Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, is widely considered to be the most important play of the 20th Century. If you’ve never read it, the full text is available here.
If you read it, you should know: it’s a comedy. If you read it as a straight drama, it comes off as pretty disturbing; if you read it as a comedy, it comes off as pretty funny. (Imagine serious characters behaving as Warner Brothers cartoon characters and you’ll see the difference.)
Anyway, the play is about two men, Estragon and Vladimir, spending their whole lives waiting for this man named Godot. Who is Godot? They don’t really know. When is he coming? They never find out. What will he do when he comes? They can’t really figure it out. But day after day, they wait for him, and day after day, he never comes.
Now I see the similarity in the words: Godot is similar to God. That’s not what it is. Waiting for Godot was originally published in French, and Godot sounds nothing like the French word for God. In fact, the closest French word can mean either an old shoe or a mindlessly devoted follower. Also, Becket himself has said in an interview that Godot is not God. (He said, “if by Godot I had meant God I would [have] said God, and not Godot.”) He says even he doesn’t know who Godot is.
So why is this play so important if it is, in essence, about nothing? It all goes back to the existential idea that existence precedes essence. In other words, we exist first and we find or make the meaning for our lives second. These two men are waiting for something to give meaning to their lives, even though they don’t know what it is or when or even if it will ever come. (The play is actually much, much, much more complex than that—but that’s one take on it.)
But the really interesting part is that Estragon doesn’t even want to wait for Godot. He even leaves Vladimir at several points during the play and always finds himself back by his side, waiting for lack of options. Most of the time when he leaves, he’s beaten up by ruffians who travel the roads in the countryside. So even though he doesn’t want to, he’s forced to wait on Godot with Vladimir.
Estragon spends a good portion of the play struggling with an old pair of boots, suggesting that he already has his “Godot” and it’s not doing him any good. He’s actually waiting on someone else’s Godot. Godot himself has a mindlessly devoted follower in Vladimir, suggesting that he has his “Godot,” but has failed to take notice. Even Lucky, introduced later in Act I and again in Act II, has Pozzo—his mindlessly devoted follower. Vladimir is the only one without a “Godot” of some sort, and he’s the only optimistic one in the play. So the play, on a deeper level, hints at the cosmic joke that is life and the futility of waiting for it to take on more meaning.
Anyway, I bring this up for two reasons: One, I really miss talking about literature. (Semper fidelis, English majors!) Two, I’ve really been struggling lately with my lot in life. Since about age 16, I’ve been seeking out some higher purpose for my life; now, at 27, I’m a little frustrated that I haven’t found it. But I don’t know what it is or where to look for it. I’ve always struggled with the Goldilocks syndrome—this one’s too hot, this one’s too cold, and I’m waiting for the one that’s just right—but I think I’m finally coming to a tangible realization that I may have to create rather than stumble upon deeper meaning for my life.
(Just a disclaimer: I am a Christian, and I believe that I have a purpose in knowing and loving God and others. I’m talking about something a little more specific here.)
So anyway, no uplifting talk here. It’d just been a while since I posted any Existential angst and I was about due for a longer post of it. Also, coming out and saying this will hold me accountable to acting on it rather than waiting for my Godot. Any other Vladimirs (or Estragons) out there?