Waiting for Godot to make sense.

Ahh, so I just finished reading Waiting for Godot, and now I’m feeling all pensive and maudlin. Tragicomedy indeed. It’s only comic if you don’t think too hard about it. If you do, it’s wholly depressing. It’s all in your frame-of-mind when you read it, really. Like the Matrix. It can be awesome and Neo can be hot and kick some ass, and then you think of the implications of some of the issues they bring up, and you get a huge shudder down your spine as you start questioning your entire life. My notes look something like this:

I. With Waiting for Godot one collects little snippets of wisdom. It’s frustrating because one can never find the entire meaning, the whole picture. The play does not necessarily make sense in relation to itself, as a whole. And isn’t that like life? You can never see the whole picture, you only get moments of lucidity in a series of meaningless, repetitive moments that make up your existence.

II. Repetition in the play: Estragon and Vladimir are always repeating themselves in speech and action (they keep coming back the same place every day to wait for Godot, they wait, they fight, they make up, they wait, they fight, they make up again, over and over.) Pozzo says that the second Pipe (smoking-wise) is never as sweet as the first, later Vladimir says that ‘habit is a great deadener’ commenting on the repetitiveness of everything in life.

III. Vladimir and Estragon are hopeless and can not stir themselves to act in life. This inability to act renders them unable to control their own fate, their own futures. They are waiting for Godot because they need to wait for something to happen TO them, because they can not do for themselves, which starts up the whole repetitive/cyclical pattern all over again.

IV. Things that encourage a religious reading: Estragon refers to himself as both Adam and Christ. Numerous allusions to God and the Bible (story of the 2 thieves, cursing, talk of crucifixion, Cain & Able, hanging etc..) Estragon and Vladimir say that they asked Godot for a ‘kind of prayer, a vague supplication.’ They tell Pozzo that Godot has their future in his hands. The boy says he and his brother look after the sheep and the goats for Godot, sheep being a classic allusion to humankind. They also say they are made in God’s image. Godot= GOD etc..

V. Vladimir and Estragon could be meant to represent humanity which could be why Estragon refers to himself as Adam. But then later, in act2 when Pozzo is blind and calling for help, Estragon describes him saying: ‘ [he’s] all humanity.’ Is this a contradiction? If yes, then why, if no, then why not?

Interesting huh? And now I just have to figure out how to put this together cohesively into a presentation that will make sense to a class full of students who’ve never even read the play. Let’s just say I’m not looking to forwards to it. Of course, that's not to say I didn't like the play. I quite enjoyed it, and I know I will love it once I see it performed. It just didn't make me jump for joy, that's all. And stuff is always five times better when you don't read it for class.

current music: I'm Still Here, Jhonny Reznik