Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot: Review

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: Review

By Armando Ortiz

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot can be seen from the perspective of the disciplined will that allows us to learn and gain knowledge. It seems ruthless to realize that that is what enables our wisdom to grow even more. Estragon seems to always be in pain with some physical ailment. Vladimir is a bit more rational, but he insists on waiting for Godot. Even though they see Pozzo subjugating and humiliating Lucky they really don’t tae the necessary steps to stop Pozzo from being authoritative, cruel and a dictator like towards Lucky. Instead they become spectators of Pozzo and Lucky’s unfolding drama. Estragon continues to busy himself with his foot pains and begins to contemplate suicide, while Vladimir continues to rationalize everything, and at times helps Estragon reconsider his situation. 

An interesting situation that begins to develop from the dysfunctional relationship that exists in the story is that characters do not detach themselves from the suffering that they inflict on each other, and when they are separated it brings out bouts of blindness and aloneness. In many ways our dependence on particular relationships make us question our ability to survive in this world, and yet it is those close relationships of family and old friends that help us get through our trials and tribulations, albeit these social situations are a cause of those sufferings as well.

A boy appears in the play a couple of times and he might very well represent the childhood that everyone experiences and the people that they come across as they grow up and come into being with, and though the actions of adults might seem frightening, the child too will one day struggle to find meaning in life. They too will have questions about existence, they too will see injustice, and a sense of fairness and equality will be turned upside down and people be redeemed. One thing they too might forget and maybe wait for, is the return to their childhood. In many ways this becomes reminiscent of characters that exist in other great novels where children are exposed to the cruelties and saving graces of humanity. It is up to those in the present to somehow save the children, but also what they see and experience in the society that they grow up in that molds them. 

The children of The Brothers Karamazov and the characters of Huckleberry Finn all grow, live and survive in the conditions that their societies have created. It is within the realities that each nation and cultural region perceives the world that people grow up and reach full personhood. Waiting for Godot reveals that although there are many instances in life where we wait for something to happen, by doing so life and events unfold. The question then becomes what are we as readers doing to affect the realities under which and in which we exist.