection of hope that at the end of the life there is good thing happened up till and of the last breath we have to wait for something which give us success peace honor or some kind of social important anything which we are waiting for.

Q.5 Do you think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseated? Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. Do you think that such a capacity of slavishness is unbelievable?

Answer:-

Yes, the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseated. When Pozzo got dumb, he still accepted his order and doing work hour his master. Pozzo wanted to sell him. Lucky seems senseless and when we see these things in second seven we get more irritated. 

Q.6 Who according to you is Godot? God? An object of desire? Death? Goal? Success?

Answer :- 

According to me here Godot means death, the ultimate aim of life. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for death. Death is the only thing which no one can avoid in life. According to Shrimad Bhagavatam Geeta 

य एनं वेत्ति हन्तारं यश्चैनं मन्यते हतम् |

उभौ तौ न विजानीतो नायं हन्ति न हन्यते || 19||

ya enaṁ vetti hantāraṁ yaśh chainaṁ manyate hatam

ubhau tau na vijānīto nāyaṁ hanti na hanyate

Translation :-

Neither of them is in knowledge—the one who thinks the soul can slay and the one who thinks the soul can be slain. For truly, the soul is neither killed nor can it be killed. 

Commentary :- 

The illusion of death is created because we identify ourselves with the body. The Ramayana explains this as follows:

jauṅ sapaneṅ sira kāṭai koī, binu jāgeṅ na dūri dukh hoī. [v23]

“If we dream of our head getting cut, we will perceive its pain until we wake up.” The incident in the dream is an illusion, but the experience of the pain continues to torment until we wake up and dispel the illusion. Similarly, in the illusion that we are the body, we fear the experience of death. For the enlightened soul whose illusion has been dispelled, this fear of death vanishes.

One may ask that if nobody can kill anyone, then why is murder considered a punishable offense? The answer is that the body is the vehicle of the soul, and destroying any living being’s vehicle is violence, which is forbidden. The Vedas clearly instruct: mā hinsyāt sarvabhūtāni [v24] “Do not commit violence toward anyone.” In fact, the Vedas even consider killing of animals as a crime. However, there are occasions where the rules change and even violence becomes necessary. For example, in cases where a snake is approaching to bite, or if one is attacked with lethal weapons, or one’s life sustenance is being snatched away, then violence is permitted for self-protection. In the present situation, what is appropriate for Arjun, violence or non-violence, and why? Shree Krishna will explain this to him in great detail, as the dialogue of the Bhagavad Gita progresses. And in the course of the explanation, priceless divine knowledge will be revealed to shed light on the subject.

Thank you....

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