Absurd elements of Waiting for Godot

 

A form of play that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development.

 

Martin Esslin wrote a book titled “Theatre of the Absurd” that was published in year 1961. It dealt with the dramatists who belonged to a movement called “Absurd Theater” though it was not regular. Samuel Beckett was one of those dramatists who had largest contribution in “Absurd Theater”. His play “Waiting for Godot” also belonged to the same category and was called absurd play.

 

   The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work expresses the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. In an absurd drama human condition is shown as meaningless. There are disjoined, meaningless dialogue, and incomprehensible behavior. In an absurd drama plot has no logical or realistic development.

 

  Beckett's Waiting for Godot is an allegorical absurd play. There is no particular time and place in the play. It reveals the despair, nothingness, frustration of the post-war generation and its appeal becomes bitter as the plots are established on a false imagination. The play actually is full of nothingness, restless tiredness and  childish fun. The for-nothing waiting of the characters and their activities give the play a rich tone of absurdity.

 

  An absurd work is a frightening one. It has in itself no norms, no absolutes, no consoling certainties and no direction, It simply exists. Nothing and nobody living in it has any pre-ordained scene or purpose. The absurd dramatists are all concerned with the failure of communication of the modem humanity which leaves man alienated. They are also concerned with the lack of individuality and the over emphasis on conformity in our society.

 

  Characterization and characteristics of a play are not drawn and seen in Waiting for Godot. Conflict and collision of characters, psychological and inner suffering and developments of characters, turning point of any particular event and fascinating dialogues are the important characteristics of a play which are not found in this play. Instead of it, the play goes through nothingness with false wish which is a new trend in drama and it is absurdity.

 

  The play starts with the waiting for Godot. We do not know what or who the Godot is. Two passers-by - Estragon and Vladimir wait for Godot when the play comes to an end. The time-difference of the play is just one day and there are two acts in it. But it seems to us that time has become stopped; the including characters cannot remember anything; even, they cannot identify the same place. This absurdity, uncertainty and the destruction of time and place show the meaninglessness of human existence. The opening statement of Estragon is very significant: "Nothing to be done."

  

   In Waiting for Godot, we observe the use of symmetry in the incidents. We meet Pozzo and Lucky in each of two acts before the presence of the boy. In every case, we get the boy-messenger who says that the Godot will not go that day; he will go the day after. Symmetry is everywhere in the drama- inwardly and outwardly - which is an important characteristic of an absurd play. The stage itself is divided into two parts and the tree is in the middle. Symmetry is also presented as an opposite ideology in the play. In Act-I, we hear a long lecture of Lucky; hard to get, but suggestive And in Act-II, we get Lucky as disabled, he can't speak.

 

   The use of language is very remarkable in the play and it serves Beckett's purpose significantly. The nothingness of life and the impatience mentality of human being are sincerely expressed by Beckett's own language skill.

 

  In the play, we see another absurd feature, the half comic-grotesque. Comic tone is heard from the very beginning i.e. to catch the boot, to see something by the cap etc. In the last scene the falling down of Estragon's trouser is very comic though the desire is to commit suicide where there is no scope of fun.

 

From the above discussion, we may conclude that Waiting for Godot is an absurd drama because of its absurd characters, their meaninglessness of life, language, repetitiveness etc.