What are the significances of the characters of Vladimir and Estragon? Describe how these two friends try to commit suicide.

 The significances of the characters of Vladimir and Estragon are describe below: Vladimir and Estragon are the main protagonists of the play, Waiting for Godot. In hearing the play read, even the most experienced theater person will often confuse one of the characters for the other. Therefore, the similarities are as important as the differences between them.

Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot: some indication that life is meaningful or an escape. Both are tramps dressed in costumes which could be interchanged - big boots which don't necessarily fit, big bowler hats, baggy and ill-fitting suits. Their costumes recall the type found in burlesque or vaudeville houses. The opening scene with Estragon struggling with his boots and Vladimir doffing and donning his hat to inspect it for lice could be a part of a burlesque routine. Such comic episodes continue until the characters — and the audiences — are bored with it.

Vladimir would be the equivalent of the straight man in burlesque comedy. He is also the intellectual who is concerned with a variety of ideas. Of the two, Vladimir makes the decisions and remembers significant aspects of their past. He is the one who constantly reminds Estragon that they must wait for Godot. Vladimir seems to know more about Godot. Vladimir often sees religious or philosophical implications in their discussions of events, and he interprets their actions in religious terms; for example, he is concerned about the religious implications in such stories as the two thieves who were crucified on either side of Jesus. Vladimir correlates some of their actions to the general concerns of mankind. In addition to the larger needs, Vladimir also looks after their physical needs.

In contrast, Estragon is concerned mainly with more mundane matters: He prefers a carrot to a radish or turnip, his feet hurt, and he blames his boots; he constantly wants to leave, and it must be drilled into him that he must wait for Godot. He remembers that he was beaten, but he sees no philosophical significance in the beating. He is willing to beg for money from a stranger (Pozzo), and he eats Pozzo's discarded chicken bones with no shame. Estragon, then, is the more basic of the two. He is not concerned with either religious or philosophical matters. First of all, he has never even heard of the two thieves who were crucified with Christ, and if the Gospels do disagree, then "that's all there is to it," and any further discussion is futile and absurd.

Estragon, however, is dependent upon Vladimir, and essentially he performs what Vladimir tells him to do. For example, Vladimir looks after Estragon's boots, he rations out the carrots, turnips, and radishes, he comforts Estragon's pain, and he reminds Estragon of their need to wait for Godot. Estragon does sometimes suggest that it would be better if they parted, but he never leaves Vladimir for long. Essentially, Estragon is the less intelligent one; he has to have everything explained to him, and he is essentially so bewildered by life that he has to have someone to look after him. Vladimir is more masculine and contemplative and Estragon is more feminine and emotion-driven of the duo.

The relationship of Vladimir and Estragon is contrasted with that of Pozzo and Lucky, who represent the antithesis of friendship. Theirs is also a relationship of intertwinement and dependence, but one of servitude, inequality, and dominance.

Worse than waiting is waiting alone, and loneliness is a form of blindness and invisibility, not seeing or being seen. The play emphasizes the fact that the minimal unit of the human is not the one, but the two, and though the picture is a bleak, unsettling, and painful meditation upon our shared loneliness in the absence of Godot, the fact that we share this loneliness, this eternal waiting, with our friend is what can possibly turn our cries into laughter and our ontological loneliness into love.

Two friends try to commit suicide:  A tragic effect is produced also by the constant repetition by Vladimir of the fact that he and Estragon are “waiting for Godot.” The first time we learn that the tramps are waiting for Godot, Vladimir’s remarks hardly produces any effect on us. But thereafter whenever Vladimir says that they cannot leave because they are waiting for Godot, the effect is one of pathos because Vladimir's wards are a repeated reminder to us of the two tramps state of hopelessness or vain expectancy. Estragon's nightmares and his fear of the “Others” add to the poignancy of the situation. The “Others” are the Unknow, mysterious persons who have been beating Estragon and of whom he feels terribly afraid, with Vladimir being the only one to provide him consolation and protection. In fact, we learn this fact about the beatings at the very opening of the play when Estragon says that he spent the night in a ditch and was beaten by the same lot of persons. On three occasions-at the outset, at the end of Act I,  and at the close of Act II-the tramps plan suicide. The attempted suicide proves abortive but their very thought of it makes them pathetic characters. We are also informed that once, in days gone by, Estragon had jumped into the Rhone to drown himself and that he had been rescued by Vladimir. Vladimir's speculations about the thief who was “damned” and the one who was "saved” have also an ominous ring. There is Something pathetic about Estragon's lament: “Nothing happens, nobody comes. nobody goes, it's awful," and "All my lousy life I ‘have crawled about in the mud !And you talk to me about scenery

 The general or over-all 
impression that the play produces in us is one of helplessness and the boredom
which human beings have to experience in life. The author effectively conveys
to us the pointlessness of human lite in our times. Human existence is devoid
of meaning and purpose. Thus a feeling of despair dominates the play, and this
is in itself tragic even though farcical situations are employed to suit the
author's design of a tragi-comedy.

 

 Certain elements in the play have a dual character: they are simultaneously tragıc and comic. Such is the attempted suicide of the tramps. The possibility of their deaths is tragic, but their failure to commit suicide is comic: on one occasion they feel that the tree is not strong enough; on another occasion they do not have a suitable rope for the purpose. Then there is the monologue of Lucky-horrifying because it foretells mankind's extinction but funny because of its incoherence and disconnectedness. It is amusing also to find that Lucky can “think" only when he puts on his hat, so that when he has to be stopped from continuing his rhetonic, his hat has to be snatched away from him. The decision of the tramps to go away at the end of both Act I and Act II and their immobility in spite of this decision are likewise tragic and comic at the same time.