IOSR Journal of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)
Volume 25, Issue 12, Series 2 (December. 2020) 34-37
e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.
www.iosrjournals.org
Absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”
Md. Waliullah
Lecturer
Department of English Language and Literature
Notre Dame University Bangladesh.
Abstract:
This research paper explores the absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s notable play “Waiting for Godot”. Samuel
Beckett is considered to be a prominent figure among the French Absurdist.
“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett, is one of the masterpieces of absurdist literature. The creative features
of this play such as title, setting, structure, theme, characters, dialogues, and actions are overviewed through the
lens of absurdity. The play “Waiting for Godot” was first written in French in 1948 and called En
attendant Godot, Elements of absurdity for making this play are very lively and charming. Beckett’s play
“Waiting for Godot” focuses on the absurdity of life.This play completely deals with the life of a modern man
who feels tense and its meaningless life. According to the Absurdist, “There is no meaning in life. The life is
permeated men but there is no man. Human life is like a bubble” This work based on the belief that the present
world is irrational, purposelessness, and meaningless and the search for order brings the individual into
disagreement with the universe. This paper is an enterprise to shed light on “Waiting for Godot”as an absurd
play.
Key Words: Absurdity, Samuel Beckett, Belief, Waiting for Godot, En attendant Godot.
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Date of Submission: 25-11-2020 Date of Acceptance: 09-12-2020
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I. INTRODUCTION:
Absurdity means meaninglessness, purposelessness, silly, strange, incongruence, ridiculousness,
bizarre, nonsense. An absurdity is a thing that is awfully unreasonable, so as to be foolish or not taken
seriously, or the state of being so. According to Oxford English Dictionary, Absurdity means “the quality or
state of being ridiculoue or widely unreasonable”. The word absurd was coined by “Martin Esslin to delineate
the anti-realistic post-war drama of playwrights as Beckett, Arthur Adamov and Jean Genet” (Nelson, 1993, p.
67). Absurd play is the complete denial of old values. It has no plot, no characterization, no logical sequence, no
rising, and falling action, on story, no clear theme, no proper beginning, middle, and end, no pointed dialogues
and finally its language is not poetic.
Absurdity is in fact a condition where man is compelled to exist without his individualism in society
and hence does not posses any degree of effective communication (Robert, 1995). Martin Esslin at first used this
term in his writing. The term actually used to delineate the nonsensical, irrational, meaningless, purposeless,
foolish, and silly aspects of human life. The French philosopher Albert Camus also believed, ““Accepting the
absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It
arouses a revolt that can become fruitful”
There are many dramas in literature world based upon the philosophy of absurdism. Absurdism is
applied to the plays written in the 1950, and 1960, by the writers including Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, and
Holder Pinter. Among those writers Samuel Beckett is more important because he has written many plays.
“Waiting for Godot” was his first play which proved to be the most successful absurd play.
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is one of the leading literary and dramatic figures of the twentieth century.
Samuel Beckett was an author, playwright, and a critic. He was born on April 13, 1906 in Dubline in Ireland.
During the 1930s and 1940s he wrote his first novels and short stories. He wrote a trilogy of novels in the 1950s
as well as famous plays like Waiting for Godot. In 1969 he was awared the Nobel Prize for his outstanding
contribution in literature. Samuel Beckett started his literary career as a novelist. He published many stories and
poetry. He was well known for his notable play “Waiting for Godot”.
“Waiting for Godot” is an absurd drama and it presents the absurdity of human life. There is no female
character and the characters of the play are not sure about their identies. The entire situation produces
meaninglessness which is another characteristic of absurd play. In this drama nothing is happen and no
development of plot is found.
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2512023437 www.iosrjournals.org 34 |Page
Absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”
The title of the play “Waiting for Godot” reflects absurdity in the sense that it too is replete with
problems and dilemmas as human existence is. As the title is “Waiting for Godot”, but still nobody knows that
Who Godot is. The subject matter of the drama is not Godot, but waiting which is an important aspect of human
condition. It is only while waiting we could experience tha passage of time. The way Vladimir and Estragon
passes time shows the utter meaninglessness of life and the struggle that existence is. The waiting of Vladimir
and Estragon for Godot is an endless waiting. They are waiting without knowing the purpose they are waiting
for. Again the boy informs them that Godot is not coming and they wait for Godot till the next day. Such endless
waiting also seems absurd.
In “Waiting for Godot” the very first dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon has meaningless and
purposelessness of life. Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both
hands, panting. Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands,
panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before Enter Vladimir. Estragon says:
ESTRAGON: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.
VLADIMIR: ((advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning to come round to that
opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything.
And I resumed the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon) so there you are again. (P-
1)
This dialogue brings into exterior the absurd nature of the play. Actually it represents the entire human
existence where man of the present world is disappointed.
The basic structure of the drama presents the idea not only about the usefulness and meaninglessness of
time but also of life of the present world. The two main characters Vladimir and Estragon with non-sensical
existence, in Act one and Act two, they try to commit suicides two times. They cannot bear this life anymore.
They invite each other to kill each other so that they can escape this meaningless of life. This incident is clear
from the following dialogue.
VLADIMIR: You always say that, and you always come crawling back.
ESTRAGON: The best thing would be to kill me, like the other.
VLADIMIR: What other? (Pause) What other?
ESTRAGON: Like billions of others.
The continuous waiting for Godot increases their despair and their lives are disgusted in thus way. The
dialogues of Vladimir and Estragon revolve around one thing. In the whole drama they repeat the same
dialogues.
VLADIMIR: Well Shall We Go?
ESTRAGON: Yes Let’s Go.
(But they do not move.)
They change the dialogues but they donot take proper decision. This shows the absurdity of human life
especially modern human beings.
Every good drama has motivational characters but in this drama, we have five characters that are not
recognizable human beings. They pass their time with doing through meaningless activities. We don't know past
of the characters. They are not introduced to the audience. We know only their names and their miserable
situation.
Thus this play “Waiting for Godot” contains all the elements of absurdism. The central themes in Waiting for
Godot include the human condition, absurdism and nihilism, and friendship. The human condition of the present
world: The hopelessness in Vladimir and Estragon's lives demonstrates the extent to which humans rely on
illusions—such as religion, according to Beckett—to give hope to a meaningless existence.
Research Objectives:
To explore the absurdity in “Waiting for Godot”
To analyze the meaningless life of modern human beings.
To define the need of valuable human life.
To know drawbacks of modern man in present world.
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2512023437 www.iosrjournals.org 35 |Page
Absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”
Research Questions:
How does Samuel Beckett propagate the logos of life in “Waiting for Godot”
What is the prime reason behind the purposeless life of human beings?
Why does the modern human life remain meaningless?
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
This research paper focuses of the absurdity in “Waiting for Godot”. The nature of the research is
qualitative approach as for as descriptive method is used for analysis. “Waiting for Godot” is the text which is
taken as a sample to make clear the absurdity in the mentioned play.
III. LITERATURE REVIEW:
The complex structure of “Waiting for Godot” is based upon symbols and ideological content. For this,
it has been always a central target for world’s researchers. Many researchers interpreted its different rudiments
from different angles.
Holder bloom edited a book entitled “Samuel Beckett: Modern Critical Views” (1985), which is an
important criticism almost on all the important works of Samuel Beckett, especially “Waiting for Godot”. The
book consists of various critical commentaries by different scholars on the author under analysis, from different
angles.
Martin Julius Esslin edited a book entitled “An Anatomy of Drama”, which is a thought provoking
book. He also edited another book, entitled “Samuel Beckett: Twentieth Century Views” (1980), which consists
of various views on the author under discussion, relating him to the “Theatre of the Absurd” According to
Martin Esslin, Absurdism is "the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose" Absurdist drama asks its
viewer to "draw his own conclusions, make his own errors". Though Theatre of the Absurd may be seen as
nonsense, they have something to say and can be understood".
The French philosopher Albert Camus in his philosophical essay (1942) “The Myth of Sisyphus”
“delineates absurdity as a confrontation and opposition a conflict or a “divorce between two ideals. Specially, he
defines the human situation as absurd as the confrontation man’s desire for significance and the silent, cold
universe”.
Danish philosopher Soren Kierke-Goard wrote comprehensively on the absurdity of the world. “In 19th
century in his journals (1849) Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote extensively about the absurdity of
the world. In his journals, Kierkegaard writes about the absurd: “What is the Absurd? It is, as may quite easily
be seen, that I, a rational being, must act in a case where my reason, my powers of reflection, tell me: you can
just as well do the one thing as the other, that is to say where my reason and reflection say: you cannot act and
yet here is where I have to act... The Absurd, or to act by virtue of the absurd, is to act upon faith ... I must act,
but reflection has closed the road so I take one of the possibilities and say: This is what I do, I cannot do
otherwise because I am brought to a standstill by my powers of reflection.”
IV. FINDINGS:
The play “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett is an absurd play for there is no female character. All
the characters are devoid of identity. Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” carefully delineates the life of modern
human beings. This play deals with the meaningless and aimless of human life. Beckett’s play “Waiting for
Godot” has no motivational characters, has no conventional plot, and has no setting, has no beginning, has no
middle, and has no ending. All the characters of this drama and dialogues and their actions evidently show the
absurdity of human beings. The play “Waiting for Godot” contains almost all the elements of an absurd play.
V. CONCLUSION:
Thus the play “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett contains almost all the elements of a absurd
play. It delineates all the elements of the absurdity through the two main characters “Vladimir” and
“Estragon”.Waiting for Godot emphasizes on the absurdity of human existence by employing repetitions,
meaningless dialogues, purposeless, foolish, nonsensical, silly, and confusing situations which are opposed to
truth or reason. Roby Cohn, an American theater scholar and a leading authority on playwright Samuel Beckett,
looks upon "Waiting for Godot" as one of the master — pieces of Absurdist Literature. As Nealon puts it
"Waiting for Godot" is an attack on modernism with its ideological and Grand Narrative that claims to interpret
the world Estragon and Vladimir are trapped by their modernist nostalgia for legitimation in Godot”
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2512023437 www.iosrjournals.org 36 |Page
Absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”
WORKS CITED:
[1]. Thomas Negal…The Absurd (1920)
[2]. Albert Camus “The Myth of Sisyphus
[3]. Jean Paul Sartre “Existentialism Is a Humanism” Translated by Philip Mairet, 1946.
[4]. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: A Bilingual Edition. New York: Grove, 2009. Print
[5]. Knowlson, James. Damned to Frame: The life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Simon, 1996. Print
[6]. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber, 2010 (1956)
[7]. Graver, Lawrence. Beckett: Waiting for Godot (Landmarks of World Literature). New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2004.Pdf.
[8]. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot, New Delhi: Penguin Books India. Pvt. Ltd. 1996. Print.
[9]. Eugene Lonesco “ The Lesson”
Md. Waliullah. “Absurdity in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” IOSR Journal of
Humanities and Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 25(12), 2020, pp. 34-37.
DOI: 10.9790/0837-2512023437 www.iosrjournals.org 37 |Page
