Realsim in Waiting For Godot by Samual Beckett
Uploaded by purupoonam on Apr 10, 2013
“Waiting for Godot”: Realism
“Waiting for Godot” occupies a prominent place in the annals of English literature for highlighting the basic truths of human beings belonging to any age or religion. The play can be interpreted by various ways. It is a play in which fact and fancy, illusion and reality are mingled together. In “Waiting for Godot” man’s sufferings, whether physical or metaphysical, are shown in such a way that we feel them as our own suffering. The play is a mirror of our age because it shows the inner hollowness, helplessness and meaninglessness of modern man’s life.
The theme of the play has a universal appeal. The tramps represent all humanity. Their sufferings are the sufferings of all human beings; no matter in which country they live in or what religious beliefs they have. They reflect modern man’s loneliness, absurdity, forgetfulness, illusions, waiting condition, deferred hope, physical suffering, mental anguish, death wish and isolation.
The main subject of the play is waiting and the act of waiting is an essential aspect of the human condition. Vladimir says:
“We’re waiting for Godot”
And the sentence is repeated in the course of the play like a refrain. It is not clear in the play who or what Godot is. The tramps themselves have only a vague idea of who Godot is. They wait for him in a state of ignorance or helplessness. The play thus depicts waiting, ignorance and boredom and all these things are directly experienced by us in life, wait is essential – the offer of a job, the possibility of promotion, the return of a long-lost friend, a love letter etc. Thus we discover a common ground between ourselves and the two tramps who are waiting for Godot.
The play highlights the theme of habit, boredom and “the suffering of being”. The play is a fable about a kind of life that has no longer any point. Godot may stand for God. Or for a mythical human being or for a meaning of life or for death but the play is a representation of stagnant life. The heroes or anti-heroes are merely alive but a life without action and purpose. In our world millions of people do not act but are acted. The tramps, in spite of their inaction and pointlessness of their existence, still want to go on. The million of people today do not give up...