Pozzo, a rich man, treats his servant Lucky no less than an animal. Lucky and Pozzo happen to cross the same road where the two tramps are sitting on a mound. They seek repentance and want to change their condition but they feel they are unable to do so: The two tramps find themselves lost and their memory is very weak. Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful! The playwright literally creates such a scope of nothingness in the life of the characters that: Both of them fight, argue, abuse each other but stay together:ĭon’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me! And Vladimir keeps on discussing the chances of survival for human beings are very small. Estragon remains busy in either taking off his shoe or putting back it on because it hurts him. Time is evening and the two of them express joy for having met again while none of them shows anything more than mere pretence in words. The play begins with the appearance of two tramps on a road with a single tree. Nothing is certain or clearer in the play.The scope of time seems quite disturbed because a tomorrow could mean a day, a year, a season or even a whole of one’s life in this play. They are subject to an apparently endless wait expecting some sort of help from Godot but he does not come except for a vague promise that Godot will come tomorrow. There are two tramps Estragon and Vladimir. Et cetera.Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is a tragic play with two acts depicting the unbearable miserable condition of modern man. The play ends, but we think everyone knows what happens next. The men resolve to leave, since it’s nightfall and they no longer have to wait for Godot, but neither man moves and the curtain falls. Vladimir and Estragon contemplate suicide, but have no rope (they think to hang themselves from the barren tree, since it’s the only prop around that could lend itself to such an endeavor). Pozzo and Lucky leave again, just in time for the Boy to show up and tell Vladimir that Godot isn’t coming today, but will be there tomorrow. Vladimir gets rather poetic in the meantime, wondering if maybe he’s sleeping, agreeing with Pozzo’s claim that life is fleeting, and concluding that habit is the great deadener of life. Lucky declares nothing, because he’s mute. They putz around the stage for a while, and Pozzo declares that, having lost his eyes, he now has no sense of time.
Lucky and Pozzo show up, only this time Lucky has gone mute and Pozzo is blind. The men still sit around waiting for Godot and try to fill the idle hours in the meantime. The curtain opens for Act II, which you will soon see is remarkably like Act I. Of course, having resolved to leave, neither man moves, and the curtain closes on Act I. Estragon and Vladimir talk about suicide some more and then resolve to leave the stage, since it’s nightfall and they no longer have to wait for Godot. Yippee! Except not, since Vladimir’s comments suggest that the Boy has said this before. The nothingness is interrupted by the arrival of the Boy, who reports to Vladimir that Godot isn’t coming today, but will be there tomorrow. (Then again, Estragon can’t even remember a conversation ten lines after it happens, so we’re not going to depend on memory in this play.) Vladimir suggests that this is not the first time he’s met with Lucky and Pozzo, which is surprising, since they acted like strangers upon arrival. We sure did the first time around.) Lucky and Pozzo then leave so that Vladimir and Estragon can go back to doing nothing by themselves.
( The members of the audience, meanwhile, scratch their heads and look around to see if everyone else gets what’s going on. The four men proceed to do together what Vladimir and Estragon did earlier by themselves: namely, nothing. The tramps are soon interrupted by the arrival of Lucky, a man/servant/pet with a rope tied around his neck, and Pozzo, his master, holding the other end of the long rope.
Waiting for godot sparknotes series#
While they wait, Vladimir and Estragon fill their time with a series of mundane activities (like taking a boot on and off) and trivial conversations (turnips, carrots) interspersed with more serious reflection (dead voices, suicide, the Bible). The tramps can’t be sure if they’ve met Godot, if they’re waiting in the right place, if this is the right day, or even whether Godot is going to show up at all. Vladimir and Estragon-who are also called Didi and Gogo, respectively-are waiting for Godot, a man (or perhaps a deity). Sound boring? Surprise: it's anything but. These men, Vladimir and Estragon, are often characterized as "tramps," and we soon see that the world of this play is operating with its own set of rules-where nothing happens, nothing is certain, and there’s never anything to do. Waiting for Godot begins with two men on a barren road by a leafless tree.
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