Waiting For Godot Analysis PDF

**Drama: [Waiting For Godot]** The play "Waiting For Godot" broke with a long-established theatrical tradition, not less than 2000 years. This is a groundbreaking play. It enacted a kind of Revolution in the theatre. Waiting for Godot is fairly simple in terms of language, but it is a difficult p...

**Drama: [Waiting For Godot]** The play "Waiting For Godot" broke with a long-established theatrical tradition, not less than 2000 years. This is a groundbreaking play. It enacted a kind of Revolution in the theatre. Waiting for Godot is fairly simple in terms of language, but it is a difficult play in such matter. Also, it addresses many issues that were shaped by the events. The major events took place in post second WW. It was written in the late 40s and published in the early 50s.So it is a period play. Although there are no references to the major events, which makes it also a universal play. So here we have 2 things: topicality and universality. -Topicality: It\'s a period play, it\'s about certain people, certain time, a certain place. It reflects the sociopolitical context. A work of art is a product of society, of politics, of the forces at work in the society tool such as economic, religious, cultural forces. -Universality: a work of art is also universal. The artist as far as to wishes that his work would transcend the topicality and the personality. The best work of art is one which go beyond the topical and the personal, where it addresses universal issues. When you deal with the work of art, you should pay into consideration these three aspects: - Personal: the artist's biography, family life, childhood experience, - Topical: the context in which Waiting For Godot was produced. Why did he produce it in the first place? Why did he produce it at this specific time? So, to discuss the political, social, cultural, religious contexts. - Universal: what makes a play like Waiting For Godot a universal play. It is one of the most performed plays in the Western world. It addresses not only people who lived in the 1940s but also it addresses / it speaks on our behalf. So, this is what makes it a universal play. A rule: any work of art, inevitably and typically makes a statement about the nature of art. A work of art is about art. A work of art is about itself, as art. The artist makes a statement about art. A work of art most usually challenges other works of art. So, writers don't write without having this in mind. A work of art deconstructs. In other words, it erases then recreates. It redefines art where it is one of the main concerns for all artists. That\'s an important aspect in Waiting for Godot. [Facts about Samuel Beckett:] His full name is Samuel Barclay Beckett. He was born in 1906, Dublin, Ireland. He was born to protestant parents. He was raised a protestant. But when he grew up, he relinquished the protestant faith. And for many, he is considered as an atheist. Yet religion is there because it was one of the things that shaped his personality, in his early childhood. He was an author, critic, and playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He wrote in both French and English and is perhaps best known for his plays, especially *En attendant Godot* (1952, *Waiting for Godot*). In 1934, "*More Pricks Than Kicks", a collection of 10 short stories was published.* In 1979, "Company", a novella was published. In those two works, Beckett simply speaks about his birthplace. So that's about the personal and topical aspects; about him, his society. As a member of the Irish Protestant community where it was a minority because Dublin was pretty dominantly a Catholic community. In fact, Beckett was an outsider. According to biographers and critics, his experience may have inspired his explorations of the theme of marginality and the dislocation, at which is to be found in his later works. In his later works, there are references to these themes, not topicality, it\'s rather probably universality. But it\'s based on a personal experience. [Marginality and dislocation are major themes in Beckett's works.] Beckett was constantly concerned with the question of identity, who am I? In connection with that, in the play Waiting For Godot has some hints to this idea of "WHO AM I". This question of "who am I?" refers also to dislocation and fragmentation, fractured identity. Those themes were reflected in his works, particularly Waiting For Godot. They reflected under the notion of Indeterminacy. [About the play:] [If there is one word that could sum up Waiting For Godot, this word is "Perhaps".] "Perhaps" here is the idea of indeterminacy, of subjectivity and of the fragmentation of identity. This idea has certainly been inspired by Beckett's own status as an Anglo-Irish. He is neither this nor that. Beckett added to this issue a complicated situation. He wrote most of his early works in French. For instance, he wrote Waiting For Godot in French, titled En attendant Godot then he translated to English. So here it is not only about Irish and English but also French where we can notice the dislocation of the identity. There are multiple identities not only one. So here the idea of multiplicity is an important idea in his works. In connection of what mentioned before, religion was present in Beckett works where there are references to religion, to the Bible, to the evangelists, to Christ... This distinguishes that his childhood and teenage years saw the rise of militant Irish nationalism and the subsequent war of independence and the civil war in Ireland. He was also in Germany during the 30s, while the consolidation of the Nazy military power, then in Paris during the occupation where he joined the Resistance movement. Beckett was not a nationalist but instead he was interested/ was passionately committed to modernist experimentation. He shows a determined resistance to all forms of censorship. He was not afraid of censorship. In other words, He never stopped in the middle of the road. He writes about what he thinks should be read and said. Waiting for Godot was written in the late 40s and published in the early 50s. So it reflects the major events that shaped the decade of 1940s.The 1940s marked by the end of WW2.Yet, there is no clear events or even the setting where there is no reference to the time and the place. It is remarkable that Beckett wrote his play in 1940s which was a decade of hesitation and uncertainty. Hence the reference to "Perhaps" where this word could sum up not only Waiting For Godot but could sum up Beckett\'s work. The uncertainty /hesitation / indeterminacy had to do with the consequences of the WW2.Mostly particularly, the WW2 brought the loss of faith in everything; in the political system to bring peace. Also, the loss of faith in religion (Christianity) to save man from his human condition where that man was closer to devil. This war showed the fallibility of the man where he sided with the devil and making decisions, which led to the destruction of humanity. Humans in the aftermath of the WW2, no longer believe that there was a God. Because according to them, God did not save them from the war. God was silent. God was absent. According to them, he should have interfered, to stop the massacre / the atrocities. So many people in the aftermath of the second World War decided to become atheists, they no longer believed in Christianity. But also, loss of faith in science. Back then, in the 40s, the creation of the atomic bomb was the best example of science, where the Americans dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So that\'s what science did. Science did not again save man. It was supposed to bring the prosperity and the comfort, like the automobile, the telephone, and the fridge, and all these were invented in the 20s and 30s and 40s.All this was useless for humanity. All of this led to loss of faith in man; who is man? That\'s the question that is constantly and repeatedly asked by scholars, thinkers, artists, writers, philosophers. Is man a divine creature or the devil? It means he questioned his identity. Beckett was among many writers, concerned with the question/the issue of existentialism; who are we? Are we humans or animals or devils? Or what? With the loss of faith in God everything was permitted such as war, genocide and more. The play may not be necessarily topical in the sense that is a period play but it is maybe universal. It refers to the spirit of the period, not the period in terms of events. Waiting for Godot expresses the spirit of the period. Beckett wrote many plays, novels, poems, essays, yet they are to be seen as one entity. This implies/means that for Beckett the story is not important. While performing Waiting For Godot for the first time in Paris, the audience left the theatre after 15 minutes. They could not bear it. They did not understand it. Although Beckett is the clearest and most limpid phrase maker. One thing that Waiting For Godot did and maybe still does is to undermine the validity of our old approach to the theatre. Waiting For Godot forces the readers and the audiences to reconsider all the assumptions about art and most particularly about theatre. So, it was definitely an experimental play. There was shock tactics. Waiting For Godot shocked the early audiences who went to see it. They were frustrated and they left. Why is it still performed everywhere in the world? Because it is considered a revolutionary play which broke with more than 2000 years of dramatic writing and its tradition. This long-established dramatic tradition and since the early Greek tragic writers (the fifth century B.C down to, the first half of the 20 century) drama has always given importance to \*[dramatic conventions]. \*It is an indirect tacit/agreement/rules between the writer, the director an audience. When you go the theatre, what do you expect to see? That's the conviction. Dramatic conventions are typically divided into 2 types. - Fixed, permanent convictions: -Actors.... - Temporary convictions: -Back in the 17th 18th century down to the 20th century in France, before the play begins, there were there are 3 knocks and then the curtain rises. So, it\'s a convention but it is no longer used today. It\'s a temporary convention. -Dialogue: Such as Acts without Words by Samuel Beckett where there is no dialogue. So, dialogue is temporary. Until the beginning of the 20th century writers/ people believed that dialogue is a permanent conviction. -The theatre is divided into 2 areas; the playing area (the stage) where the actors should be and (the house) where the audience sits. Back in the 70^th^, there was Tunisian play called Moulay El Hassan El Hafsi. In the middle of the play, one member of the audience stood up and interrupted the performance. The audience was shocked where there was an interaction between him and the actor. But then later on, it turned out that the member of audience who did that was actually one of the actors. In the 70s, Tunisian theatre was influenced by Bertold Brecht. He was a German thinker, philosopher, dramatist and theoretician of drama. He created what was known as the Epic Theatre. In Brecht theatre/ the Epic Theatre, the audience are constantly reminded of the artificiality performance. They are always reminded of the fact that what they are watching is a play and nothing but a play. -The rise and the fall of the curtain is no longer a permanent convention. Many plays proved that those made man conventions can be constantly changed overtime.