Existential Crisis In Waiting For Godot

: Existential crisis in Waiting for Godot

The absurd plays deal with the themes of existentialism, especially the existentialist theme of absurdity. The absurd playwrights tried to translate the contemporary existentialism philosophy into the drama. The absurd playwrights also tried to portray the distressful condition of the humans. In Waiting for Godot the human condition is shown as a dismal and distressful state. The derelict man struggles to live or rather exist, in a hostile and uncaring world.
Waiting for Godot directs us to consider “What they mean” and its reflection to the world we live in. The tramps lack of knowledge about everything seems to be a metaphor for mankind’s lack of basic understanding of the universe and life itself. The creation of the entire universe is a big question mark, especially for those who do not want to believe Christianity’s religious theory that God created the world in seven days. Modern science fills the role of religion by trying to find reasonable answers for these questions, but the truth is that we know neither our creation nor end. We are born, live, educate ourselves, get married, become old, get sick and finally we die. The path of life cannot be accurately speculated and is completely unknown. Throughout the play we come across hundreds of questions that have no answers, consequently paralleling our lives because we never understand what, where and how life has brought us to the present moment. When Beckett was asked, he did not have any answers, but chose to leave the interpretation to the audience. As Esslin writes, “It was an expression, symbolic in order to avoid all personal error, by an author who expected each member of his audience to draw his own conclusions, make his own errors”(1961)
Another important issue in the play is the characters’ names. A person’s name is an important signifier of his existence, but the audience’s perception of the tramps is confused since they go by many names given to them by different people. The tramps go by names including Vladimir, Didi, Albert, Estragon, Gogo and Adam. There are no two people who call them the same name, as Estragon calls Vladimir, Didi, the boy calls him “Mr. Albert”, and Vladimir calls Estragon Gogo, but Estragon introduces himself to Pozzo as “Adam”. So who are they, and what are their identities? The audience is left in darkness about the identity of the protagonists whereupon the unknown becomes the most significant issue, as is typical in the genre of the absurd.
Among the little information given about everything we are supposed to assume that the tramps are waiting for Godot to come as Vladimir says “In this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. “We are waiting for Godot to come”
Nevertheless, the audience is in a complete fog when it comes to Godot’s identity. After such a long time waiting they still doubt the name of the person they have been expecting; Estragon asks “His name is Godot? Vladimir “I think so”. He does not reply “yes”, but that he “thinks so”, and that the person they have been waiting for such a long time might be “Godot” or someone else. Although the play manipulates the memory of its characters it seems that they certainly have not met Godot before:

Vladimir: Oh he’s a …he’s a kind of acquaintance.
Estragon: Nothing of the kind, we hardly know him.
Vladimir: True…we don’t know him very well…but all the same…
Estragon: Personally I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.

The entire plot flows with the hope of this mysterious character’s arrival. When Beckett was asked by Alan Schneider (who was to direct the first American production of the play) who or what does it means by Godot, the answer was “If I knew, I would have said so in the play”. Over the last sixty years critics have suggested that Godot is happiness, eternal life, love, death, silence, hope, time, God and many other things. Indeed, it seems Godot is everything, at the same time he is nothing. The identity of Godot is like listening to a blind man who is asked to describe an object or person. Esslin says that “It has been suggested that Godot is a weakened form of the word God”. However, the possibility that Godot might represent “God” is more often acknowledged than any other suggestion, according to what little description of Godot is given in the text and the two protagonists’ excitement to meet him. They hope that “Godot will bring purpose and meaning”, into their lives. The impression we have of Godot may well be of God or of some sort of a prophet; he certainly seems a rather patriarchal figure, just as God is commonly conceived. The tramps are frightened about Godot’s arrival as Esslin’s observes in The Theatre of the Absurd- (Godot’s) coming is not a source of pure joy; it can also mean damnation. When Estragon, in the second act, believes Godot to be approaching, his first thought is, ‘I’m accused’. And as Vladimir triumphantly exclaims, ‘It’s Godot! At last! Let’s go and meet him’, Estragon runs away shouting, ‘I’m in hell! (1961)

Their fear manifested when Pozzo and Lucky approach the stage. They think one of the pair is Godot, suggesting religious awe because they are frighten and panic. Beckett’s description for the event:

Estragon drops the carrot. They remain motionless, then together make a sudden rush towards the wings. Estragon stop halfway, runs back, picks up the carrot, stuffs in his pocket, runs to rejoin Vladimir. Huddled together, shoulders hunched, cringing away from the menace, they wait.

Similarly, the characteristics of Godot, based on what we hear from the boy who works for him, is only that Godot does “nothing”, and that he has a “white beard”, demonstrates the image we have for God. However, Godot’s mysteriousness makes the audience more and more curious and confused when attempting to predict who Godot is. Indeed, whoever Godot is seems to be an important part of the tramps’ lives, perhaps the only hope of their lives. This is the reason that they waited so long and, according to Pozzo who claims that Godot has a vital power over the tramps. Pozzo asks when the tramps are going to leave:

What happens in this case to your appointment…with this Godet…Godot…Godin… anyhow you see who I mean, who has your future in his hands.

The possibility that Godot might represent “tomorrow” also could be reasonable way of interpreting who he is. It is obvious that the tramps in Waiting for Godot have been waiting for Godot for a long time, even though the person “didn’t say for sure he’d come”. During the play, the audience witnesses neither any accomplishment, nor any loss within these two days, and we come to realize that somehow the tramps’ intention is to meet Godot, and waiting is the action they choose to accomplish their desire. The most revealing example in this case is the most famous refrain in the play—
ESTRAGON: Let's go.
VLADIMIR: We can't.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We're waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON: (despairingly). Ah!

They are hoping that if Godot does not come “today” then he may come “tomorrow”, but when tomorrow arrives it is the same hope once again, and it is again “tomorrow” which will never arrive. Therefore, the illusion of “tomorrow” reflects Godot, although the tramps may not be ready accept the fact that Godot is an illusion, and that he may only be a fictional figure in the mind of Vladimir. However, this cannot be certain, as the tramps are going to be waiting tomorrow for Godot, he may appear tomorrow denying all our arguments.

However, since the audience is in the darkness about who Godot really is, the audience has many choices in interpreting him. The fact that there are so few details of one of the main characters makes it difficult for the audience to figure out what sort of character they are waiting for, and therefore they can apply their own hopes and expectations to Godot’s identity.

Since the tramps have been waiting “Fifty years maybe”, it is understandable for the tramps to be frustrated after they have been manipulated for so many years. Throughout the play, although Vladimir persuades Estragon not to give up hope on Godot, Godot’s absence makes Vladimir frustrated, disappointed as well depressed when they do not attain what they are waiting for, he goes on:

Or for night to fall. (Pause.) We have kept our appointment and that’s an end to that. We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?

When their only hope fades away, they become hopeless and that may be the reason they came up with the idea of hanging themselves. Thus every moment of every day, mankind waits for some sign from God that his suffering will end. And every day, God does not arrive. Thus the existential crisis arises in the play.